?

Are

Accidents
Man-made

Accident

(Noun) | accident | \'ak-s-dnt, -dent;

aks-dnt\

a sudden event (such as a crash) that is not

planned or intended and that causes damage
or injury
an event that is not planned or intended : an
event that occurs by chance

Insights
As what the definition of accident implies, it is fortuitous, sudden,
unexpected external events. It is not intended nor planned wherein
the notions of uncontrolled and unplanned are often argued because
these terms are said to be misleading. Why? Because these might just give
the idea that an accident is purely related to fate or chance. It cant be
controlled.
However, there are some incidents that were assumed to be accidents
just to divert the attention from the unethical and flawed
management practices that were the real cause of the incidents or
disasters to be more accurate. To make it simple, when the causes are
determined, it is usually found that many events were predictable and could
have been prevented if right actions were taken. This implies that the
event is not one of fate or chance, but a man-made accident or
mismanagement-mistake rather.

High Risk
Businesses

Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high

intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction, and skillful
execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.
- William A. Foster

Accidents cost businesses money through both direct and

indirect injury, it costs damage to the business reputation,
therefore it is in the business best interest to prevent
accidents occuring. This also implies that all mistakes,
regardless of the intensity may lead to customer
disatisfaction or lost sales or even lower profits. But
overlooked mistakes or small errors can be very disastrous
at times and may cost lives of people. This statement is
evident to certain industries like airline, chemical, nuclear,
where survival rate of victims is very low; food,
pharmaceutical, medical and healthcare where product is
irreversibly ingested or absorbed by users; transport
construction, etc where there is simultaneous usage of
service and facilities by large groups of people; and space
missions with extremeyly high cost of investment and
Solution: Total Quality Management
extremely low survival rate.

(TQM)

TQM

Total Quality
Management
A coredefinition of total quality management(TQM)
describes a management approach to longterm success
through customer satisfaction. In a TQM effort, all
members of an organization participate in improving
processes, products, services, and the culture in which
they work.

Total quality management can be summarized as a management system for a

customer-focused organization that involves all employees in continual
improvement. It uses strategy, data, and effective communications to integrate
the quality discipline into the culture and activities of the organization. Therefore,
with the risk in such businesses which involves a great number of peoples lives
on the line or simply, life-critical and environmentally hazardous, TQM would
really have a great role. It would lessen mismanagement errors that may result
to countless fatalities, destruction of the environment, huge liability expenses,
massive recovery and replacement costs and lastly, bankruptcy.
TQM disaster-proof quality systems and TQM literate expatriates and
managers would be a great combination to improve companies and business
management and stability and lower the risk taken on those stated kinds of
industries.

Total Quality Management, TQM, is a method by which management and

employees can become involved in the continuous improvement of the
production of goods and services. It is a combination of quality and management
tools aimed at increasing business and reducing losses due to wasteful practices.
TQM principles includes the idea of Plan-Do-Check-Act under the
management commitment, and therefore, one may say that every decision and
undertaking of the management or administration of the company will be
processed, systematically.
This would result to an end product of reducing the costs and expenditures
and sustaining a high quality products and services of the company. This also
focuses on the process and improvement of plans wherein a systematic and
efficient method is used.
To wrap things up, TQM lessens the probability or chance of failures on
process/products which may cause problem to the company and to the end-users
or consumers of the products/services offered by the company.

As the saying

An ounce of
prevention is worth

a ton of cure.

The Benjamin Franklin axiom that an ounce of prevention is worth

a pound cure is as true today as it was when Franklin made the quote.
Although many use the quote when referring to health, Franklin actually
was addressing fire safety. We should all relate to Franklin. Regardless of
the endeavor, our tendency is to be a bit sloppy at times. For the
unfortunate few for whom the hands of chance all line up, disaster is the
outcome. And this quote doesnt apply only to health and safety, but also
to businesses and industries.

A study by General Electric (1995 sales $70 billion) showed that

the companys cost of correcting a quality problem discovered
before the product is manufactured is $0.0003, $30 if discovered
during manufacturing, and $300 if discovered after it is sold to
the customer.
The cost of correcting an internal failure is 10,000 times that
of prevention, while that of correcting an external failure is

The old saying An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, or 16 times,

is a gross understatement when dealing with quality. It is worth a ton of cure
Attention to relatively small, inexpensive, and often unglamorous details could
have easily and economically prevented most of the quality tragedies and
catastrophes in the society and industry. Just a bit of time on checking the smaller
details of the picture could have save billions of money and a great number of
lives.
A management system would have been ideal if it does not overlook every
angle of the scene before anything might occur. It would develop a systematic
plan if ever anything happens, not on the time after something happened already.
Accidents are everywhere, it wont tell you that its coming or even warn you. It
occurs unexpectedly. So before anything happens, a quality management system
already develop a plan for the prevention rather than a cure.

The

Iceberg
of the
tip

Management attitudes and practices may bring effects to any kind of

business, this effects may include failures which can be either catastrophic or
non-catastrophic. A complete, sudden, often unexpected breakdown in a
machine, electronic system, computer, or network wherein recovery is
possible defines catastrophic failure. Sometimes a single component in a
critical location fails, resulting in downtime for the entire system of a firm or
business. While non-catastrophic failures are those of the opposite, failures
which cant be fully recovered. Some of these practices includes management
indifference to quality and safety wherein confusion between the two
different concepts is involved, management delusions of infallibility or the itcant-happen-here-because-were-no.1 syndrome which may be thought as
too much bragging attitude of businesses and firms considering themselves
as powerful and untouchables just because they are leading on their field,
this caused them to overlook some issues and problems. Management
obsession to short-term results like profits, market-share, costs and budgets
also contributes on causes that may destroy businesses.

Other anti-quality management practices and attitudes

includes:
o Indiscriminate cost cutting that leads to under manning of critical operations,
unreliable product design, inadequate testing and inspection, poor equipment
maintenance, insufficient employee, training, etc.
o Rushing operations to meet delivery schedules, quotas or project deadlines to
detriment of quality or safety.
o Management ignorance of quality performance at all levels due to lack of proper
monitoring and measurement systems.
o Crisis management, damage control, and firefighting oriented; emphasis on
correction and inspection rather than prevention and proaction.
o Satisfaction with the status quo and the absence of continuous improvement
programs.
o Unreliable systems and processes with high variability.
o Centralized, bureaucratic, decision-making
o Poor internal and external communication
o Underpowered employees, and disregard for their ideas and suggestions
o Employees afraid of reporting problems under shoot-the-messenger and blaming
culture
o Poorly motivated and paid personnel, especially operators of critical processes
o Hands-off relationship with suppliers, with the contract going to the lowest bidder

The

Unholy
Hour

Accidents as we all know is an unexpected event, you cannot choose where and when it will occur.
Articles concluded that accidents most likely to occur in the wee hours when operators and decision
makers cannot concentrate on their jobs because they are tired, drowsy and trying to fight their internal
clocks. Working on the night/grave yard shift is really a hard job to do, workers might be at risk for shift
work disorders. Working at night shifts can keep you from getting the regular snooze time that most
daytime workers take for granted. Although not everyone who works odd hours has shift work sleep
disorder, a lot can be at stake. So why do some business management underman graveyard shifts? To cut
cost? This is certainly a case of false economy.
Given the unnatural mental and physical state of the workers during second and third shifts, it is ironic
that there are no managers to oversee them. Worse, many companies assign new and highly
inexperienced employees to graveyard shifts as a form of initiation, when they should be fielding the best
and most responsible people during these critical, disaster-prone periods. Accidents, do not sleep, and
unfortunately most of the time company clinics are closed during night time. Maintenance are usually
manned by skeleton staff as if machines are sure not to breakdown during these times. Quality of products
are also at stake during this shift, due to production checking which is usually done on daytime after poor
quality products have been produced.
Applying the absolute TQM principle, the major responsibility for tragedies due to quality should lie on
the managers of the system, not on the people under the management, not on the employees who just
follow orders and company policies. And as what Philip Crosby said, Anything that is caused can be
prevented, which goes with the saying prevention is better than cure; whether a business manufactures
life critical and medical equipments or any small things that we may thought as non-sense, it is always the
right thing to do right the first time, it is always better to prevent than to find solution when something
happened already, and it is always best to apply the total quality management to ensure that no disaster
regardless of its intensity will occur somewhere in the world.

End

Are
man-made
accidents
Cris
Diane
Prepared
by:G.
Datingginoo
5th Year - BSECE
S.Y. 2015-2016