Introducing the Health and Safety Executive System

With the idea that production should be their first priority, employers started using the workforce after the industrial revolution, without considering health and safety issues . Consequently, the world experienced abundant occupational accidents and huge damages to human resources and equipment over time. Subsequently, a group of managers proposed management theories in which taking the health, hygiene, and safety of the workforce into account was inevitable; besides, non-governmental organizations and unions compiled documents and laws according to the observation of safety principles, turning into occupational health and safety standards and occupational laws of different countries in the following years.In the field of occupational health and safety, the guides, requirements, and laws have fixed (the same) basic principles in all countries, based on which the OHSAS 18001 Guide was compiled and published for the first time in 1999 in a committee under the supervision of BSI (British Standard Institute), being favored by leading organizations. Since its establishment,the Gostaresh Ahan Rah (GAR) Co. has paid special attention to the issues of employees’ safety and health, besides following and implementing the vision and objectives of safety, health, and environment through employing HSE specialists. In 2014, regarding the strategy of increasing the employees’ occupational health and safety factor, in addition to the stricter observance of environmental principles to help the country’s sustainable development, the Company has established the IMS integrated management system, including OHSAS 18001 and ISO 14001 as a key part of this management system.In 2017, with the continuation of the development and excellence process of GAR Co., simultaneously with publication of the first version of ISO 45001:2018, the company’s senior management has put the enhancement of the occupational health and safety management system and the establishment of this standard on the agenda in the organization and GAR Co. has succeeded in obtaining the aforementioned standard through planning and performing related actions. The ISO45001:2018 Standard refers to the standard of an occupational health and safety management system compiled and published for the first time as an international standard (ISO) based on the ISO 9001:2015 style.A part of the key activities of the company and the HSE specialized department in the arena of establishing the safety, occupational health, and environmental management system are mentioned below:

1. Developing the policy of occupational health and safety
2. Preparing annual goals and strategies related to safety, health, and environment and monitoring them
3. Preparing HSE-PLAN specific to all operations/projects of the organization
4. Choosing and recruiting the best HSE experts to advance the organizational goals and strategies in all operations/projects
5. Preparing and compiling the executive methods and health and safety guidelines based on the company’s activities
6. Preparing and compiling of waste management and environmental protection guidelines
7. Evaluating safety risks by FMEA method and health risks by methods approved by the Ministry of Health, like the semi-quantitative method of chemicals, posture assessment in different ways, etc.
8. Assessing the environmental aspects
9. Examining, studying, and researching accidents and quasi-accidents in the form of organization incident analysis by TRIPODE BETA method
10. Monitoring the workforce’s health status by conducting pre-employment and periodical occupational medicine examinations
11. Measuring the work environment’s harmful factors and taking corrective/control measures to optimize the work environment’s harmful factors
12. Preparing and publishing articles related to the field of HSE for knowledge transfer and to perform tasks related to the organization’s social responsibility
13. Conducting innovation and employing the latest personal protection devices and equipment in work activities at height (deterioration activity in railway technical buildings’ maintenance and repair operations)
14. Investigating and implementing the instructions of the Environmental and Labor Health Center of the Ministry of Health related to coping with and preventing the spread of the corona virus (Covid-19).
15. Planning and specialized HSE training for all levels of the organization to contribute to promote the country’s safety culture
16. Monitoring changes in rules and regulations in the field of occupational health and safety as well as adapting the organization’s performance to the changes
17. Planning and executing safety, health, and environmental maneuvers
18. Measuring and evaluating international HSE indicators in providing organization services and trying to achieve the standard level
19. Holding routine and systematic meetings for the occupational health and technical protection committee aiming at controlling HSE risks in operations/projects
20.Preparing and updating the material safety data sheet (SDS)