CQUniversity Unit Profile
OCHS13018 Safety Systems
Safety Systems
All details in this unit profile for OCHS13018 have been officially approved by CQUniversity and represent a learning partnership between the University and you (our student).
The information will not be changed unless absolutely necessary and any change will be clearly indicated by an approved correction included in the profile.
General Information

Overview

This unit provides students with the ability to manage health and safety in organisations in order to optimise work systems, procedures and processes. Topics covered include the application of organisational behaviour and management principles, the development and analysis of safety management systems, the alignment of safety with quality and environmental management systems, the systematic management of high-consequence hazards, the integration of management systems for compliance, risk, security, emergency, crisis and disaster management and recovery, and business continuity management.

Details

Career Level: Undergraduate
Unit Level: Level 3
Credit Points: 6
Student Contribution Band: 8
Fraction of Full-Time Student Load: 0.125

Pre-requisites or Co-requisites

The unit requires an understanding of risk concepts and OHS Law. Accordingly, pre-requisites for this unit are OCHS11025 H&S Risk Management AND any one of the followingOCHS11027 OHS Fundamentals orOCHS12015 OHS Law orAINV12004 Investigation Domain Contexts.

Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).

Offerings For Term 1 - 2019

Online

Attendance Requirements

All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes – in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).

Class and Assessment Overview

Recommended Student Time Commitment

Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.

Class Timetable

Bundaberg, Cairns, Emerald, Gladstone, Mackay, Rockhampton, Townsville
Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney

Assessment Overview

1. Group Discussion
Weighting: Pass/Fail
2. Practical and Written Assessment
Weighting: 50%
3. Written Assessment
Weighting: 50%

Assessment Grading

This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%). Consult the University’s Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades.

Previous Student Feedback

Feedback, Recommendations and Responses

Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.

Feedback from Student Feedback

Feedback

Further assessment guidance will be helpful

Recommendation

A Frequently Asked Question sheet and a more detailed rubric will be prepared for each assessment.

Feedback from Staff Reflection

Feedback

Remove Procedure writing in Assessment 2.

Recommendation

The requirement for Procedure writing will be removed from Assessment 2.

Unit Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
  1. Employ effective safety management principles across the whole spectrum of risks, including high consequence low probability situations.
  2. Develop and maintain an organisational health and safety management system.
  3. Analyse organisational performance against an established health and safety management system and safety plans.
  4. Evaluate the development, implementation and ongoing review of specific health and safety sub-systems that manage individual high-consequence hazards.
  5. Recognise and apply methods for ensuring that systems for managing health and safety are integrated effectively with all other critical systems and with relevant organisational operations, maintenance and production systems and documentation.
Alignment of Learning Outcomes, Assessment and Graduate Attributes
N/A Level
Introductory Level
Intermediate Level
Graduate Level
Professional Level
Advanced Level

Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes

Assessment Tasks Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5
1 - Group Discussion - 0%
2 - Practical and Written Assessment - 50%
3 - Written Assessment - 50%

Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes

Graduate Attributes Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5
1 - Communication
2 - Problem Solving
3 - Critical Thinking
4 - Information Literacy
5 - Team Work
6 - Information Technology Competence
7 - Cross Cultural Competence
8 - Ethical practice
9 - Social Innovation
10 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultures

Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Graduate Attributes

Assessment Tasks Graduate Attributes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 - Group Discussion - 0%
2 - Practical and Written Assessment - 50%
3 - Written Assessment - 50%
Textbooks and Resources

Textbooks

There are no required textbooks.

IT Resources

You will need access to the following IT resources:
  • CQUniversity Student Email
  • Internet
  • Unit Website (Moodle)
Referencing Style

All submissions for this unit must use the referencing style: Harvard (author-date)

For further information, see the Assessment Tasks.

Teaching Contacts
Peter Marshall Unit Coordinator
p.marshall@cqu.edu.au
David Skegg Unit Coordinator
d.skegg@cqu.edu.au
Schedule
Week 1 Begin Date: 11 Mar 2019

Module/Topic

Video lecture - Introduction to the Unit.

Video lecture - Introduction to the key concepts for using OHSMS to support good safety outcomes and a learning organisation:

  • Systematic Accident Prevention and OHS Management in complex organisations.
  • Continual Improvement processes.

Chapter

Familiarise yourself with the contents pages and read the Introduction of:

- ISO45001:2018 (SA 2018.

- AS/NZS 4801:2001 (SA & SNZ 2001).

- HSG65: Managing Health and Safety (HSE 2013).

- HaSPA OHS BoK Chapter 11 - Systems.

Events and Submissions/Topic

Introduce yourself in Moodle.

Class Tutorial discussing this week's lecture (Zoom).

Week 2 Begin Date: 18 Mar 2019

Module/Topic

Video lecture - Plan for safety: know what we need to manage.

  • Hazards and Risk.
  • Legal Obligations.

Chapter

Complete familiarisation from Week 1

HSG65: Part 1.

HSG65: Part 2 - Risk Profiling.

HSG65: Part 3 Do - Profiling your organisation's health and safety risks.

ISO45001: Part 4 Context of the Organisation.

ISO45001: Part 6.1 Actions to address risks and opportunities.


Events and Submissions/Topic

Class Tutorial discussing this week's lecture (Zoom).

Week 3 Begin Date: 25 Mar 2019

Module/Topic

Video lecture - Plan for safety: Planning Objectives.

Well conceived and implemented plans achieve more than ad-hoc actions.

Chapter

HSG65: Part 2 Risk Profiling.

HSG65: Part 3 Plan.

ISO45001: Part 6.2 OH&S objectives and planning to achieve them.

ISO45001: Part 8.1.3 Management of change.

Events and Submissions/Topic

Class Tutorial discussing this week's lecture (Zoom).

Week 4 Begin Date: 01 Apr 2019

Module/Topic

Video lecture - Do: Support for the implementation of safety in an organisation. 

The Do phase is the implementation and outcome of our planning. It is the active safety action seen across the organisation and at each job site.

Chapter

HSG65: Part 3 Do Organising for Health and Safety.

ISO45001: Part 5 Leadership and worker participation.

ISO45001: Part 7 Support.

Events and Submissions/Topic

Class Tutorial discussing this week's lecture (Zoom).

Week 5 Begin Date: 08 Apr 2019

Module/Topic

Video lecture - Do: Implementing your System.

Communication and Documentation of your safety management system.

Chapter

HSG65: Part 3 Do - Communication, Implementing your plan.

ISO45001: Part 5.4 Consultation and participation of workers.

ISO45001: Part 7 Support.

Events and Submissions/Topic

Class Tutorial discussing this week's lecture (Zoom).


Reflections on Safety Systems Requirements - Needs Analysis Due: Week 5 Monday (8 Apr 2019) 10:00 am AEST
Vacation Week Begin Date: 15 Apr 2019

Module/Topic

Vacation Week - independent study.

Chapter

Events and Submissions/Topic

Week 6 Begin Date: 22 Apr 2019

Module/Topic

Video lecture - Do: Operational Planning and Control.

Whilst the Standards have relatively little to say about this topic, the achievement of operational planning and control is a major (perhaps the major) part of delivering safety for each work site.

Chapter

HSG65: Part 3 Do - Organising for Health and Safety, Implementing your plan.

ISO45001: Part 8.1 Operational Planning & Control.

Events and Submissions/Topic

Class Tutorial discussing this week's lecture (Zoom).

Week 7 Begin Date: 29 Apr 2019

Module/Topic

Video lecture - Do: Emergency Response.

Effective emergency response reduces the consequences when things go wrong.

Chapter

HSG65: revisit Part 3 Do - Organising  pp. 35-36.

ISO45001: Part 8.2 Emergency Preparedness and response.

Events and Submissions/Topic

Class Tutorial discussing this week's lecture (Zoom).

Week 8 Begin Date: 06 May 2019

Module/Topic

Video lecture - Check: Performance Evaluation.

Not all plans are as effective as we might hope - we need to monitor our performance.

Chapter

HSG65: Part 3 Do - Check.

ISO45001: Part 9.1 Monitoring, measurement, analysis and performance evaluation.

Events and Submissions/Topic

Class Tutorial discussing this week's lecture (Zoom).


Safety Management System Due: Week 8 Monday (6 May 2019) 10:00 am AEST
Week 9 Begin Date: 13 May 2019

Module/Topic

Video lecture - Check: Audit.

Audits may be done in different ways and are not the same as an inspection.

Chapter

HSG65: Part 3 Plan - Check.

ISO45001: Part 9.2 Internal audit.

Events and Submissions/Topic

Class Tutorial discussing this week's lecture (Zoom).

Week 10 Begin Date: 20 May 2019

Module/Topic

Video lecture - Check: Management Review.

This requirement is an often overlooked part of OHSMS but is important in demonstrating management commitment and in developing our organisational continual improvement actions.

Chapter

HSG65: Part 3 Act - Reviewing Performance.

ISO45001: Part 9.3 Management Review.

Events and Submissions/Topic

Class Tutorial discussing this week's lecture (Zoom).

Week 11 Begin Date: 27 May 2019

Module/Topic

Video lecture - Act: Incident, non-conformity, and corrective action.

How do we document non-conformances and what do we do about it.


Chapter

HSG65: Part 3 Act - Reviewing Performance.

ISO45001: Part 10 Improvement.

Events and Submissions/Topic

Class Tutorial discussing this week's lecture (Zoom).

Week 12 Begin Date: 03 Jun 2019

Module/Topic

Video lecture - Act: Continual Improvement.

Becoming a learning organisation.

Chapter

HSG65: Part 3 Act - Learning Lessons.

ISO45001:Part 10.3 Continual Improvement.

Events and Submissions/Topic

Class Tutorial discussing this week's lecture (Zoom).


Audit and Management Review Due: Week 12 Monday (3 June 2019) 10:00 am AEST
Review/Exam Week Begin Date: 10 Jun 2019

Module/Topic

Chapter

Events and Submissions/Topic

Exam Week Begin Date: 17 Jun 2019

Module/Topic

Chapter

Events and Submissions/Topic


Term Specific Information

Weekly lessons and readings refer to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) document Managing for Workplace Health and Safety (HSG65) (HSE 2013). You can read about the document at http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/books/hsg65.htm and you can download a free copy using the link http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/priced/hsg65.pdf.

Weekly lessons and readings also refer to several Australian Standards. These can be downloaded from the CQuni library Standards Australia subscription.

Assessment Tasks

1 Group Discussion

Assessment Title
Reflections on Safety Systems Requirements - Needs Analysis

Task Description

This Assessment requires you to reflect on the safety systems needs for a given organisation. You will appraise and discuss the nature and risks of an organisation in order to determine its risk profile and the resources necessary for delivering a safe outcome. This needs analysis discussion is the basis for developing your safety management system in Assessment 2.

Post your ideas on the following issues to the class discussion forum and provide feedback to one other student:

  • Summarise the benefits of a new ISO45001 compliant OHSMS
  • Describe the business and management structure
  • Identify the hazards and risks for key (i.e. higher risk) current business activities
  • Identify the hazards and risks for key (i.e. higher risk) future business activities
  • Identify the key safety legislation relating to the business activities

Further advice will be provided through Moodle.


Assessment Due Date

Week 5 Monday (8 Apr 2019) 10:00 am AEST

Your ideas will be discussed in the Moodle Discussion Forum.


Return Date to Students

Week 6 Friday (26 Apr 2019)

Feedback will be provided within 2 weeks of submission.


Weighting
Pass/Fail

Minimum mark or grade
Students must pass this assessment to pass the Unit. To achieve a passing grade in this assessment, students must contribute meaningful ideas to the class discussion.

Assessment Criteria

  • Summarises the benefits of a new ISO45001 compliant OHSMS
  • Describes the business and management structure
  • Identifies the hazards and risks for key (i.e. higher risk) current business activities
  • Identifies the hazards and risks for key (i.e. higher risk) future business activities
  • Identifies the key safety legislation relating to the business activities


Referencing Style

Submission
Online

Submission Instructions
Post your ideas to the Moodle discussion forum.

Learning Outcomes Assessed
  • Employ effective safety management principles across the whole spectrum of risks, including high consequence low probability situations.
  • Develop and maintain an organisational health and safety management system.
  • Analyse organisational performance against an established health and safety management system and safety plans.
  • Evaluate the development, implementation and ongoing review of specific health and safety sub-systems that manage individual high-consequence hazards.
  • Recognise and apply methods for ensuring that systems for managing health and safety are integrated effectively with all other critical systems and with relevant organisational operations, maintenance and production systems and documentation.


Graduate Attributes
  • Communication
  • Problem Solving
  • Critical Thinking
  • Information Literacy
  • Cross Cultural Competence
  • Ethical practice

2 Practical and Written Assessment

Assessment Title
Safety Management System

Task Description

This assessment provides you with an opportunity to develop an OHS Safety Management System (OHSMS) manual and Implementation Plan for a given small business. You will build on the needs analysis discussion conducted for Assessment 1 using the case study materials for the business and your further research.

1. Using the template provided, prepare an ISO45001:2018 compliant OHSMS manual that describes the system and is complete with a contents page, an appended risk register and an OHS Policy. An exemplar manual and video lectures on developing a manual will be provided in Moodle. Ensure that the main body of the new OHSMS manual, while complete, complies with the recommended word length. Use Appendices where additional supporting detail is required. Use the learnings from the needs analysis discussion to ensure it addresses the key risks/ risk activities identified for the business. The suggested word length of the main body of the manual is 3000-3500 words. Use additional relevant appendices and tables as required (as these are not included in the word count).

2. Develop a separate implementation plan with SMART milestones. Consider what has been committed in your manual and identify the tasks necessary to bring the manual into practice. Your implementation plan should be no more than 500-750 words and append the necessary charts and/or tables.

You need to submit two documents - a Manual and a supporting Implementation Plan. Use the format provided to you in Moodle. Use the CQUni Harvard style guide for all referencing.

Further details will be available on Moodle during the term.


Assessment Due Date

Week 8 Monday (6 May 2019) 10:00 am AEST

Assignments are to be submitted through Moodle Turnitin in MS Word, Excel or pdf format.


Return Date to Students

Week 10 Monday (20 May 2019)

Assessments will be returned within 2 weeks of the due date.


Weighting
50%

Minimum mark or grade
Students must pass this assessment to pass this unit.

Assessment Criteria

1. OHSMS manual that complies with the ISO45001 Plan-Do-Check-Act improvement cycle, is concise and addresses the business's current and future risks.

2. Implementation plan for the OHSMS manual that is tailored to the status of the manual at the time of Assessment submission and tailored to the aspirations of the given business.

3. Evidence based practice: in-text referencing and Reference list.

4. Professional Business presentation.

The rubric will be available in Moodle at the start of term.


Referencing Style

Submission
Online

Learning Outcomes Assessed
  • Employ effective safety management principles across the whole spectrum of risks, including high consequence low probability situations.
  • Develop and maintain an organisational health and safety management system.
  • Recognise and apply methods for ensuring that systems for managing health and safety are integrated effectively with all other critical systems and with relevant organisational operations, maintenance and production systems and documentation.


Graduate Attributes
  • Communication
  • Problem Solving
  • Critical Thinking
  • Information Literacy
  • Cross Cultural Competence
  • Ethical practice

3 Written Assessment

Assessment Title
Audit and Management Review

Task Description

Checking of the safety management system implementation is generally completed in two parts; monitoring of the organisation's activities and management review of the organisation's performance against safety objectives. This assessment has two parts and is based upon the case study used for Assessment 2.

Part A : Audit (30%) 

This task provides you with an opportunity to determine the process audit requirements for a specific scenario given to you in Moodle. There is the possibility that this scenario or something similar could happen in the future. You need to consider both the operational risk controls for the identified hazards related to the activity described and the enabling organisational controls from your OHSMS manual.

Based upon your reflections on the needs analysis, OHSMS manual for the business and your research on risk controls for the subsystem of mobile plant, develop an audit tool for the activity given to you in Moodle:

  • Your tool should be self-explanatory with an embedded description of the audit scoring criteria and a summary of the context in which the audit tool applies.
  • The key to this assignment is to first determine the scope: what is meant by ‘audit’ (i.e. not an inspection) and then catalogue the auditable criteria in sufficient detail that an auditor or accident investigator using your tool will deliver a comprehensive audit.
  • When developing your audit tool, remember to tailor it to the scenario and ensure the logical evidence-based practice for each criterion (auditable criteria, source reference for each criterion, space for auditor observation, auditor findings and auditor grading for each finding).
  • Auditor grading should use the format of Comment, Observation, Minor non-conformance and Major non-conformance.
  • There is no particular word limit for this assessment piece because the target is to be comprehensive in identifying the audit criteria and delivering a user-friendly audit tool. A tabulated format (use A3 if necessary) of say 3 pages is suggested.

    

Part B : Management Review (20%)

Part B will provide you with the opportunity to develop your Management Review skills.

Based upon your needs analysis, your OHSMS manual, your learnings from the audit tool developed in Part A and the requirements for management review contained in AS ISO 45001, write a report to management for their consideration in their management review. Document the issues and your recommendations for the relevant management review topics which may include:

  • Documents and data on the status of the business.
  • Key management review issues to watch out for.
  • Key factors to be considered for sub-contractor management.
  • Issues in organisational learning from failure.
  • Key organisational change strategies.
  • Your current ISO45001 rollout status within the business.
  • A proposed improvement strategy for the business in the following year.

While there is no set length for this assignment piece, reports less than 1500 words or greater than 3000 words are unlikely to be successful. Use a formal report style and support your report with evidence-based practice.

Further details for both parts will be provided in Moodle during the term.


Assessment Due Date

Week 12 Monday (3 June 2019) 10:00 am AEST


Return Date to Students

Exam Week Monday (17 June 2019)

Assignments will be returned within two weeks of the due date.


Weighting
50%

Minimum mark or grade
Students must pass this assessment to pass this unit.

Assessment Criteria

Part A - Audit:

  • Self-explanatory - user-friendly audit tool that is tailored to the scenario.
  • Catalogue of auditable criteria in sufficient detail that an auditor or accident investigator using your tool will deliver a comprehensive audit of workplace and OHSMS risk controls.
  • Logical evidence-based practice for each criterion (auditable criteria, source reference for each criterion, space for auditor observation, auditor findings and, auditor grading for each finding).
  • Grading format of Comment, Observation, Minor non-conformance and Major non-conformance.
  • Evidence-based practice supporting the delivery of each learning outcome.

Part B - Management Review Report:

  • Documents the issues and your recommendations for each of the relevant management review topics, as required by the case study and the AS ISO 45001 Standard.
  • Supports the report with evidence-based practice.
  • Formal report that is suitable for submission to a board of directors.


Referencing Style

Submission
Online

Submission Instructions
Assignments are to be submitted through Moodle in MS Word, MS Excel or pdf.

Learning Outcomes Assessed
  • Employ effective safety management principles across the whole spectrum of risks, including high consequence low probability situations.
  • Analyse organisational performance against an established health and safety management system and safety plans.
  • Evaluate the development, implementation and ongoing review of specific health and safety sub-systems that manage individual high-consequence hazards.
  • Recognise and apply methods for ensuring that systems for managing health and safety are integrated effectively with all other critical systems and with relevant organisational operations, maintenance and production systems and documentation.


Graduate Attributes
  • Communication
  • Problem Solving
  • Critical Thinking
  • Information Literacy
  • Cross Cultural Competence
  • Ethical practice

Academic Integrity Statement

As a CQUniversity student you are expected to act honestly in all aspects of your academic work.

Any assessable work undertaken or submitted for review or assessment must be your own work. Assessable work is any type of work you do to meet the assessment requirements in the unit, including draft work submitted for review and feedback and final work to be assessed.

When you use the ideas, words or data of others in your assessment, you must thoroughly and clearly acknowledge the source of this information by using the correct referencing style for your unit. Using others’ work without proper acknowledgement may be considered a form of intellectual dishonesty.

Participating honestly, respectfully, responsibly, and fairly in your university study ensures the CQUniversity qualification you earn will be valued as a true indication of your individual academic achievement and will continue to receive the respect and recognition it deserves.

As a student, you are responsible for reading and following CQUniversity’s policies, including the Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure. This policy sets out CQUniversity’s expectations of you to act with integrity, examples of academic integrity breaches to avoid, the processes used to address alleged breaches of academic integrity, and potential penalties.

What is a breach of academic integrity?

A breach of academic integrity includes but is not limited to plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion, cheating, contract cheating, and academic misconduct. The Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure defines what these terms mean and gives examples.

Why is academic integrity important?

A breach of academic integrity may result in one or more penalties, including suspension or even expulsion from the University. It can also have negative implications for student visas and future enrolment at CQUniversity or elsewhere. Students who engage in contract cheating also risk being blackmailed by contract cheating services.

Where can I get assistance?

For academic advice and guidance, the Academic Learning Centre (ALC) can support you in becoming confident in completing assessments with integrity and of high standard.

What can you do to act with integrity?