Why Are Million Man-Hours a Key Milestone in Safety Performance? Let's Discuss

Understanding Million Man-Hours in Safety Performance

Please let me know why million man-hours are calculated and why this is set as a milestone in safety performance. I wish to understand the basis, background, and significance of this "Million Man-Hours."

Regards,
SSM

Dear SSM,

Very interesting question. I never thought about the logic of "Why Calculating Million Man-Hours Worked" and its background. There has to be a bar to measure things when it comes to performance. When it comes to production, there is a measure like this much ton production per day, this much erection today, and so on. But what is the measure of safety? It's the safe man-hours worked. Reaching a million safe man-hours is really a great achievement. The employees worked hard to achieve these safe man-hours; once they cross this, they should be rewarded with some kind of motivational schemes. A platform is also required for motivating employees. So, this can be used as a good platform as well as a good target to achieve.

Now, moving on to the background, I think this might be another example of blindly following the practice that the British gave us. Let's wait for the seniors' comments on this.

Thank you.

It depends on the size of the project. In some small-scale projects, 1 lakh safe man-hours is also taken as a milestone event.

Pon

The million hours worked are taken as the basis for calculating FR and SR. This is as per IS 3786, which was evolved in 1983.

In some program I attended, it was discussed that for an organization having 100 workmen, it takes roughly 2 years+ to complete one million man-hours work on a 12-hour shift basis. At that time, 2 years without accident was being taken as a benchmark for businesses having 100 employees. The same continued when IS 3786 was published. The noble body responsible for setting these standards in India is DEFASLI. Most Indian standards are based on ILO and US standards.

Thanks & Regards,
Sudhir