British Petroleum and the Delay of Maintenance
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British Petroleum and the Delay of Maintenance
Manufacturing, mining and refining companies are always at risk of causing pollution and injuries to workers and extending to the general population. The British petroleum refinery company located in Texas had a massive explosion caused by highly volatile product converted by the company (Hosmer, 2011). Such company should have had safety measures put in place to avert any extreme situations and control occurrences that cause losses as that experienced in 2005. The company should be aware of their products and the production process and keep safety first before undertaking any risky production process (King, 2013).While the company was showing commitment to establishing the cause of the explosion, same efforts would have been placed earlier to identify maintenance mechanisms. Possible explosion preventive actions and the fast steps to take to counter such explosions were necessary (Nolan, 2014).
Seemingly, the company had ignored such occurrences in the past by the fact that there were no casualties. There was no action taken to evaluate the misdoing and establish proper preventive or reactive measures (He, Li, Tan, Wu, & Zheng, 2011). Even after the company was accused of a violation of safety rules and engaged in a lawsuit, breaches of security being enlisted against it, there were no efforts to go through the breaches and mend appropriately. It was like a crisis in waiting since the company did not respond to safety issues even after deaths of its workers from a mishap in its processes or the oil spillage (Chang, 2014).
Instead of being used in compensation and defending lawsuits, the company can well spend on safety measures that would completely prevent and reduce accident occurrences within the company and its premises (Yergin, 2011). Making structures to function appropriately and ensuring efficient system flows will ensure no flaws that cost the company (El-Hassan, Mooney, Nnadi, & Smyth, 2014). Prevention of such eventful occurrences would ensure that the company keep to its performance and avoid declines caused by actions that could cost the company handsomely (Sarrafzadeh, Taheri, Tavakoli & Zargar, 2013). Even at a time when the senior operators and funders of the company may deny the budget implications on the safety, it is critical to understand the increasing budgetary allocation. Improving safety measures in occupation safety and efficiency of processes, proper monitoring and controls were appropriate for such a large company (Clark, Newman, Tenney, &Witter, 2014). This would help maintain the performance and avoid any expenditure of enormous amounts on penalties, compensation and legal suits that may in the end affect the company performance (Yergin, 2011).
Question Two
Evidently, the safety systems of the company had earlier failed in several instances and were still deemed to fail since no proper corrective measures were put in place (King, 2013). There was a disaster in waiting and probably, the staff knew about it and kept quiet about it. The safety concerns that had to be placed were the reason as to why the building susceptible to risk in case of an accident such as fire was so proximate to the chambers (Kristiansen, 2013).Undoubtedly, the workers using the wooden building had raised concerns about the matter or probably not. Since the risk occurrences took place, and there was no response to them, the workers may have felt that raising safety concerns about their situation may have felt on deaf ear.
On another thought, the workers raised the concerns but just as the company leadership ignored other concerns, so were theirs. It is critical to raising concerns about safety in the firm as an employee, to the immediate leadership, and on failure of response and actions report the same to higher administration (Clark, Newman, Tenney, & Witter, 2014). Proper commitment and willingness must be shown on the issues raised the failure to which regulatory agency or the workers body can be noted over the same to push for actions to be effected.