Most buildings regardless of scale generally provided at least one plant room. These rooms are essential to the buildings operations and typically house a variety of different plant and equipment. These may include:

·        Air handlers Boilers,
·        Chillers, Heat exchangers,
·        Water heaters and tanks,
·        Water pumps (for domestic, heating/cooling, and fire fighting water),
·        Main distribution piping and valves,
·        Fire fighting equipment (Sprinkler distribution piping and pumps),
·        Back-up electrical generators,
·        Elevator machinery, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air-conditioning) equipment,

Most owners and occupiers understand that the equipment in the plant rooms provides the means for the heating and cooling for the building but often little thought to the safety of the included equipment on and ongoing basis. Plant and equipment located within such rooms may be 10, 20 or even 50 years old and it is increasingly evident that this plant and equipment, although compliant  with the codes of the day, can poses a significant risk to the health and safety of the people that are required to maintain it.

Due to the very nature of the plant and equipment located within these rooms there are substantial implications to technicians, and maintainers of such equipment. Plant, as defined within workplace health and safety terms, is a major cause of workplace death and injury in Australian workplaces.

Severe injuries to technicians, and maintainers of such equipment can result from unsafe design, manufacture, installation, maintenance and use of plant. Plant and equipment located within such rooms have moving parts and the action of moving parts may have sufficient force in motion to cause injury or death. In addition to the moving parts there are non-mechanical risks including harmful emissions, contained fluids or gas under pressure, chemicals and chemical by-products, and electricity and noise; all of which can cause serious injury to technicians and others if not adequately controlled.

The importance of the equipment contained within these rooms are paramount to the smooth operation of the building and as such technicians are required to periodically assess, maintain and repair these items of plant and equipment  to guarantee the ongoing performance of the building.  

Risks to health and safety exist throughout the lifecycle of the plant from manufacturing through to installing, commissioning, using, maintaining, repairing, decommissioning and disposing of the plant. As such building owners , facility managers as well as persons who conduct a business or undertaking (PCBU)must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the fixtures, fittings and plant are without risks to the health and safety of any individual.

In order to ensure that the risk associated with the items of plant and equipment are controlled, a systematic process involving the following should be implemented:

o   Identify hazards – find out what could cause harm from using the plant;
o   Assess risks if necessary – understand the nature of the harm that could be caused by the hazard, how serious the harm could be and the likelihood of it happening;
o   Control risks – implement the most effective control measures that are reasonably practicable in the circumstances;
o   Review control measures to ensure they are working as planned.

Designers, manufacturers, importers, suppliers and installers of plant are also required apply this process as a way of making plant as safe as possible before it is used within the building in addition to obtaining and providing information about plant so other duty holders can fulfil their responsibility to manage risks. 

The most readily available source of information pertaining to the safe operation and maintenance of plant and equipment is contained within the equipment operations manuals. WHS legislation requires (amongst other things) persons who supply machinery to, so far as is practicable, ensure that persons using the machinery in the manner intended are not exposed to hazards. As part of this obligation suppliers are required to provide adequate information in respect to any dangers associated with the machinery, the proper maintenance of the machinery and the correct use the of  machinery.

Given that most of the equipment located within such rooms may have been present from the day of completion, the reality unfortunately is that operator's manuals are frequently not available.

Building owners, facility managers as well as persons who conduct a business or an undertaking must ensure information pertaining to the safe operation and maintenance of the plant and equipment is readily available and up to date.

Andrew Angelides
Functional Risk Solutions

One of our fundamental needs is the feeling of safety and security. This is evident across all cultures and historical periods. What deviates however is the strategies by which these needs are addressed. 

More recent events such as natural disasters and the frequency at which they are now occurring has heightened public awareness and interest toward efforts to protect people, building and operations from their devastating effects.
Within Australia safety and public liability of common and tenanted areas are covered by a variety of applicable health, safety & environmental legislation, Australian Standards, Codes of Practice and the National Construction Code (NCC).

The National Construction Code (NCC) defines types of building and structures and also contains technical provisions for the design and construction of buildings and other structures, covering such matters as structure, fire resistance, access and egress, services and equipment, and energy efficiency as well as certain aspects of health and amenity.

The goal of the NCC is to enable the achievement of nationally consistent, minimum necessary standards of relevant health, safety (including structural safety and safety from fire), and amenity and sustainability objectives efficiently. All buildings are required to have essential services fitted and maintained in an
operational state to ensure adequate level of safety over the life of the building. So we take this as inherent safety mitigation and a minimum design standard. This level of safety mitigation alone however does not necessarily achieve what may be reasonably considered a safe building. It does however provide a suitable base level of design in developing safe and functional buildings for most users through all stages of the building life.

Facility and property managers are faced with many challenges in ensuring the health and safety of tenants, workers (including contractors) and the public within the buildings they manage. Further complicating the matter are additional inherent safety and environmental risks associate with older building stock and associated superseded design standards, fittings and fixtures. Recurrent fit outs and improvement undertaken by tenants over time add additional layers of complexity. 

With the above in mind it seems fit to explore the relationship and continuum formed between safety, building design and property management and how risk management can influence the function and
safety of a building.
With Risk Management being defined in ISO 31000 as “the effect of uncertainty on objectives, whether positive or negative”. 

The objective for applying a systematic risk management approach to facilities and property management is to prevent undesirable events proactively through responsible action, as well as a detailed and timely allocation of responsibilities in the event of a disruption or incident.

In simple terms risk management is a process for identifying, assessing and systematically controlling events that may lead to a loss. In order to achieve the objective above, given that there are many tools and techniques that can be used, it can be helpful to consider the complexity of the problems, the nature and degree of undertenancy based on the information available, the extent of resources that are required, the desired output in terms of qualitative or quantitative data and the timing. 
 
Although risk management processes potentially present a powerful tool, as with all tools, if it is not used with care and understanding, the outcomes may well be totally incorrect and lead to inappropriate decisions being made that are not practicable and ultimately not successfully implementable.
 
Examples of key safety risks in buildings include: 

• Slip Trip Fall hazards in building entrances, especially where rain is tracked inside;
• Contractors staff and tenants working at height, confined spaces, plant and under exposure to electromagnetic radiation;        
• Inadequate lighting affecting building users’ ability to identify and negotiate hazards in their immediate environment;    
• Security for both staff and public; 
• The analysis and management of the interaction between vehicles and pedestrian using the facility;        
• Types and location of hazardous materials (e.g. asbestos, lead, PCBs);      
• Inadequate way finding signage;        
• Poor siting and design of car parks can have a significant impact on the safety of buildings where sightlines, lighting requirements and direct access by pedestrians is affected;        
• Inadequacy of emergency services and their communication preventing an effective response.

With the use of both active and passive measures, the benefits of the risk management approach to managing safety within facility or a building provide both direct and indirect benefits that may include premium reductions, reputation, and increased savings. They can assist with meeting due diligence obligations as well as in providing a safe and healthy environment for tenants, employees, contractors and the public.


Andrew Angelides
Functional Risk Solutions

The current state of the relevant legislation does recognise the needs of people with disabilities within buildings such as auditoriums and cinemas. The inclusions to assist people with disabilities have however been somewhat limited in their scope.

Requirements for the provision of wheelchair seating spaces and accessible paths of travel to these, as well as the provision of a Hearing Augmentation Listening Systems (HALS) to assist people with hearing impairments have been present in the Building Code of Australia for some time – not without their challenges however.

The need to provide wheelchair seating which is representative of the overall range of seating available in cinemas which are traditionally tiered to optimise sight lines for able bodied patrons, can be difficult to achieve when appropriate consideration has not been attributed to this issue early on in the planning phase.

Issues such as maintenance and checking, battery charging of components and staff knowledge in the support of HALS mean these systems often fail operationally in their support of people with hearing impairments over the life of theatre or cinema. Other issues such as stigma associated with equipment which is worn by a patron as well as the fact that amplification alone does not meet the needs of all people with hearing impairments further highlights the issues facing the current state of play.

There are also a number of omissions from the current requirements which can extend the services offered within these buildings to a broader range of people. Technologies such as audio description can allow a person with a visual impairment to participate in the cinematic and theatrical experience. Captioning can provide a fail-safe access method for people with more significant hearing impairments.

Previously these technologies required additional equipment for their implementation and the captioning and description services were often simply not produced for a substantial number of cinema releases and major entertainment productions. This area has however quickly evolved in recent years, and continues to evolve making the uptake of such services by movie and entertainment providers far easier and cost effective.

The advent and progress of digital technologies now means that captions and audio descriptions can be provided with the same media for cinema releases and played with relatively standard equipment within cinemas.

Additional equipment such as Doremi’s CaptiView ‘closed’ captioning system allow a screen displaying captions to be mounted in the drink holder of a cinema or theatre seat. Relatively mainstream audio receiver and headset equipment can be used to receive and play audio which includes the description components. Standard tablets and mounting equipment have also been used to provide ‘closed’ captioning.

Open captioning involves the display of captions on the cinema screen or on a screen adjacent to the proscenium of a theatre, sometimes within the set of the production itself, allowing everyone within the theatre to view them. Many users prefer open captioning and sessions are sometimes scheduled at select cinemas and theatres offering this as opposed to closed captioning technologies alone.

Years ago very few theatres offered these services. The advances made in the relevant technologies as well as vocal lobbying by many disability agencies and consumers with disabilities to industry now sees approximately 115 cinemas across Australian provide captioning. What is now a relatively inexpensive investment opens up these services to whole new audience who was previously removed from the experience altogether. 

George Xinos
Functional Access Solutions