CHAPTER 17HOW TO ESTABLISH INDUSTRIAL LOSS PREVENTION AND FIRE PROTECTION
PETER M. BOCHNAK
Environmental Health and Safety, Harvard University, 46 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA, 02138
17.1 INTRODUCTION
Today, with the real presence of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the employee's “right” to safety and health, coupled with the “age of risk management,” captive insurance companies, and large self‐retention of risk by major corporate entities, there is a greater need for management to familiarize itself with the general field of fire protection. In the past, there appears to have been a general feeling that the protection of plants and facilities from fire and the maintenance of their integrity could be safely left to insurance underwriter personnel or perhaps to a very small staff or an individual who might have something less than a heavy background in this area. Now, with greater retention of risk by corporations and the tremendous investments involved in many facilities, there is a need for many more people, at the very least, to have more than a superficial knowledge of the world of loss prevention.
This need has impacted not only upon plant management but also upon architects and engineers. Many architectural engineering firms have found it prudent to employ specialists in fire protection on their staffs to handle what should be considered a very important part of the overall plant design. It is important for these technical people to develop some ...