As a school involving chemical engineering, School of Materials Science and Engineering (SMSE) has always attached importance to students' safety education. On April 28, World Day for Safety and Health at Work, SMSE, together with Total, world's fourth largest petrochemical enterprise，one of the Global Fortune 500 companies, held the 2nd Session of Total International Course in 1501B, Building 1, Wushan Campus, in order to convey the concept of safe production to students. Courses were offered by Prof. Pol Hoorelbeke, Vice President of Global Safety Management, Surveillance and Culture of Total, Guest Professor of SCUT, Prof. Bassam Burgan, Director of British Constructional Steelwork Association, Representative of Fire and Blast Information Group (FABIG), Guest Professor of SCUT, Prof. Yongjian Yu, Vice President of Polystyrene Polymer in China of Total, Guest Professor of SCUT, Jing Miao, Manager of HSE of Total, and Crystal, Manager of Enterprise Communications in Asia of Total. MiaoXian Wu, Standing Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of SMSE, worked as liaison to assist the course.
Guest professors of Total give lectures
The session was mainly for students majoring in Polymer Materials and Engineering, and English-teaching Materials Innovation Class. Although the courses were arranged during Labor Day Holiday, students participate actively. 25 students were selected to take the flip classes in the session. With the theme of Management of Major Hazards in Petrochemical Plants, the classes introduced risk management in chemical industry. Prof. Hoorelberk, the main lecturer, has more than 25 years of working experience in the field of safety and rich practical management experience of process safety technique, representing world-class level. With a witty language, he explained the common accidents such as explosion and leakage in the world petrochemical industry. Based on his rich experience in production management and risk analysis of industrial production, he analyzed the major safety accidents in the petrochemical industry in the past 40 years, including the causes and the lessons. Through the course, students had a deeper understanding of production safety and risk management and improved their safety awareness greatly.
Guest professors issue participation certificates
In order to further develop the course, with the lead of Miaoxian Wu, Standing Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of SMSE, teachers and students visited Total Petrochemical (Foshan) Co., Ltd. in Sanshui Foshan Industrial Park for safety training activities.
First of all, some first-line production workers at Total introduced the 12 Safety Criteria of Total, which helped the visitors better understand the standardization of safety system in chemical plants.Subsequently, teachers and students, accompanied by company leaders, visited the workshops. Tools and experimental samples, and well-categorized filing cabinets were placed orderly in the neat maintenance workshops and laboratories, where different working areas were divided with different colors. Some engineer told us that Total has uphold the “5S” management philosophy to maintain workshop order and ensure work can be done in an orderly, efficient, safe and sanitary way. Moreover, in the polystyrene production workshop, eye washers, fire equipment and on-site patrol signs could be found everywhere, which reflected the concept of “Safety Matters”.
Total's safety system construction
Visit Total workshop
The visit not only improved our understanding of the standardization of enterprise safety production and its importance, but also inspired us to consider how to apply the 5S Philosophy and Safety Criteria in Total in the laboratory management in universities for the purpose of exploring a new mode of university laboratory safety management.
So far, 12 sessions of Total International Course have been held since 2008 This year marks the 10th-year of the course in SCUT. The course has attracted lots of participatating applications every year, thanks to its professional English training by senior engineers from Total, a Global Fortune 500 company. Such a course can broaden participants’ both professional and international vision, make up for the long-term limitation in classroom theory and the lack of practical production experience, and provide valuable suggestions and directions for future internship and careers after graduation.
