Work health and safety in a focus area industry: HSC Industrial Technology Industry Study

What this dot point is asking

NESA wants you to examine how a real focus area workplace keeps people safe. You describe the legal framework, how the business identifies hazards and assesses risk, the controls it uses (including the hierarchy of control and personal protective equipment), and the safe handling of materials, tools and machinery. This knowledge supports both your industry study and the safe practice you demonstrate while building your own Major Project.

The legal framework

In NSW, workplace safety is governed by the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 and the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2017, administered by SafeWork NSW. The law places a primary duty of care on the person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers and others. Workers in turn must take reasonable care for their own safety, follow reasonable instructions and cooperate with safety policies.

The Act introduced the idea of shared and overlapping duties, so an owner, a supervisor and a worker can each hold responsibility for the same hazard. Codes of Practice published by SafeWork provide practical guidance on specific risks such as managing noise, hazardous chemicals, and the safe use of machinery and plant.

Hazard identification and risk assessment

A hazard is anything with the potential to cause harm; risk is the likelihood and severity of that harm occurring. A safe workplace identifies hazards systematically through inspections, consultation with workers, incident reports and review of safety data sheets. Common focus area hazards include:

• Moving machinery and unguarded blades, cutters and presses.
• Wood dust, metal fumes, solvents and adhesives.
• Noise from routers, saws, grinders and compressors.
• Manual handling of heavy or awkward materials.
• Electrical hazards from power tools and leads.
• Slips, trips and falls in a busy workshop.

Risk is then assessed, often with a risk matrix that combines likelihood and consequence to produce a priority rating. High risks are controlled first.

The hierarchy of control

This is the central concept. Controls are applied in order of effectiveness, from most to least effective:

1. Eliminate the hazard entirely (remove a dangerous process).
2. Substitute with something safer (a water-based finish instead of a solvent-based one).
3. Isolate people from the hazard (guarding, barriers, enclosed dust extraction).
4. Engineering controls that reduce exposure (machine guards, local exhaust ventilation, interlocks).
5. Administrative controls (safe operating procedures, training, job rotation, signage).
6. Personal protective equipment (PPE) as the last line of defence.

Examiners reward students who explain why PPE sits last: it relies on the worker using it correctly every time and does not remove the hazard. Higher-order controls are more reliable because they reduce risk at the source.

PPE and safe use of materials, tools and machinery

Describe the PPE used in your focus area: safety glasses or face shields, hearing protection, respirators or dust masks rated for the contaminant, gloves, steel-capped boots, and aprons or overalls. Explain that PPE must be correctly selected, fitted, maintained and replaced.

For materials, Safety Data Sheets (SDS) describe hazardous properties, safe handling, storage and first aid for adhesives, finishes, solvents and treated timbers. For machinery, safe operating procedures (SOPs) set out the correct, guarded, step-by-step method for each machine, and only trained, authorised operators should use them. Maintenance, isolation and lock-out procedures keep machines safe during cleaning and repair.

Applying it to a real workplace

In your study, document how your chosen business runs its safety system: who is responsible, how hazards are reported, what controls are in place on the main machines, what PPE is mandatory, and how new staff and apprentices are inducted. Connect each control back to a specific hazard so the examiner sees a real system, not a generic checklist. The same discipline applies to your own Major Project, where you must record risk assessments and safe practice in your folio.