We had a conversation with Kemal Evcioglu, who has been acting as a technical manager at important facilities for many years and performs the duty of Chairmanship of the International Association of Facilities Technical Manager (UTTMD) on “technical managers and life safety at the facilities”. You can read our interview in three chapters in EEC Blog.
The International Association of Facilities Technical Managers (UTTMD) is an occupational came into service on 10th of December, 2010. The association which gathers the technical managers who are responsible for the maintenance and management of buildings and facilities such as hotels, shopping malls, hospitals, factories and plazas included in the definition of a facility in our company contributes to the industry and the national economy through the activities which it carries out with the aim of informing its members and the public accurately.
Yasar Kemal Evcioglu: He completed the undergraduate program in the Department of Telecommunication in Bogazici University and got master’s degree in the Electronic Communication in ITU. He was appointed to the Directorate of Weapons Factory of Golcuk Naval Shipyard Command as Senior Engineer in 2002. He graduated from the International Relations Program in Kocaeli University as the Middle East Specialist in 2004. He graduated from the undergraduate program in the Department of Management Organization in Beykent University with the research Project “Change Management” in 2006. He published the books named “Greater Middle East Initiative of the United States of America” and “From the Chaos in the Middle East to the Global Chaos” from Umay Publishing House. He wrote articles and made television programs on the Middle East, International Strategy and History and he currently has a YouTube channel named Gercek Tarih. He received the excellence and outstanding service award for six times in the Navy.
The protection of safety of life and property at the facilities starts with the unwritten laws. The ethical values have the same importance as the legal regulations. When you consider the laws, you see that they have an ethical spirit. This is because the fundamental purpose of all regulations and laws is “to protect people and make them live in safe”. It is followed by safety of property. The laws and regulations need to be continuously developed according to the time spirit.
Everyone must act with the sense of responsibility in order to ensure the security at the facilities in terms of ethics. Being a role model must be started from the top. Those who have published, audited and implemented the regulation must also fully adopt it and everyone must take on responsibility for the continuous development of the legislation. Furthermore, we must be brave and hard-working in assuming responsibility. These would never be done without education. Lectures to which specialists are invited and the participation of which is mandatory must be provided and workshop works must be conducted within the scope of formal education.
The managers of the facilities must act very consciously in such a matter that ethics is so important. We can never accept such approaches that are bottom feeder and giving priority to economic return. Such approaches are also not supported by the laws. We must be proactive to the violations we encounter as a society at all times. This is because we expect the audits become more effective and severer sanctions are imposed on those who knowingly do not adhere to the regulations.
As for the obligations, the measures required to be taken pursuant to the occupational health and safety law, the regulation on emergencies in workplaces and “the regulation on the protection of buildings from fire” are expressly established.
First of all, an “emergency action plan” must be developed for ensuring the possibility of quick and effective response and business continuity in the case of emergencies in order to ensure the security of the facility. If there is a plan, its regulatory compliance and applicability must be considered. The Occupational Health and Safety Law No 6331 and the relevant regulations in force in our country must be reviewed in detail and made much more enforceable. This is because it is possible to act rapidly and property at the time of a crises only with an effective and applicable emergency action plan at the facilities.
The emergency action plan and the security systems are also of high importance in terms of ensuring the sustainability and business continuity at our facilities by minimizing the damages caused by emergencies. These measures primarily support the protection of life safety and the facilities which we consider national wealth on the other hand.
We, as UTTMD, argue that the technical managers must also be included in the process from the very beginning of the construction process of a facility. The technical managers who ensure the commissioning of the facility must contribute with their opinions from the very beginning of the project, know every detail of the Project at all testing and commissioning stages and share the responsibility.
The responsibilities are defined in the laws and regulations. The law sets forth the objective from scratch.
For instance, it starts by stating “it is to regulate the duties, powers, responsibilities, rights and obligations of employers and employees in order to ensure the occupational health and safety and improving the current health and safety conditions in workplaces”. The technical managers have a framework of duty that is compliant with these regulations at the recruitment stage.
The law principally imposes the responsibility for safety of life and property on the employer tier. The technical managers, on the other hand, has critical responsibilities as they recruit by relying on the specialty of the employers and appoint as representative on behalf of them. Although the employers are directly asked whether the responsibilities are fulfilled in the case of an incident that violates the security, the technical managers are the direct answerers of the questions.
For fire safety, the standards are certain under the “Regulation on the Protection of Buildings From Fire”. While construction a building, it is mandatory to comply with the standards. For instance, the load bearing capacity of the building must be calculated in a manner that it will protect the building for a specific period of time in if fire breaks out. When smoke emerges in the case of fire – unfortunately, people die by getting suffocated due to smoke before flames in the case of fires according to the statistics – the construction of the building must be planned so as to limit the dissemination of smoke inside the building.
The facilities must be built with such an architectural structure that will allow the users, in other words the regular residents, or guests to leave the building in the case of an emergency and to be rescued in various ways that will not put the fire brigade crew at risk. Many measures similar to those, in such detail that requires specialized approach and having critical priority must be taken. The plans for safety of life and property are such an issue that is integrated, multi-disciplinary and requiring specialization within the scope of the emergency management at the facilities.
The initial expectation of the technical managers must be compliance with the obligations under the law. Do we have a plan, team, ventilation system and a separate elevator for emergency cases? This is because the law requires them. The priority of our technical managers must be to identify and improve such deficiencies. It is considerably important to share the outcomes of potential risks with the owner and the management and to give detailed and accurate information according to the risk analysis. We particularly emphasize fire, but you know that this approach must be taken as basis for natural disasters such as earthquake and flood and crises such as sabotage, chemical leakage in all emergencies.
If the project of the building is problematic in terms of the fire plans, the building license is not granted. It must not be granted! This stage is critical. It is important for your systems to be designed in compliance with the type of your buildings. The buildings are classified in compliance with their usage properties and according to many specific needs and requirements such as whether they are intended for housing or corporate building, whether they are intended for trade or industrial structure etc. The measures are established according to this classification.
Therefore, the fire detection and alarm systems must be selected in compliance with the structure type and specifically designed in compliance with the needs and architecture of the building. Furthermore, designing the detection and extinguishing systems in such a structure that they can function as integrated with the other security systems such as the fire announcement and emergency lighting is of high importance in order to ensure life safety in the case of emergencies.
