July 2016 OH&S

July 2016

  • FALL PROTECTION: Working at Height: Fall Protection Safety Starts with the Correct Equipment
  • FALL PROTECTION: What Happens After the Fall?
  • INDUSTRIAL HYGIENE/HAZMAT: How Industrial Hygienists Assist in Rail Emergencies
  • RESPIRATORY PROTECTION: Understanding Requirements of an OSHA Respiratory Protection Program
  • EMERGENCY EYEWASH & SHOWERS: The Value of Wireless Alarms and Monitoring Systems on Emergency Equipment
  • GHS/SDS: Six Tips for Health Care Facilities and Labs to Ensure GHS Compliance
  • GHS/SDS: GHS Training: Passing Deadlines Don't Mean the Work is Over
  • CONSTRUCTION SAFETY: Five Simple Extension Cord Rules to Improve Work Site Safety
  • CONSTRUCTION SAFETY: A Fall Protection Guide to Working at Heights
  • CONSTRUCTION SAFETY: Why the Construction Industry Needs to Adopt Leading Indicators
  • EMERGENCY RESPONSE: It Will Never Happen to Us
  • FACILITY SAFETY: Texas City and Buncefield: Will We Ever Learn?
  • HEAD PROTECTION: A World of New Choices
  • SAFETY MANAGEMENT: Safety From the Emotional Side
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Cover Story

Reducing the hazards of working at height starts with the correct personal fall protection equipment, combined with the proper training, risk assessment, and safety culture required to form a complete fall protection safety system for both the work application and environment. (Honeywell Industrial Safety photo)

Working at Height: Fall Protection Safety Starts with the Correct Equipment

By Tom Dillon

Tempting as it may seem in the “real world,” fall protection choices should never be influenced by convenience alone.


Features

On-the job bullying can take many forms, from a supervisor

Safety from the Emotional Side

By Irving G. Jacob

When people feel safe, creativity flourishes and problem solving is simplified. Issues are addressed on a timely basis rather than being swept under the rug or put off till they become crises.


While ANSI standards mandate that emergency showers and eyewashes should be activated weekly and completely inspected once annually, the actual testing results are rarely recorded in a central database. (Haws photo)

The Value of Wireless Alarms and Monitoring Systems on Emergency Equipment

By Casey Hayes

Not only will these systems help to ensure employee safety, they can make it easier for facilities to stay in compliance with OSHA and ANSI standards.


Pictograms are required safety data sheet elements that are intended to convey specific hazard information visually.

GHS Training: Passing Deadlines Don't Mean the Work is Over

By Glenn D. Trout

Employers can see that employee training, while part of the first and final deadlines in OSHA's GHS transition period, is actually an ongoing obligation.


Hard hats aren

A World of New Choices

By Matt Block

Traumatic brain injuries account for 22 percent of all work-related injury fatalities. This is clearly an issue that needs to be addressed.


Keeping employees interested in training is a challenge. Try to create training and exercises that are unique to your own workplace. Ask employees where they feel they need trained.

It Will Never Happen to Us

By Dave Carter

Emergency response preparedness for "not if" but "when" requires a dynamic and effective training program.


All hazardous material railcars

How Industrial Hygienists Assist in Rail Emergencies

By Jerry Laws

Speaking at an AIHce 2016 session, several experts said industrial hygienists are well suited to anticipate, recognize, and respond to the hazards and to control the risks using science-based methods.


A company that solely tracks lagging KPIs and has low incident rates, while positive, leaves the organization with very little data to analyze and help predict future decisions.

Why the Construction Industry Needs to Adopt Leading Indicators

By Josh LeBrun

Continuous improvement and evolution of leading indicators will help your organization continuously improve safety records and reduce risks.


For a company to provide a proper rescue plan, one must first look at the rescue considerations provided by OSHA

A Fall Protection Guide to Working at Heights

By Chris Irwin, Grant Grasha

Waiting until the victim has fallen and is waiting to be retrieved is the wrong time to be making decisions about how to safely get the worker down.


In general, extension cords should not exceed 100 feet in length. If the job requires more than a 100-foot distance, a temporary power distribution box is required. (Tower Manufacturing Corporation photo)

Five Simple Extension Cord Rules to Improve Work Site Safety

By Vlad Konopelko, Paul Piekarski

Identifying GFCI use with extension cords is one of the best and easiest steps when inspecting a job site for safety.


Working at height, lone workers who fall and are unable to self-recover have a poor chance of a good outcome if they are undetected. (Fall Safety photo)

What Happens After the Fall?

By Peter Burnham

In the absence of automated fall detection, a buddy system, along with a mindful approach where workers remain aware of each other, is called for because an undiscovered victim is a tragedy in the making.


Because faces come in many shapes and sizes, workers may need to try on a variety of models and/or sizes for their PPE in order to find a combination that is acceptable. (3M Personal Safety Division photo)

Understanding Requirements of an OSHA Respiratory Protection Program

By Scott Larson

If there is no way through engineering or administrative controls to get exposure to acceptable levels, respiratory protection must be provided.


This photo from the final report of the Major Incident Investigation Board shows the Buncefield depot after the explosion. (Photo is © Chiltern Air Support)

Texas City and Buncefield: Will We Ever Learn?

By David Dana

These incidents evoked a paradigm shift in organizational behavior and influenced the creation and enforcement of new legislation to prevent similar situations from happening.


Avery

Six Tips for Health Care Facilities and Labs to Ensure GHS Compliance

By Del Williams

Flexible, lower-cost options enable printing durable, appropriately-sized GHS, HMIS, NFPA, or hybrid labels on demand for smaller “down-packed” chemical container labels.


Departments

Communicating Your Safety Excellence Strategy

By Shawn M. Galloway

When communicating your strategy, your audience must be able to see themselves as actors within the strategy.


Raising Ergonomic Mindfulness

By Robert Pater

The key is to incorporate an easy-to-do, specific approach.


Why So Many Dog Attacks?

State Farm paid more than $118 million as a result of 3,181 dog-related injury claims in 2015.


Artificial Intelligence