The Importance of Safety Signs

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We’ve previously discussed safety signs on several occasions, but given the ever changing nature of safety and OSHA regulations, we thought we would cover this essential requirement again. OSHA Standard 1910.145 governs safety signs. It discusses the specifics of the signs you utilize in your workplace. This standard regulates the color, dimensions, and design of most signs you are required to use.

But what this standard does not cover is when to use these signs or where to place them. Those regulations are determined in different standards, specific to your business and business practices. So, in order to properly place the signage, you need to cross reference this standard with each standard that applies to your business, which can be quite a demanding task. For startups or businesses going through large expansions, this task can be far more difficult than it sounds.

While confined spaces, lockout tagout, and many other procedures are often more discussed and planned for by safety teams, it is often something small, like a signage issue, which can devastate your business in an OSHA audit. Standards are constantly changing, updating with the latest safety advances. And while it is easy to plan for and notice a major change to a standard, a small change in verbiage regarding a sign can often go overlooked. Even well established, safety minded companies are often out of compliance on a few small signs when they have their third party safety audits.

If you are unsure if your signage is up to date, please contact us. If you have anything to add to the conversation about safety signs, please leave a comment.

Arc Flash Analysis

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Potential arc flash hazards need to be visually marked on the machines and accounted for in your Safety and Health Management System. In order to do this, you need to identify all hazards and determine how best to prevent them from affecting your business and your employees.

Many employers choose to run their arc flash analysis in house, and have their staff determine their hazards. And while there are many highly qualified arc flash experts out there, if you do not have one on your team, then you are asking an inexperienced team to learn about an extremely complicated matter with no one to help them. This can be a daunting task for a member of your team and can ultimately leave you liable if a mistake is made by the unqualified individual.

Some common mistakes include companies only testing equipment over 240 V and not testing equipment supplied by a Hazard Risk Category 0 panel. The first mistake is based upon a common misconception in IEEE 1584 which governs Arc Flash Analysis. In IEEE they do set a base of 240 volts, however that is based upon incident energy calculations and does not exempt any companies from OSHA or NFPA requirements. As for the second point, it is important to remember that a Hazard Risk Category 0 feed does not guarantee the next machine will be a Hazard Risk Category 0.

If you have any questions about Arc Flash or how a third party can help you, please contact us so that we can help you through this difficult process. And if you have anything you would like to add about arc flash hazard prevention, please leave a comment.

Benefits of Third Party Lockout Tagout Monitoring

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Every good business has a specialty. For us, that specialty is Lockout Tagout auditing, procedure creation, and monitoring. We understand the importance of a well designed lockout tagout procedure and the potential consequences of poor monitoring. That is why we offer full wall-to-wall lockout tagout auditing services and 24/7 fully customizable monitoring software.

With every client, we recommend a three part monitoring process. The first step in the process is to set up a fully compliant and cost effective lockout tagout procedure. This procedure discusses everything about the lockout tagout process, and ensures your business is following all applicable OSHA standards. Once the procedure is finalized, it is your responsibility to enact the policy and enforce the rules.

But, we do have a system in place to help with that. We call it Factory Solutions, and it is a state of the art browser based program which allows you to monitor your lockout tagout procedures and compliance while allowing you to customize it in any way to keep your program up to date on your machinery and personnel changes.

Finally, we offer annual audits which will help you to ensure that nothing has changed in your lockout tagout needs or the OSHA guidelines. By auditing yourself annually, you are meeting OSHA’s requirements and ensuring that your business is protected against potential harm to your machinery and staff.

This three part process ensures that you are completely up to date and up to code in Lockout Tagout. By relenting the monitoring responsibilities to a third party, you are releasing yourself of the burden and entrusting the responsibility to trained, experienced professionals. If you have any questions about lockout tagout, please contact us. And if you have any other benefits to third party lockout monitoring, please leave a comment.

Confined Spaces

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Confined spaces, a topic we have covered before, are a difficult hazard for most companies to handle. Even though the first regulation on confined spaces was enacted in 1935, they accounted for 96 fatalities and over 5,000 injuries in 2012.  The breakdown of the fatalities includes 61 from oxygen deficiency and 26 from the inhalation to toxic substances.

So what can be done to protect your employees who work in these dangerous environments? First, employers must identify all workplace hazards. Whether done internally or with the help of an auditor, you can’t prevent what you don’t know exists. Once you have identified all potential confined space hazards, you need to determine if they are permit required and if they have a potentially hazardous atmosphere. There are a number of factors which need to be considered as you make these determinations, and it is imperative you fully understand OSHA’s requirements per standard 1910.146.

Once you have taken care of the identification, it is time to implement a system for monitoring and tracking entry into the permit required confined spaces and a safety plan which covers personal protective equipment use, training, and the permit verification process. In addition, you need to specify the procedures which will be in effect for employees in the confined space. After you have decided upon all of this, you will need to put the plan into action by updating your signage, personal protective equipment, and staff training. Finally, you need to ensure constant compliance, so that you can ensure you will not be one of the 96 employers who put their employees in perilous risk.

If you have any questions about this difficult topic, please contact us. And if you have anything to add about confined spaces, please leave a comment.

The Benefits of Third Party Safety Audits

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Third party safety audits, which we have discussed before, are a vital part of your safety plan. Not only do they meet the requirements for third party auditing set forth by OSHA in a number of their standards, they also help you ensure you are operationally sound. Safety is fluid; what was up to code last month may no longer be acceptable. Because of this, it is easy to maintain your safety plan, which was properly set up, but find yourself in trouble simply because of policy changes.

Regular safety audits will help you to ensure you are running an effective safety program in your business. Trained auditors can ensure that your policies  and procedures conform to OSHA standards, and that they are the most cost effective way to ensure safety in any given situation. They will begin by reviewing your known hazards, then evaluate your current plan to handle them. After this, they will examine your place of business and worksite practices, to make sure there are no additional hazards which need to be addressed. Auditors will also examine all signage, to make certain it meets minimum requirements for acceptability.

If there are any issues in these basic areas of your business, your auditors will help you come up with a plan to correct them. From there, they will examine your safety plan further, picking apart your processes in the same way an OSHA auditor would. If you have not had an audit recently, or if you are afraid some of the recent OSHA changes affect you, please contact us, so that we can help. If you have anything to add about third party safety audits, please leave a comment.

Software for Monitoring Your Lockout Tagout Procedures

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As important as implementing effective Lockout Tagout procedures is, it is more important to properly monitor them. Annual audits of your lockout tagout program are an important start in effective monitoring, but what about the rest of the year? You need to have a plan in place to manage machinery changes, personnel changes, and changes to OSHA’s regulations.

For years, the only viable option was to have lockout tagout monitoring as a crucial part of your Safety and Health Management System. Large amounts of resources needed to be dedicated to the monitoring of machinery, OSHA standards, and upkeep. When personnel changed, and maintenance responsibility changed hands, extreme care would need to be taken to properly train new employees on the methods of monitoring lockout tagout.

But in recent years, new methods have developed. Among the most effective methods is using software specifically designed to monitor your machinery, including changes to machinery, staff, and regulations. There are a handful of companies who offer these services at various costs, and this software can save your company a lot of money in labor and materials, and can save you a lot of headaches should you ever be audited by OSHA.

So if you are still using the old method of manually monitoring your procedures, it might be time to look into an alternative. If you are considering making the switch and would like some more information on lockout tagout software monitoring, please contact us. And if you have anything to add about software monitoring, please leave a comment.

Should I Outsource my Lockout Tagout or Manage it In-House?

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We have many customers who ask us this question, and it is a fair one. Many companies successfully manage their own lockout tagout procedures, and it can be a cost effective option. But before you try to manage it in-house, you need to take a serious look at your staff and capabilities, then ask yourself some important questions.

First and foremost, you need to consider the timing. Do you need this project completed in a week, or do you have a more open timeframe for implementation? If this project needs to completed on a very tight schedule, do you have access to the required resources and personnel to manage this project? If you have an open timeframe, then you need to focus on the resources and personnel available to you. You will also need to look at how the implementation and monitoring of your lockout tagout procedures will affect your business operations.

When specifically evaluating your team, you need to ask yourself who will be assigned to the project, and what new responsibilities they will be taking on. Once you have set your assignments, you need to carefully determine if the personnel you have are capable of managing those tasks – if your team lacks the knowledge and experience required, in-house implementation and monitoring can quickly become an exercise in futility. Finally, you need to decide if this team can effectively manage your lockout tagout procedures, and if not, what your plan will be once implementation is completed.

After all of this is worked out, you need to run a cost analysis. Will the cost of training, buying tools, hiring staff, and paying the costs of monitoring be worth it to your company? For smaller operations, or companies who are in the unique position of having staff members with knowledge of lockout tagout, it might make sense to run your own procedures. If you are unsure and need some guidance, please contact us, and we can help you determine what you will need to implement and maintain your lockout tagout procedures, and the cost differences between hiring an external company or managing it yourself. If you have anything to add to our discussion on managing lockout tagout procedures, please leave a comment.

Setting Your Safety Goals

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Whether you are starting a new business, expanding your business, or simply trying to update an outdated safety plan, setting your safety goals can be a difficult task. We all want to say that our goal is 100% OSHA compliance with every possible safety certificate, no onsite injuries, and around the clock safety management. Unfortunately, that goal is a bit lofty for year one of a new Safety and Health Management System.

If your goals are unattainable, the real growth that your company shows in relation to safety will be lost to you, as you have not met unrealistic goals. You need to put yourself in a place where you are reaching for difficult, but attainable, goals. If your goals are too easy, you run the opposite risk of goals that are too difficult – you will feel overconfident that you reached your goals, and that can affect the long term value of your goals.

Finding that balance, however, can be very difficult. Utilizing the expertise of a third party safety auditor can be a great starting point, however many third party safety auditors will only audit your safety plan, not help you determine their efficacy. This can leave your results skewed if your safety goals are too aggressive or not aggressive enough. So relying on your annual audit to take care of your safety plan and safety goals can leave you in a terrible situation.

Instead, you need to have a serious conversation with your safety and management teams, discussing the real threats to the safety of your business, as well as what is and is not currently working. That information needs to be compared to OSHA’s regulations regarding your business and the relevant third party safety certificates available. Then, you need to determine how much you can take care of this year, and how much you need to hold off on, making sure you meet and maintain all OSHA standards in the process.

If this sounds like a difficult task, that’s because it is. But don’t worry, it is achievable. And if you need any help in setting your safety goals, please contact us to help you. If you have any other tips for setting a safety goal please leave a comment.

Permit Entry Systems for a Confined Space

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OSHA standard 1910.146 governs confined spaces and their permit entry systems. We have discussed confined spaces before, talking about the entire standard and what is required of you when writing the safety plan for it. But in order to write a reasonable safety plan, you need to understand the mechanics of the permit entry system.

Confined space permit entry systems need to have written procedures with printed instructions at every entrance. At the core of the procedure is the permit entry system, which establishes who has access to the confined space, in what circumstances those individuals have access to the confined space, how those individuals are granted access to that space, and, if an attendant is required, how and when that attendant may enter the confined space.

To set adequate standards, it is prudent to analyze and understand all hazards associated with your confined space. This includes hazards created by the space, the atmosphere in the space, any substances stored there, or the nature of the business performed in the confined space. Taken together, these hazards form the foundation of your confined space permit entry system, as they can help shape who should have access to the space and in why they will need access. They can also help you determine what personal protective equipment is required in the confined space, which will affect your permit entry system.

Once you have determined the hazards, the people who will have a need to enter the space, and the personal protective equipment they should be wearing, you need to determine what the frequency is that people will need to enter the space, and what you will require them to present to enter the space. Finally, you need to establish who the attendant is, and what their responsibility is as compared to the individuals entering.

With all of this worked out, all that is left is actually putting this plan to paper and writing up instruction cards. If you have any questions about the process of establishing a permit entry system for confined statements, or if you need any help in establishing your plan, please contact us. If you have anything else to add to the conversation, please leave a comment.

Preventative Maintenance

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The maintenance of your company’s machinery may not seem very important to your Safety and Health Management System at first glance, but it is actually a key component to ensuring safety. Machinery that falls into disrepair can be dangerous in a number of ways and can violate any one of a number of OSHA procedures. Further, improperly maintained machinery will need costly repairs more often than properly maintained machines, and will need to be replaced more frequently, and both of these outcomes will directly impact your bottom line.

That is why preventative maintenance is so important to your business. Proper machine maintenance needs to be included in your safety plan, and needs to be properly monitored and regulated. Otherwise, no matter how well you plan out other things, such as your lockout tagout procedures, you will not be able to properly account for machine malfunctions, glitches, and other issues. The best safety plans in the world can not account for malfunctioning machinery that is not properly maintained.

Fortunately, preventative maintenance is not difficult to monitor and track. The first step to ensuring your machinery is consistently running properly is to determine what maintenance is required and with what frequency – every shift, daily, weekly, etc. Once you have determined the activities required and their frequency, you need to come up with a system to allow your team to track the maintenance activities they are performing on each machine.

We have found that preventative maintenance placards are the easiest way to accomplish this. With properly designed placards, you can note which activities need to be performed when, and track who is performing these tasks. Additionally, by utilizing systems such as we have outlined, you can ensure you adhere to Sigma Six, lean manufacturing standards, and just in time. If you do not currently have a preventative maintenance schedule or if you need placards, please contact us so that we can help you through this process. And if you have any advice for companies looking to set up a preventative maintenance plan, please leave a comment.