Monthly Archives: May 2014

More than 1 Million Participated in National Fall Safety Stand-Down

Posted on by
Twitt

Last week, the US Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration partnered with over 25,000 businesses to bring awareness to measures which can prevent fall hazards in construction. These businesses provided fall safety information throughout the week to over 1 million employees in an effort to reduce the number of injuries and fatalities caused by falls. Falls are the most common cause of death in the construction industry, and OSHA is taking a hard stance against inadequate fall protection and ineffective training.

“This is an unprecedented event. Tens of thousands of employers and hundreds of thousands of workers across the country have joined our campaign to save lives and prevent fatal falls in the construction industry,” said U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez. “The economy is on the rebound, housing starts are on the rise and the summer construction season is getting underway. Now is the time to focus on this vital safety issue and make sure all construction workers come home at the end of every workday.”

The magnitude of this movement, coupled with the words of Perez show that fall safety is at the forefront of what OSHA will be focusing on. So if you are in the construction industry, it is imperative that you have iron-clad fall safety procedures and training in place. If you have not recently reviewed your plans, or if they are not firmly set in writing, it is time to review, update, and finalize them. If you are worried that your plans are not up to par, it is advisable you contact a qualified third party occupational safety and health auditing firm to help you update your plans.

If you should have any questions about your fall protection policies, or any other health and safety policies, please contact us and we will help you bring your company up to code. If you have anything to add about the National Fall Safety Stand-Down, please leave a comment.

Monitoring for Lockout Tagout (LOTO) Procedures

Posted on by
Twitt

Anyone who has ever had to write procedures for lockout tagout can attest to their difficulty. Lockout tagout procedures are difficult to create because they are based upon a difficult OSHA standard to comply with, Standard 1910.147. This standard is often regarded as one of the most difficult to understand and to implement, and can give even experienced occupational safety and health experts a difficult time.

So if you have a functioning lockout tagout procedure in place, it is imperative you maintain it. To do this, you have to properly monitor regulatory changes, industry changes, and changes to your business. Even a small change in any of these areas left unaccounted for can lead to substantial fines and serious workplace injuries. In order to protect yourself and your business, it is imperative to have a system in place which monitors these three areas.

Many companies monitor these changes internally, with quarterly or semi-annual audits. Others hire external companies to manage their lockout tagout needs. But the first option leaves you vulnerable in between audits, and the second option leaves you at the mercy of another company.

To combat these risks, we created software which tracks and manages your lockout tagout procedures while leaving you in complete control of them. Factory Solutions Software is updated by you and monitored by us, it is fully scalable, fully customizable, and can be accessed anywhere an internet connection is available.

If you have any questions about monitoring lockout tagout procedures or about our Factory Solutions Software, please contact us. If you have anything to add about the importance of monitoring lockout tagout procedures, please leave a comment.

OSHA Forms Alliance With American Staffing Association

Posted on by
Twitt

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has signed an alliance with the American Staffing Association in an effort to protect temporary employees from workplace injuries. Temporary employees are often not given the same training as permanent employees and as such are at greater risk of injury. This alliance will mean a greater focus will be placed upon the safety of temporary employees.

“We want to make sure that at the end of every work shift, all temporary workers in the United States are able to go home safely to their families,” said Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Dr. David Michaels. “Through this alliance with the ASA, we will increase outreach to staffing agencies and host employers and provide information and education that is vital to protecting temporary workers.”

So if you employee temporary employees, it is important to be up to date on all regulations relating to temporary employees and to be sure you have a sufficient training program in place for these employees. If you are not confident in your temporary employee training, it is time to review it and update it; if you wait until an incident occurs, it will be too late.

If you would like to have your temporary employee training reviewed, please contact us and we will discuss strategies to improve workplace safety for these employees. And if you have anything to add about the consequences of the alliance between OSHA and the American Staffing Association, please leave a comment.

OSHA Proposes $181,000 in Fines for American Plant Food Corp.

Posted on by
Twitt

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued 12 citations to the American Plant Food Corp. following an investigation of their Bartlett facility. These citations carried a $181,000 fine. The inspection came as a result of an injury suffered after a worker’s leg was entangled in an auger.

“This worker’s debilitating injury was preventable had the employer used certain safeguards,” said Casey Perkins, OSHA’s area director in Austin. “As an established company in this industry with long-term management in place, American Plant Food Corp. should not allow such dangerous workplace practices.”

The violations ranged from inadequate training regarding confined spaces to inadequate safeguards for machinery, to insufficient lockout tagout procedures. The charges levied against American Plant Food Corp. range the full spectrum of occupational safety and health, serving as a testament to the depth of an OSHA investigation. OSHA investigators are not limited in the scope of their investigation and will examine every aspect of your business.

This is why we recommend having routine third party safety audits held for your entire facility. It protects your entire company from potential violations and, should something occur, your potential violations will be much smaller. In an instance like this, a proper and routine third party auditing schedule would have eliminated the majority of these citations.

If you have any questions about third party safety audits and how they might help protect your company and its employees, please contact us. If you have anything to add about this case or about the benefits of third party safety audits, please leave a comment.

OSHA Proposes $119,350 in Fines for Fairview Contractors

Posted on by
Twitt

The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has proposed $119,350 in fines for Fairview Contractors as a result of seven health and safety violations. These violations were uncovered during an inspection which came as the result of a fatality on a worksite on November 14, 2013. The employee fell from a scaffold 17 feet to his death while performing roofing work.

“This was a needless and avoidable loss of a worker’s life. While guardrails and fall arrest systems were present at this work site, they were not used and were thus useless,” said Mary Hoye, OSHA’s area director for central and western Massachusetts. “Fatalities such as this will stop only when employers supply and ensure the use of effective and legally required fall protection safeguards on all job sites at all times.”

In this case, the employer did provide the correct equipment, however it was not properly made available to employees. And while this may sound absurd, it is actually quite common, especially in non-permanent worksites. For this reason, it is important for anyone who owns a business which is active in multiple worksites, to have a comprehensive safety and health management system in place which is properly disseminated to all relevant employees. A man’s life was lost, a company’s reputation tarnished, and a hefty fine was levied due to worksite carelessness, rather than a true misunderstanding of regulations.

If you have any questions about establishing a safety and health management system, please contact us so that we can help you protect your business. If you have anything to add about the importance of a health and safety management plan or about the case against Fairview Contractors, please leave a comment.

Permit Entry System for Confined Spaces

Posted on by
Twitt

Confined spaces are a necessary part of many facilities. These spaces, unfortunately, have the potential to cause serious harm to employees, and are made more dangerous with the presence of other common hazards. To help prevent employee injury, OSHA created Standard 1910.146, which governs confined spaces and establishes the parameters for permit entry systems.

Once a space has been declared a confined space, meaning it is a space large enough and so configured that it is possible for a person to bodily enter and perform work, has limited or restricted means for entry and exit, and is not designed for continuous employee occupancy, an employer needs to determine if it is a permit-required confined space. Permit-required confined spaces are spaces which contain or have the potential to contain a hazardous atmosphere, contain a material that has the potential for engulfing an entrant, has an internal configuration such that an entrant could be trapped or asphyxiated by inwardly converging walls or by a floor which slopes downward and tapers to a smaller cross-section, or contains any other recognized serious safety hazard.

If a confined space has any of these additional hazards, a system must be set up to protect the employees; this is done by either creating alternate entry procedures or creating a full permit entry system. Alternate entry procedures are allowed if the only hazard present is atmospheric in nature and if the employer can demonstrate that continuous forced air ventilation alone is sufficient to maintain that permit space safe for entry.

If forced air will not rectify the situation, then a full permit entry system is required. These systems document who may or may not enter the space, when these people may or may not enter the space, how these individuals will be monitored, who will be responsible for monitoring entry into the space, and what safety equipment is required before entry. The space must then be routinely audited to ensure no additional hazards have developed and to ensure that all safety equipment is working effectively.

So if you own a facility which has confined spaces and you have not recently reviewed your permit entry system, it might be time to do so. If you have any questions through the process, please contact us so we can help you through the process. And if you have anything to add about the importance of permit entry systems for confined spaces, please leave a comment.

Creating New Lockout Tagout Procedures

Posted on by
Twitt

In the world of occupational health and safety, there is not much that is more difficult to

uderstand and implement than lockout tagout procedures. OSHA created Standard 1910.147, which sets basic guidelines and rules relating to lockout tagout, which should act as a blueprint for any lockout tagout procedures created. This standard, however, is extremely complicated and leaves many first timers in a very confused place.

This confusion generally leads to one of three things: the employer either attempts to do it himself, leaving his employees potentially at risk for serious injury or death and the company at risk for sizable fines; the employer hires a qualified third party lockout tagout specialty firm to create the procedures, which creates sizable upfront costs to the company and takes control out of the hands of ownership; or the employer finds an online “cheat sheet” and hopes the material is accurate.

Thankfully, a new option has developed over the last few years which acts as a hybrid of all three; you can remain in control of your lockout tagout procedures, under the supervision of a true powerhouse in the lockout tagout arena, and use easy to understand documents to guide you. This is accomplished through our Factory Solutions Software, which is a fully customizable, fully scalable, and is available to you anywhere you have an internet connection. We ensure the program is up to date on all regulations, and we ensure your illustrations are accurate, but you can make changes as you need without the hassle of consulting a third party, delaying your business for days waiting for an approval.

If you would like more information about our Factory Solutions Software, please contact us. And if there is anything else you would like to add about creating new lockout tagout procedures, please leave a comment.

OSHA Proposes $210,000 in Fines for Rasi Laboratories

Posted on by
Twitt

The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspected the Somerset, NJ facility of Rasi Laboratories, Inc. in August of 2012. In October of 2013, OSHA came back to review the progress of the required changes from the initial inspection. Inspectors found that many of the problems uncovered in 2012 were not yet fixed. This inspection led to proposed penalties totaling $210,000.

“This employer continues to endanger its workers by failing to correct hazardous conditions and failing to implement an injury and illness prevention program,” said Robert Kulick, OSHA regional administrator in New York. “Such disregard for worker safety is unacceptable.”

In August of 2012, OSHA issued seven serious violations totaling $23,100 in fines. When OSHA inspectors returned, they found that the company had failed to abate hazards relating to implementing a continual and effective hearing conservation program for workers exposed to noise above 85 decibels. It also failed to develop and implement a lockout/tagout program to protect workers from dangerous machinery during servicing or maintenance and train employees on proper procedures.

What we can learn from this is that if your company is audited by OSHA, it is important to properly implement any corrective actions deemed necessary by OSHA. If you are having difficulty doing this or if you have any questions about the efficacy of any plans you have put in place, it might be a good idea to consult a qualified occupational safety and health auditing firm to assist.

If you have any questions about updating your safety and health programs at your facility, please contact us. If you have anything to add about this case or about working with occupational safety and health consulting firms, please leave a comment.

Auditing Lockout Tagout Procedures

Posted on by
Twitt

Creating lockout tagout procedures is never an easy task; it can be difficult to understand OSHA Standard 1910.147, confusing to maintain the procedures, and time consuming to update lockout tagout procedures. But something you can do to save some time and help protect your employees is to create an auditing schedule for your lockout tagout procedures. The auditing can be done in house or with the help of a qualified third party lockout tagout auditing firm, but it should always include certain, basic things.

For starters, the audit should review current OSHA policy to ensure nothing has changed since the last review. It is likely that you will be out of compliance is the regulations changed, and is the easiest way to find yourself facing a hefty fine from OSHA. The audit should also review what changes have happened within your company since the last audit. If any machinery or relevant personnel have changed, you will want to see what, if any, impact these changes have on your lockout tagout procedures. Finally, you want to inspect your placards and other associated visuals. If they are damaged, worn, or out of date, they need to be replaced.

But based upon your specific company needs, there can be many other things required during the audit, as well. For this reason, many companies hire a third party to maintain their lockout tagout procedures. And while this helps to ensure the company remains in compliance, it can also become quite expensive, and takes the company out of control of their own procedures.

For this reason, we created our Factory Solutions Software. It is an online program which tracks and monitors your lockout tagout procedures. It is fully customizable, fully scalable, and can be updated anywhere internet is available. It will notify you if there is a problem, and will help you in updating your procedures. So it keeps you in control, but gives you the peace of mind knowing your procedures are watched by a qualified third party lockout tagout auditing firm. It also serves as constant, real-time auditing, instead of moment-in-time auditing you get with a physical audit. When combined with physical, on-site third party safety audits, Factory Solutions Software helps to create the safest work environment possible for your employees.

If you have any questions about third party safety audits or our Factory Solutions Software, please contact us. And if you have anything to add about auditing lockout tagout procedures, please leave a comment.