Progressive Distributor

Fall foilage

By Paul Markgraff

More and more, distributors are in the business of reducing costs for customers. Hidden costs lie behind every machine, within each process, atop every ladder.

In May, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited one Alabama construction company for exposing workers to fall hazards. In the process of removing debris from a roof, an employee stepped through an unguarded skylight and fell 23 feet to a concrete floor.

OSHA issued citations and penalties totaling more than $106,000 for failing to properly guard roof edges and openings, failing to initiate and maintain an effective safety program and failing to provide employees with fall-protection training.

Distributors can help end-users eliminate these costs by suggesting proper fall protection measures and annual training programs.

Fall protection fundamentals
Employers and workers must understand three layers of fall protection: elimination, passive and active. In the ideal situation, employers should eliminate the need for someone to climb a ladder or scaffold to get at height. Changing a light bulb is a good example.

“Instead of setting up a ladder to get at a light in an industrial manufacturing facility, you would use a pole from the ground to change the bulb,” says Craig Firl, product manager for DBI/SALA & Protecta, a maker of fall protection equipment headquartered in Red Wing, Minn.

If you can’t eliminate the risk, recommend passive systems such as guardrails.

“If a passive system is not achievable for various reasons, you get into active fall systems,” says Firl. “This is where a person is wearing a harness. They have some type of attachment from the harness to an anchor point.”

Active systems generally include a full-body harness, which has evolved over the years to become the standard body component. Energy-absorbing lanyards, self-retracting reels or anything that keeps a worker securely attached to an anchor point are also required.

End-users can choose between restrained and fall-arrest systems. A worker is considered restrained when he wears a harness but uses a shorter lanyard to prevent him from reaching an edge where he might fall.

“If a person is working on a flat roof, wearing a harness and has an anchor point and lanyard that only allow him to get to the edge but not over, he is working under a restrained system,” says Firl.

In certain circumstances, workers require freedom of movement that puts them at risk for free fall, such as cleaning the side of a building, working atop an airplane fuselage or working at height on the job site. Some workers must also climb into confined spaces, where they may be overcome by fumes. In these situations, distributors should work with suppliers to research, plan and execute fall-arrest systems.

Typically for this type of application, the end-user needs a basic harness with a back-and-chest D-ring. That way, workers can hook the hoist to the front D-ring of the harness for raising and lowering and hook another emergency retrieval device to the back D-ring for rescue if something goes wrong, says Bob Apel, product line manager for MSA.

“Shoulder D-rings are also available,” he says. “You can use them in conjunction with a spreader bar and enter a very narrow hole in a standing position.”

It’s important to know the type of equipment end-users are working with, according to Ed Bickrest, marketing communications manager for Miller Fall Protection, a Bacou-Dalloz company. Distributors and end-users need to take into account how far a worker might fall, the height of the worker, the type of lanyard, the length of webbing, the anchor point and any rescue equipment.

“When you look at this stuff, you think a harness is a harness,” says Bickrest. “But there are a variety of tools you can use. Workers need training to know what type of equipment is best for an application.”

The more you know

Training end-users on properly using fall-protection systems is not only a great idea; it is required in some cases. Under OSHA standard 29 CFR 1910.146 (g)(1), also known as the Permit-Required Confined Space standard, employers must provide training in the use of fall protection equipment and certify that it has taken place.

Fortunately for distributors, many suppliers provide this type of training.

DBI/SALA provides a four-hour course that helps the end-user understand the basic equipment and regulations and how to use the equipment in a basic setting. However, the course can run as long as four days, where end-users receive detailed training on equipment, standards, regulations, problem solving, system set-up, rescue set-up and exams.

“The key is hands-on activities,” says Firl. “Not only does a person sit in a classroom and look at pictures, read about the equipment and hear lectures on it, but they wear the equipment, get at height, climb up into hazardous controlled situations and actually use the equipment to become competent and confident.”

Miller’s Bickrest says employees need to learn how to identify a hazard and where to use fall protection, and also need to know how to inspect gear, retractables, webbing and hardware.

“If there is a problem with the gear, the fall forces exerted during a fall can hurt somebody if their equipment isn’t functioning properly,” he says.

MSA provides custom training courses. MSA will visit the customer’s site, learn about the applications and modify its training curriculum to suit the customer’s daily needs.

“Sometimes it shortens the class, but it makes it more interesting for them because everything we’re talking about pertains to them,” says Apel.

Falling employees, climbing costs
In 2003, the number of nonfatal lost-worktime occupational injuries and illnesses from falls to a lower level reached 8,550, or about 24 falls per day, according to OSHA. More than one-third of those victims were out of work for more than 31 days.

In 2004, OSHA issued 5,680 violations of the fall protection standard, the third-most of any type of violation.

Falls don’t just produce injury and death; they produce enormous regulatory fines, skyrocketing insurance and workers’ compensation costs, and declining productivity. Distributors can help end-users eliminate these costs by taking an active role in informing them about the types of fall protection and training available.

Reach Paul Markgraff, associate editor of Progressive Distributor, at pmarkgraff@milomediapub.com.