Maximum Arresting Force (or M.A.F.) is a term you will hear frequently used in association with fall protection, so it’s better to understand the term before you encounter it (if you’ve already encountered it, better late than never!).  In simple terms, M.A.F. is exactly what it sounds like:...

As with most professions, Safety professionals often come into the field in positions where their responsibility is to focus on the day-to-day tasks of a jobsite or facility.  The “big picture” is left to somebody else, whether it’s the Corporate Safety Director or some other member of a...

According to the ADA Code of Federal Regulations, anytime your facility falls under one of two categories, ADA compliance is necessary. These categories are as follows:

This is the last and final article in a series that covers that basics of personal fall protection. First we took a look at anchor points, secondly we reviewed body harnesses, and now in this last article we look at the devices that connect the anchor and the harness.

We often focus here on what you need to do to keep your employees safe and to ensure your company is compliant with the law, but at some point in time, some of you are going to be involved in an OSHA inspection and the outcome may not be as favorable as you’d like.  In this post, we’re...

There are some things you can hand to somebody with no instructions and they’ll know how to use them: a pair of boots, a pair of gloves, safety glasses.  A fall protection harness is not one of these things.  To the untrained eye, a harness is just a jumble of straps and buckles with no...

We have all heard the story. OSHA comes into a factory or onto a construction site and things are such a mess they immediately shutdown all operations.  Work stops.  That steel beam being lifted into place by that crane?  Leave it hanging.  Those trucks full of concrete?  Let them go to...

Swing falls are not as fun as they might sound at first. In fact, in all seriousness, swing falls can be extremely dangerous. Unfortunately, many people, when working at heights, fail to take swing into consideration. So, just what is swing?

Swing is what occurs when...

Fear of falling is natural.  Once believed to occur only as a result of a traumatic experience, it has more recently become considered a condition you are born with.  Most people fear falling because – well – gravity.  We can’t fly.  We don’t bounce.  We fall, we land – sometimes...

Because stepladders are such a common tool, even in the home, it is often taken for granted that employees know how to properly use them.  This is a dangerous assumption.  Most people don’t thoroughly inspect their ladders at home and many wouldn’t know what to look for if they did.  Many...

In the first two articles on the Hierarchy of Controls, we discussed controls that were intended to mitigate hazards at their source either through elimination, substitution, or an engineering solution that made it so the employee was no longer exposed.  With administrative controls, we...

Safety training isn’t just a good idea; OSHA regulations require that your personnel be trained. Often, it is argued that training is unnecessary because the employee in question had many years of experience with the given work. Years of experience will mean that they most likely know how to...

In the last article, we discussed the first level of control when it comes to protecting employees from recognized hazards: elimination or substitution.  The concept, while possibly difficult to implement, was simple to understand.  Unfortunately, this second step, engineering...

Anytime you are tasked to keep someone safe from falling, one decision must be made first. Do I select a Passive System or Active System?

Understanding the difference between passive and active fall protection is a great place to start.

Things go wrong.  Equipment fails.  Accidents happen.  When discussing the inevitability of injuries in the workplace, these are reasons you will hear to argue against the belief that all incidents are preventable.  While a manufacturing defect could occur without forewarning, the vast...

Update: This post was updated in June of 2018 to align with the new Walking-Working Surface Rules posted by OSHA.

Warning line has received a bad reputation over time. Should it have? Maybe. Warning line is the equivalent of someone saying, "Hey, don’t go over there!" When I think of...

I recently wrote an article detailing how to ensure you are using your fall protection equipment properly.  If you are the inquisitive type, it may have left you asking the question, “How, exactly, does a safety harness work?”  In reality, there is a fairly simple answer to this question:...

Years ago, there was little choice of which type of fall protection you could use because there just wasn’t much variety available. More recently, though, manufacturers have made great strides in occupational safety technology. In fact, for almost every situation there is a...

Industrial Ergonomics: What Is It and Why Should I Be Concerned?

Ergonomics is defined as “the study of people’s efficiency in their working environment.” Yet in the world of health and safety, it tends to denote fitting a job or a task to a person. This is done for many reasons:...

When a company doesn’t plan ahead or take the time to do a job hazard analysis, unsafe work conditions can sneak up on them. This lack of diligence means that employers often reach for the “quick and easy” solution. That solution is usually Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)....

For many years now, falls have been the leading cause of death on construction sites.  From small residential projects to large commercial structures, people continue to add to the fatal fall statistic – regardless of the focus placed on this epidemic.  Sometimes this is the result of a...