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EMERGENCY SHOWERS & EYEWASH:Is Your Shower a Dangerous Trap? 18
INDUSTRIAL HYGIENE:Why Correlation Factors Matter 28
CHEMICAL SAFETY:GHS Adoption’s Disruptive Impact 47
MAY 2014 VOL. 83 NO. 5 | www.ohsonline.comBREAKTHROUGH STRATEGIES: BALANCING LEADERSHIP PERSPECTIVE
Conference Celebrates AIHA’s 75 Years
0514ohs_c1_v2.indd 1 4/10/14 1:40 PM
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FROM THE EDITOR
www.ohsonline.comVOLUME 83 NUMBER 5
EDITORIAL STAFF
EDITOR Jerry Laws
E-NEWS EDITOR Brent Dirks
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT TEAM Lindsay Page
Jamie Friedlander
Ginger Hill
ART STAFF
ART DIRECTOR Dale Chinn
PRODUCTION STAFF
DIRECTOR, PRINT AND ONLINE PRODUCTION David Seymour
PRODUCTION MANAGER Teresa Antonio
SALES STAFF
WEST DISTRICT SALES MANAGER Barbara Blake 972-687-6718
EAST DISTRICT SALES MANAGER Jenna Conwell 610-436-4372
SECURITY, SAFETY, AND HEALTH GROUP
PRESIDENT & GROUP PUBLISHER Kevin O’Grady
PUBLISHER Karen Cavallo
GROUP CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Margaret Perry
GROUP MARKETING MANAGER Susan May
GROUP WEBSITE MANAGER Scott Newhouse
GROUP WEBINAR ADMINISTRATOR Tammy Renne
PRESIDENT & Neal Vitale CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT & Richard Vitale CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT Michael J. Valenti
VICE PRESIDENT, Christopher M. Coates FINANCE & ADMINISTRATION
VICE PRESIDENT, Erik A. Lindgren INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT
VICE PRESIDENT, David F. Myers EVENT OPERATIONS
CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD Jeffrey S. Klein
REACHING THE STAFFEditors can be reached via e-mail, fax, telephone, or mail. A list of editors and contact information is at www.ohsonline.com.
Email: To e-mail any member of the staff please use the following form: [email protected].
Dallas Offi ce: (weekdays, 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. CT) Telephone: 972-687-6700; Fax: 972-687-679914901 Quorum Drive, Suite 425, Dallas, TX 75254
Corporate Offi ce: (weekdays, 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. PT) Telephone: 818-814-5200; Fax: 818-734-15229201 Oakdale Avenue, Suite 101, Chatsworth, CA 91311
4 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2014 www.ohsonline.com
Occupational Health & Safety (ISSN 0362-4064) is published monthly by 1105 Media, Inc., 9201 Oakdale Avenue, Ste. 101, Chatsworth, CA 91311. Periodicals postage paid at Chatsworth, CA 91311-9998, and at additional mailing offi ces. Complimentary subscriptions are sent to qualifying subscribers. Annual subscription rates payable in U.S. funds for non-qualifi ed subscribers are: U.S. $79.00, International $149.00. Subscription inqui-ries, back issue requests, and address changes: Mail to: Occupational Health & Safety, P.O. Box 2166, Skok-ie, IL 60076-7866, email [email protected] or call 847-763-9688. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Occupational Health & Safety, P.O. Box 2166, Skokie, IL 60076-7866. Canada Publications Mail Agreement No: 40612608. Return Undeliverable Canadian Addresses to Circulation Dept. or XPO Returns: P.O. Box 201, Richmond Hill, ON L4B 4R5, Canada.
© Copyright 2014 by 1105 Media, Inc. All rights re-served. Printed in the U.S.A. Reproductions in whole or part prohibited except by written permission. Mail requests to “Permissions Editor,” c/o Occupational Health & Safety, 14901 Quorum Dr., Ste. 425, Dallas, TX 75254.
The information in this magazine has not undergone any formal testing by 1105 Media, Inc. and is dis-tributed without any warranty expressed or implied. Implementation or use of any information contained herein is the reader’s sole responsibility. While the information has been reviewed for accuracy, there is no guarantee that the same or similar results may be achieved in all environments. Technical inaccuracies may result from printing errors and/or new develop-ments in the industry.
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Advancing AIHA’s Good Samaritan Project
The American Industrial Hygiene As-sociation’s government aff airs direc-tor, Aaron Trippler, hopes to make progress at next month’s AIHce
2014 conference on a commendable project: passing Good Samaritan state laws to protect qualifi ed occupational health and safety professionals who volunteer during emergen-cies. AIHA has been interested in this since the 9/11 attacks, which showed why the laws are needed. As Trippler explained in a February 2014 column in Th e Synergist, AIHA provided a list of more than 250 members who volunteered to help dur-ing the cleanup and recovery, but the city and state of New York raised liability concerns. It happened again aft er Hurri-cane Katrina.
Th e laws would shield vol-unteer CIHs, CSPs, and other qualifi ed safety and health pro-fessionals from liability for civil damages or penalties, other than gross negligence.
“Th ere’s been an awful lot of response [to his column] from our local sections, and I think that’s going to be key,” Trippler said in
an interview. He said he hopes to persuade the National Conference of State Legislatures to recommend a model Good Samaritan bill to states’ legislatures. It’s very important to keep this issue non-partisan and apolitical, he added.
“Th e one thing I try to tell people is, you don’t have to use this law. . . . If something does happen, it’s nice to have this in your back pocket,” Trippler said. “Should the need arise, you have it.”
He said he plans to discuss this issue when he speaks to AIHA’s Local Sections Council and to several volunteer com-mittees during the San Antonio conference, and he is asking local sections to arrange meet-ings for him to make the case to state legislators.
Many states provide this protection to engineers and architects. I agree that indus-trial hygienists and other safety and health professionals should have it, as well.
JERRY [email protected]
Many states pro-vide this protec-tion to engineers and architects. In-dustrial hygienists and other safety and health profes-sionals should have it, as well.
0514ohs_004_EdNote_v2.indd 4 4/10/14 1:18 PM
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TABLE OF CONTENTSMAY 2014 | Volume 83, Number 5 | www.ohsonline.com
6 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2014 www.ohsonline.com
features RESPIRATORY PROTECTION
14 A Comparison of Surgical Masks, Surgical N95 Respirators, and Industrial N95 RespiratorsThe most important thing to remember about surgical masks is that they are not designed to pass fi t tests. They protect the environment and nearby persons from the wearer’s contaminants. by Jeff rey Birkner
EMERGENCY SHOWERS & EYEWASH
18 Is Your Safety Shower a Dangerous Trap?Wise executives and managers ensure that, for the sake of their workers and their companies’ fi nancial health and reputation, all potential exposure is properly prepared for, with compliant equipment. by Michael R. Armatage
SPECIAL SECTION: INDUSTRIAL HYGIENE
24 Five Features to Look For in Your Next Gas MonitorIntegrating devices with fast response times into your gas detection toolkit contributes to a stronger safety culture. by Ed Ligus
28 Don’t Underestimate the Importance of LEL Correlation FactorsYour team’s safety depends on selecting the right correlation factor, calibration gas, and LEL sensor for your application. by Scott Jubeck
EMERGENCY RESPONSE TRAINING
32 Get Everyone on the Same PageEvery employee needs to be able to answer these six questions in an emergency. by Karen D. Hamel
AIHCE 2014 PREVIEW
34 Celebrating AIHA’s 75 YearsSan Antonio features gorgeous botanical gardens; res-taurants, bars, and galleries along the famed River Walk; SeaWorld San Antonio; Six Flags Fiesta Texas; and a wax museum. by Jamie Friedlander
COMBUSTIBLE DUST
42 Combustible Dust Basics: How to Collect a Sample and What Does a Go/No-Go Test Mean?Any activity that creates dust should be investigated to see whether there is a risk of that dust being combustible. by AnnMarie Fauske
HEARING PROTECTION
45 The Fit Testing RevolutionMore and more studies are coming out that document the benefi ts of ear plug fi t testing for industrial workers. by Jerry Laws
CHEMICAL SAFETY/SDS
47 GHS Adoption in the Face of DaubertUnfortunately, wholesale adoption of GHS hazard classifi cation system principles will disrupt various chemi-cal hazard assessment programs and heighten problems manufacturers and importers will face. by James M. Hofert, Daniel W. McGrath, and Frederick J. Ufk es
VISION PROTECTION
50 Choosing the Best Protective EyewearSafety glasses selection seems so simple on the surface, but many factors should infl uence the choice. by Mike Myrick
departments4 From the Editor
10 Newsline
36 AIHce 2014 New Products
52 Practical Excellence
by Shawn Galloway53 New Products
54 Product Spotlights
56 Literature Library
56 Classifi eds
57 Advertiser Index
58 Breakthrough Strategies
by Robert Pater
Find OHS on:Twitter http://twitter.com/OccHealthSafetyFacebook http://facebook.com/ohsmagLinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/company/ occupational-health-and-safety-magazine
PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
34
MC
R S
AFETY
50
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WORKRITE.COM855-855-2785
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CIRCLE 18 ON CARD
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www.ohsonline.com
TABLE OF CONTENTSMAY 2014 | Volume 83, Number 5 | www.ohsonline.com
8 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2014 www.ohsonline.com
Circle 5 on card.
Some Progress on Healthy People 2020 Goals
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued an update in March showing how far the nation has ad-vanced—or fallen back—on the 26 Leading Health Indicators of Healthy People 2020, the 10-year campaign to improve Americans’ health. The good news: Four indicators have met their targets and 10 others are improving. The bad news: Eight indicators (including LHIs for access to health services, nutrition/physical activity/obesity, substance abuse, and tobacco use) are showing little or no change for the better, and three others are getting worse.
Safety and Health Social Media: Who’s in Top Ten?OH&S Editor Jerry Laws surveys the landscape of workplace safety and occupational health organizations’ social media and offers a short list of the best current sites to track.
NTSB Urges Action on Truckers’ Blind Spots and Underride Protection
Seven safety recommendations the board directed in April to David Friedman, NHTSA’s acting administrator, concern the safety of tractor-trailers. Some recommendations urge NHTSA to take steps to reduce high fatality rates among “vulnerable road users”—pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists.
HEALTH
Y PEOPLE 2
02
0/H
HS
0514ohs_006_008_TOC_v2.indd 8 4/10/14 1:33 PM
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CIRCLE 11 ON CARD
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NEWSLINE
ADVISORY BOARDJoe E. Beck
Professor, Environmental Health ScienceEastern Kentucky University
Richmond, Ky.
Leo J. DeBobes, MA (OH&S), CSP, CHCM, CPEA, CSC, EMT
Stony Brook University Medical CenterStony Brook, NY
Scott LawsonThe Scott Lawson Companies
Concord, N.H.
Angelo Pinheiro, CSP, CRSP, CPEASenior HES ProfessionalMarathon Oil Company
Houston, Texas
William H. Weems, DrPH, CIHDirector, Environmental & Industrial Programs
University of Alabama College of Continuing StudiesTuscaloosa, Ala.
Barry R. Weissman, MBA, REM, CSP, CHMM, CHS-V, CIPS
Corporate Manager — Health & SafetyBenjamin Moore Paint Co.
Flanders, N.J.
Henry WrightVice President & Manager - Risk Control
BB&T Insurance Services Inc.Charlotte, N.C.
www.ohsonline.com
10 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2014 www.ohsonline.com
On the MoveTh e National Safety Council’s board chair-man on March 11 announced the appoint-ment of Deborah A.P. Hersman as the council’s president and CEO. Hersman, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board since 2009 and an NTSB board member since 2004, will be joining NSC at its headquarters in Itasca, Ill., ac-cording to an NSC release. “Debbie is a rec-ognized leader in safety, with a front-line understanding of the value of protecting human life through thoughtful attention and management of risk,” said Jeff Wood-bury, chairman of the NSC board of direc-tors. “Her proven leadership and expertise made her the ideal candidate to take the council successfully into its second centu-ry.” “I am thrilled to have the opportunity to lead an organization dedicated to saving lives and preventing injuries,” Hersman said. “Th e National Safety Council vision of ‘making our world safer’ has the potential to improve every workplace, every commu-nity, and the way we travel every day.” . . .
Alsip, Ill.-based Scientifi c Dust Collectors is off ering a free, 120-page manual, “A Sci-entifi c Review of Dust Collection – Second Edition.” Th is edition contains new sec-tions on explosion vents and system design, reviews the application of all types of dust collection equipment, and discusses cur-rent state-of-the-art technologies. Request a copy at www.scientifi cdustcollectors.com or call 708-597-7090. . . . Dave Biddle has joined curavita (www.curavitallc.com), an Atlanta-based worker’s compensation company that coordinates clinical care for critically injured employees, with the title senior vice president of sales and market-ing. He manages curavita’s sales force, new business development, marketing, and product development. “With his business acumen and solid understanding of the worker’s compensation marketplace, Dave is a great asset to curavita and our clients,” Principal Mike Marsau said. . . . Health &
Safety Institute (www.hsi.com) appointed Brian M. Boothby as vice president of sales, overseeing the sales team represent-ing the American Safety & Health Insti-tute, MEDIC First Aid, Summit Training Source, EMP Canada, and the 24-7 EMS and 24-7 Fire training programs and ser-vices brands. Boothby is a former vice pres-ident of sales for Offi ceMax who held se-nior leadership roles for both Verizon and Sutherland Global Services. “Brian brings the skills and nationwide experience to help HSI expand our products and services to a Fortune 500 customer base, as well as building our internal and external sales teams,” said HSI CEO Bill Clendenen. “We’re looking forward to an accelerated rate of growth beginning in 2014 and will rely on Brian’s leadership to deliver our new products and technologies to a much broader market share.” . . . Capital Safety launched a new website in February. A year in the making, the new and improved www.CapitalSafety.com is a premier resource for fall protection equipment and information, with smarter search capabilities and faster downloads, according to the company’s an-nouncement. . . . Humantech recently ap-pointed Kay ArDilonge as manager of business development, responsible for the corporate sales of Ergopoint®, the Ann Ar-bor, Mich.-based company’s online ergo-nomics training and e-learning solution for offi ce and laboratory environments. Previ-ously, ArDilonge was an offi ce ergonomics assessment specialist for Fortune 500 com-panies and a Steelcase sales representative. . . . WinWholesale, a Dayton, Ohio-based wholesale distributor of residential, com-mercial, and industrial supplies and materi-als, appointed Rob Ferguson as area leader for four Midwestern states. He is based in Kansas City, Mo., and is responsible for overseeing the growth and operation of 42 Win companies in Illinois, Kansas, Mis-souri, and Nebraska that represent the Win-nelson, Winair, Winlectric, Winsupply, Winwater Works, and Winpump brands. Ferguson was president of Grandview Win-nelson in Grandview, Mo., before joining the WinWholesale organization in 2005.
Business Moves■ Entrematic North America opened the Entrematic Academy, a new, 6,000-square-foot customer education facility, in Carroll-
ton, Texas, in early March. More than 60 products from fi ve brands—Amarr, Kelley, Serco, Dynaco, and Ditec—are set up for demonstrations in the facility, where Kelley and Serco HVLS fans also are assembled.
During the fi rst week, 84 representatives of distributors from the United States and Mexico toured the facility, which functions as “a one-stop shop for entrance automa-tion,” said Kelley and Serco marketing com-munications Manager Michael Brittingham and Maria Bergving, vice president of mar-keting & communications for Assa Abloy Entrance Systems, the biggest division of parent company Assa Abloy. Entrematic North America is the independent distribu-tor network of Entrance Systems.
For more information, visit www.entrematic.us/.
ENTR
EMATIC
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RTH
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ICA
0514ohs_010_012_Newsline_v4.indd 10 4/10/14 1:20 PM
® and TM are registered trademarks owned by Ansell Limited or one of its affiliates. © 2014 Ansell Limited. All Rights Reserved.Products that provide “abrasion resistance” or “abrasion protection” do not completely prevent or eliminate the potential for abrasion-related injuries. Products that provide “resistance” to oil or grease or which are “oil repellant” do not completely prevent or eliminate the potential for oil or liquid penetration or absorption. Products that provide protection or resistance against heat or cold are not intended for use in extreme temperatures - use only as specified.
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CIRCLE 32 ON CARD
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NEWSLINE
12
■ Th e DPA Buying Group, based in Cincinnati, recently welcomed seven dis-tributors to its safety products division: Coastal Industrial, LTD. (Hampton, Va.), Environmental Safety Sales & Rentals (Ea-sley, S.C.), G/A Safety & Industrial Supply (Roanoke, Va.), Jireh International, Inc. (Ashland, Va.), Quality Safety Products, LLC (Fenton, Mo.), Safety Plus Interna-tional, LLC (St. Cloud, Fla.), and Safety Re-source, Inc. (Rock Hill, S.C.). In addition, Ergodyne in February announced a part-nership with DPA Buying Group, which is a buying and networking organization for suppliers and distributors in several sectors, including jan/san, safety & cloth-ing, cleaning & restoration, and packaging. “Joining forces with DPA Buying Group is a smart and important decision for us,” said Mark Lindstrom, senior vice president of sales at Ergodyne. “We are excited to make our Tenacious Work Gear® available to this important, growing membership.”
■ Fauske & Associates LLC has opened what the company described as a state-of-the-art combustible dust hazards testing lab and education center in Hous-ton, and the company contracted Deandrea
“Dee” Woody as a representative for the Houston area. “Dee has a history of provid-ing timely, client-focused support to oil and gas companies in the Houston area through her work as a trainer. She is embedded in the local business community and will be an important asset to FAI’s growing pres-ence in the area,” said Jeff Griffi n, direc-tor of Sales & Business Development for Fauske & Associates.
■ Memphis-based Radians® an-nounced a new partnership with Bob Dale Gloves Company, an Edmonton-based, family-owned company, under which Bob Dale Gloves will distribute Radians’ safety gear lines, including the DEWALT® and Black & Decker® brands, through-out Canada. Bob Dale Gloves operates a 110,000-square-foot distribution center in Alberta, and the partnership allows Cana-dian customers to access these brands more easily through an “in country” warehouse.
Craig Baker, managing director of hardware sales for Radians, will lead the sales eff ort on behalf of Radians where re-tailers are concerned.
■ Th e Animal Medical Center, a lead-ing academic veterinary hospital that is
located in New York City, recently select-ed closed system transfer devices made by Equashield (www.equashield.com) to reduce staff ers’ exposure to hazardous drugs. Th e hospital switched from a com-peting medical device aft er a successful two-month trial of Equashield’s devices.
■ Two leading health and wellness companies recently united when Inter-active Health, a Schaumburg, Ill.-based provider of outcomes-based wellness pro-grams, acquired Health Solutions, an Ow-ings Mills, Md.-based provider of on-site wellness services.
Th eir announcement said the acquisi-tion creates the largest U.S.-based indepen-dent company off ering integrated work-place wellness solutions.
“Th e workplace wellness industry con-tinues to experience tremendous growth, and organizations realize that improving employee health provides a strategic busi-ness advantage,” said Joseph O’Brien, president and CEO of Interactive Health. Charlie Estey, Interactive Health’s execu-tive vice president of business develop-ment, previously served as president of Health Solutions.
Circle 43 on card. Circle 50 on card.
0514ohs_010_012_Newsline_v4.indd 12 4/10/14 1:20 PM
RESPIRATORY PROTECTION
14 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2014 www.ohsonline.com
It is easy to confuse a surgical mask, a surgical N95 respirator, and an industrial N95 disposable res-pirator with one another. Th ey look similar, and the words “respirator” and “mask” are oft en used
interchangeably when discussing respiratory pro-tection. However, in fact there are many diff erences between them. Th is article is intended to educate the reader on the diff erences between surgical masks, sur-gical N95 respirators, and industrial N95 respirators.
Purpose or Intended UseSurgical masks
■ May include masks labeled as surgical, laser, isolation, dental, or medical procedure masks.
■ Are primarily intended to protect the patient, not the wearer, from the wearer’s saliva and respira-tory secretions.
■ May also help protect the wearer against expo-sure to microorganisms, body fl uids, and large par-ticles in the air but are not tight fi tting and likely have
substantial inward leakage for particles and organisms.■ Are designed to cover the mouth and nose
loosely but are not sized for individual fi t.■ Are not NIOSH (National Institute for Occu-
pational Safety and Health) approved.
Surgical N95 respirators ■ Surgical N95 respirators are designed to reduce
but cannot eliminate the wearer’s exposure to air-borne biological contaminants. Th ey do not eliminate the risk of illness, disease, or death.
■ Form a tight seal over the mouth and nose.■ Require fi t-testing and must be adjusted to
your face to provide the intended eff ectiveness of fi l-tering 95 percent of particles with a mass median di-ameter of 0.3 micrometers.
■ Employers and users are required to follow the OSHA Respiratory Protection Standard, 29 CFR 1910.134, as well as other state or local regulations, as appropriate.
■ Have specifi c use instructions, warnings, and limitations for use in health care environments.
■ Are NIOSH certifi ed.■ Are fl uid resistant to a certifi ed level mea-
sured against a stream of artifi cial blood directed at the respirator.
Industrial N95 respirators■ Are designed to reduce but cannot eliminate
the wearer’s exposure against certain airborne par-ticles and aerosols free of oil.
■ Form a tight seal over the mouth and nose. ■ Employers and users are required to follow
the OSHA Respiratory Protection Standard, 29 CFR 1910.134, as well as other state or local regulations, as appropriate.
■ Th ese respirators (without valves) also can help prevent exhalation of contamination by the wearer to others in the work environment.
■ Require fi t-testing and must be adjusted to your face to provide the intended eff ectiveness of fi l-tering 95 percent of particles with mass median diam-eter of 0.3 micrometers.
■ Have specifi c use instructions, warnings, and limitations for use in industrial environments.
■ Are NIOSH certifi ed.■ Are not certifi ed to be fl uid resistant.
A Comparison of Surgical Masks,Surgical N95 Respirators, and Industrial N95 RespiratorsThe most important thing to remember about surgical masks is that they are not designed to pass a fi t test. Their purpose is to help protect the environment and nearby persons from the wearer’s contaminants.BY JEFFREY BIRKNER
MO
LDEX-M
ETRIC
, INC
.
0514ohs_014_016_Birkner_v5.indd 14 4/10/14 1:21 PM
www.ohsonline.com MAY 2014 | Occupational Health & Safety 15
Approval and Certifi cationSurgical masks
Th e U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clears surgi-cal masks for sale in the United States. FDA does not test and cer-tify the respirator. Instead, they clear the respirator for sale aft er reviewing the manufacturer’s test data and proposed claims. Th e manufacturer performs and submits the results from several tests, including particle fi ltration effi ciency, bacterial fi lter effi ciency, fl uid resistance, etc.
Th e particulate fi lter effi ciency gives an indication of the quality of the health care surgical mask. However, this rating is completely diff erent and far less rigorous than the NIOSH N95 fi lter effi ciency rating and should not be used as a comparison between the two.
Surgical N95 respiratorsSurgical N95 respirators are approved by NIOSH as to their
respiratory protection effi ciency and resistance and other NIOSH requirements. Th ey are also separately cleared by FDA as medical devices. FDA clears surgical masks for sale in the United States but does not test and certify the respirator. Instead, the agency clears the respirator for sale aft er reviewing the manufacturer’s test data and proposed claims. Th e manufacturer performs and submits the results from several tests, including particle fi ltration effi ciency, bacterial fi lter effi ciency, fl uid resistance, etc.
Th e biological fi lter effi ciency gives an indication of the quality of the health care surgical mask. However, this rating is completely diff erent and far less rigorous than the NIOSH fi lter effi ciency rat-ing and should not be used as a comparison between the two. Sur-gical N95 respirators and N95 industrial respirators share the same NIOSH requirements. NIOSH also has other effi ciency certifi ca-tion levels for industrial respirators (see below).
Industrial respirators (including industrial N95 respirators) and Surgical N95 respirators
In the United States, NIOSH is responsible for testing and certify-ing respirators to be used in the workplace. NIOSH not only reviews the manufacturer’s test data, but also performs its own independent tests on the respirators in NIOSH’s governmental laboratories to verify the manufacturer’s results. Th e tests include fi lter effi ciency, degradation, and fl ow rate, to name a few. In addition to testing the respirators during the submittal process, NIOSH also will periodi-cally purchase respirators in the fi eld and test them to make sure the respirators are performing to their original certifi cation.
Once the respirator is initially approved, NIOSH will certify its classifi cation as N, R, or P and its fi lter effi ciency as 95 percent, 99 percent, or 99.97 percent. It is also important to note that even though a respirator just by its use oft en helps to prevent the wearer from contaminating the environment, it cannot be considered a surgical mask unless it has been cleared by the FDA.
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16 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2014 www.ohsonline.com
RESPIRATORY PROTECTION
FitSurgical masks
Th e most important thing to remember about surgical masks is that they are not designed to pass a fi t test. As explained above, their purpose is to help protect the environment and other nearby per-sons from the wearer’s contaminants. When many surgical masks are worn, they will have gaps around the edges that allow many small particles to enter the respiratory system of the wearer. Even tighter-fi tting surgical masks will have some gaps that allow small particles to enter the wearer’s respiratory system.
Surgical N95 and Industrial N95 respiratorsRespirators are designed to seal the respirator to the face and pass
a fi t test. Under Respiratory Protection Standard 29 CFR 1910.134, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires the wearer of a respirator to be fi t tested before he or she can use the respirator in a contaminated environment. OSHA also requires the wearer to perform user seal checks on the respirator before each use, as well as comply with the other elements of a comprehensive re-spiratory protection program in accordance with 29 CFR 1910.134.
If the wearer is unable to obtain a proper fi t, he or she must not enter the contaminated area. For more information on this stan-dard, visit the OSHA website, www.osha.gov.
A properly fi t-tested N95 respirator will greatly reduce the number of small particles that will enter the wearer’s respiratory
system, as compared to a surgical mask that is not NIOSH ap-proved. Th e extent of that reduction is a function of the fi t of the mask, its fi ltration effi ciency level (with respirators available from 95 percent to 99.97 percent fi lter effi ciency), and the wearer’s prop-er donning and wearing of the respirator according to the training the employer provides as required by OSHA regulations.
Length of WearSurgical masks
While each facility has its own policy, surgical masks in general are discarded aft er each procedure. Th ey are typically worn only for specifi c procedures.
Surgical N95 and Industrial N95 respiratorsRespirators must be put on and taken off in an area outside of
the contaminated area. Putting a respirator on or taking it off even for a few seconds in a contaminated area can expose the wearer to signifi cant levels of hazards. Each facility has its own policy on dis-posal of the respirator, depending on use conditions and the type of hazard that these products are being used to protect against.
Jeff rey Birkner, Ph.D., CIH, is Vice President - Technical Services & Quality Assurance for Moldex-Metric, Inc., a leading manufac-turer of hearing and respiratory protection equipment. For more information, visit www.moldex.com.
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EMERGENCY SHOWERS & EYEWASH
18 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2014 www.ohsonline.com
Does an operation that you are responsible for require the availability of safety showers for your workers? If you have provided safety showers, do they meet current required
and commonly accepted standards for safety shower and eyewash equipment? If you have provided safety showers and directed your workers to use the show-ers if needed, but your equipment does not provide the treatment currently required by governmental regula-tory bodies, recommended by treatment experts, and incorporated into up-to-date industry-standard equip-ment, you may be setting a dangerous trap for your workers and a costly liability trap for your company.
Merriam-Webster defi nes the word danger as ex-posure or liability to injury, pain, harm, or loss.1
Do you have antiquated equipment that has an appearance of compliance but actually delivers sub-standard treatment? Just as not providing required, compliant emergency treatment equipment is unwise, presenting inadequate equipment as compliant and eff ective is foolishly short-sighted. In the event of a serious chemical accident, workers are likely to seek out the emergency treatment equipment they have been instructed to use. If such equipment is substan-dard, the workers may fi nd themselves without proper treatment and thereby be subjected to unnecessary injury, pain, harm, or loss. Th e company responsible for workplace safety compliance may fi nd itself in a similar situation, but rather than physical injury, pain, harm, or loss, it may be legal and fi nancial. It is a well-established principle of employment law that the em-ployer-employee relationship includes a duty on the part of the employer to use ordinary care in providing a safe workplace.2
It has been established that this duty is part of the employer-employee relationship.3
Of course, the standard of ordinary care changes as the years fl y by. Decades ago, a working garden hose may have been considered suffi cient preparation for a chemical accident and then, for years, a basic cold-water pipe shower/eyewash was considered ad-equate preparation. But in today’s world of sophisti-cated solutions, based on hard-won experience, such simple, ineff ective preparation won’t do. We can and are required to do better for our workers.
Naturally, workers rely on management to make the proper provisions for emergency treatment. It is management’s responsibility to know and comply with current treatment preparation requirements and to acquire emergency response equipment that will provide such treatment. Safety showers and eyewash-es are an important element of treatment preparation.
Wise executives and managers ensure that, for the sake of their workers and their companies’ fi nancial health and reputation, all potential exposure is prop-erly prepared for, with compliant equipment.
Let’s suppose someone is working in a warehouse and in the course of his normal duties grabs his left arm, expresses intense pain, and falls to the fl oor unconscious. A supervisor and the team start CPR procedures while waiting for the ambulance. Once it arrives, the EMTs immediately start to try to stabilize the victim, with some success, but it’s clear that the victim needs intensive medical care. Th e victim is quickly loaded into the ambulance and the driver goes “code three”—lights and siren—toward the hospital to try to save the victim. Unfortunately, the transmission of the ambulance gets stuck in fi rst gear. No amount of eff ort to manipulate the transmission succeeds in getting the ambulance to go faster.
In our hypothetical situation, let’s suppose that the victim did suff er a heart attack and died en route to the hospital. Th e delay in getting the victim to proper treatment is identifi ed by medical experts as having contributed to his death. Was it reasonable for the ambulance company to provide a properly working ambulance? Can the ambulance company say, with credibility, that it provided the required emergency treatment and response equipment if their equipment wasn’t working properly? Was anyone in the ambu-lance company aware the ambulance had issues? For the sake of our point, let’s suppose the ambulance company’s management knew this specifi c vehicle or their fl eet in general had fi tness-for-duty issues. What kind of liability would the company face if the victim’s loved ones pursued legal action?
Now, let’s look at a not-so-unlikely hypotheti-cal situation. A company uses sodium hydroxide at a somewhat remote location. During a delivery of so-dium hydroxide in January, the delivery driver decides to be lax on PPE compliance. During the download, the hose connection from the delivery truck to the storage tank fails and a signifi cant amount of sodium hydroxide is sprayed onto the worker, who screams in pain as the sodium hydroxide starts eating eye tissue and through clothing to outer layers of skin. It quickly burns through fi rst layers and into third degree burn territory. Fortunately, a team member is not far away and comes to help, knowing there is a heat-traced safety shower nearby, and he helps the victim to the shower. Even though the ambient temperature is only 5 degrees F, the activation handle is pushed and the shower starts.
Unfortunately, while the shower is not frozen up, this safety shower does not provide “tepid” water.
Is Your Safety Shower a Dangerous Trap?BY MICHAEL R. ARMATAGE
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20 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2014 www.ohsonline.com
EMERGENCY SHOWERS & EYEWASH
Also, over the years the fl ow has become restricted by corrosion inside the pipe. Th e treatment the victim receives is a low fl ow of 42-degree water. As the co-worker tries to keep the victim in the drench, the co-worker is also being contaminated with sodium hy-droxide. A struggle ensues as the co-worker tries to hold the victim under the cold water, while the victim struggles between the pain of the burns and the extreme discomfort of the very cold water. Neither the victim nor the co-worker can stand the cold water very long, so they wind up going in and out of a slow-fl ow drench.
Th e end result is that the primary victim suff ers severe, disfi gur-ing burns and the co-worker suff ers disfi guring burns to his hands. Was it reasonable and required for the company to furnish a prop-erly working safety shower with “tepid” water that would produce the proper and required emergency treatment? Was management at the company or the delivery company aware the safety shower water fl ow and water temperature did not meet the ANSI Z358.1 20094 standard? Bear in mind that, in addition to civil damages, criminal sanctions can be imposed for gross negligence, under certain circumstances.5 While the ambulance scenario is unlikely, substandard safety showers are, unfortunately, all too common at many actual sites with chemical exposure risk.
It is well known that OSHA bears the primary responsibility of regulating and enforcing workplace safety. In the case of safety showers and eyewashes, this OSHA power has taken form in 29 CFR 1910.151(c): “Where the eyes or body of any person may be exposed to injurious corrosive materials, suitable facilities for quick
drenching or fl ushing of the eyes and body shall be provided within the work area for immediate emergency use.” Th e best way to de-termine whether a substance qualifi es as an “injurious corrosive material” is to access the Safety Data Sheet, while the best place to fi nd the most commonly accepted interpretation and amplifi ca-tion of the above OSHA statute is in the 2009 revision of the ANSI standard for safety showers and eyewashes, ANSI Z358.1-2009. Not only must organizations provide required and compliant safety equipment for their workers, but also a failure of equipment to per-form as required is in itself an actionable wrong.
Michael Armatage ([email protected]) is director of Safety Shower Sales and EPC Specialist for Alpine Technical Services of Midvale, Utah.
Circle 25 on card.
REFERENCES1. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/danger, Merriam-Webster, accessed March 26, 2014.
2. I.M. Werner v. Colwell, 909 S.W.2d 866, 869 (Tex. 1995), LexisNexis, accessed March 28, 2014.
3. Missouri, Kan. & Tex. Ry. v. Hannig, 91 Tex. 347, 43 S.W. 508, 510 (Tex. 1897), LexisNexis, accessed March 28, 2014.
4. http://webstore.ansi.org/RecordDetail.aspx?sku=ANSI%2fISEA+Z358.1-2009, American National Standards Institute website, accessed March 31, 2014.
5. Ibid. 29 U.S.C. § 651(b)(3) (1982), LexisNexis, accessed March 26, 2014.
0514ohs_018_022_Alpine_v3.indd 20 4/10/14 1:22 PM
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•CIRCLE 29 ON CARD
22 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2014 www.ohsonline.com
EMERGENCY SHOWERS & EYEWASH
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EMERGENCY RESPONSE PROTECTION AGAINST HYPOTHERMIAby Kathryn Hess, Haws Corporation marketing manager
OSHA defi nes hypothermia as a cold-temperature-related injury in which normal body temperature drops to or below 95 de-grees F/35 degrees C. Symptoms include drowsiness or fatigue, bluish skin, uncontrollable shivering, slurred speech, and clumsy movements. Exposed fl esh in 0 degrees F/17.8 degrees C with a 10 mph wind speed is in danger of hypothermia within one minute. Permanent tissue damage and death can result if hypothermia is left untreated.
Specifi c conditions in cold-weather climates can increase the risk of these injuries; hypothermia can affect a person even when land temperatures are above freezing or water temperatures are below 98.6 degrees F/37 degrees C. Factors infl uencing these injuries include: low ambient temperatures and/or wind chill; wet skin, which freezes at a higher temper-ature than dry skin; and exposed skin. While the ANSI Z358.1 Standard outlines suitable water temperatures as tepid—with a defi ned range of 60 to 100 degrees F/15.5 to 37.77 degrees C—and requires a full 15-minute drench period, the low end of this accepted temperature range can exacerbate the effects of hypothermia, particularly when exposure lasts the entire drench period. As a side note, an average residential shower temperature is 106 degrees F/41.1 degrees C.
Constant tepid water is essential to ensuring that an injured worker remains under the shower or submersed into an eyewash for the required 15 minute use cycle. Cutting short on the required time risks less than complete removal of the hazardous material, as well as failure to adequately cool the area affected by a chemical burn, for example. In addition, ANSI Z358.1 Appendix B6 states: Colder ambient temperatures might require an enclosure for added protection—even with water supplied in the ANSI Z358-specifi ed temperature range, there is a high risk of hypothermia for wet victims exposed to frigid ambient temperatures where loss of body heat is intensifi ed by the effects of evaporative cooling and wind chill.
Evaluating the proper, ANSI-compliant enclosed safety solutions for your climates is an important fi rst step in determin-ing the right solution. Features specifi c to equipment intended for use in cold-weather climates include combination units enclosed in robust tempering booths with all-weather insulation; durable, water-proof exterior coating; self-closing shower doors; reliable built-in heaters; instantaneous internal hot water supply; and a medically superior, non-injurious water fl ow. All of these help with ANSI compliance and qualify as industry best practices.
0514ohs_018_022_Alpine_v3.indd 22 4/10/14 1:22 PM
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24 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2014 www.ohsonline.com
When purchasing a gas monitor, you should think of it like buying a family car. You want the model that comes standard with premium safety features and functionalities that will keep your family or
frontline workers safest when they enter the open road or jungle of hazardous gases. But how do you identify the right gas moni-tor for you and your workers that will promote safety and save you time and money, in an increasingly crowded marketplace fi lled with ever-evolving options? Developing a baseline under-standing of the most essential features and functionalities that will provide workers the greatest sense of security will put you on track to identifying a potential lifesaver—not a lemon.
Th e following are fi ve of the most important aspects to assess when purchasing your fi rst, or next, gas monitor.
1. Accuracy. It says it’s “accurate,” but what does that really mean? If a product tells you it’s accurate, your assumption is that it off ers the greatest precision and that results will not be skewed in a way that can impact safety. However, when it comes to gas monitors, accuracy is open to each manufacturer’s interpretation.
Offi cially, accuracy is a statement expressed as a percentage of the closeness of the reading on the gas monitor to the actual concentration; many manufacturers use this as an umbrella term representative of much more, including resolution and sensitiv-ity. It is also at the manufacturer’s discretion as to whether “ac-curacy” encompasses a specifi c portion of the reading, the full scale, or something else entirely.
To acquire the most comprehensive insight into how the de-vice will perform when used on your work site, it is important to review the following separately:
■ Accuracy: Typically listed with a plus or minus 5 percent, it is associated with a confi dence interval of 95 percent. Th is means in 95 out of 100 results, the readings should be within plus or minus 5 percent of the actual gas concentration. It is important to understand the device’s measuring range to de-termine whether or not the reading could be close to an actual concentration or completely off the mark.
■ Resolution: Th is refers to the reading in the display of the monitor. Typically, sensors should have a resolution fi ner than the accepted occupational exposure limit for the target gas so as to assure the user that readings fall reliably within accuracy specifi cations.
■ Sensitivity: Indicates to the lowest detectable reading that can be reliably measured and displayed. It is an absolute quantity
of the gas that can be detected.Why should you “review these elements separately”? Be-
cause they all are diff erent and have varying implications on how the device will perform within your work site conditions. By reviewing each of these individual metrics, you will be in a stronger position to select a gas monitor that will help you optimize on-site safety.
2. Understanding cross-sensitivities. In order to fully ac-cept your gas monitor’s reading as accurate, it’s important to be aware of, and to take into account, which work site hazards may produce “off gases” or unforeseen consequences that could potentially aff ect the performance of your selected gas moni-tor. Manufacturers attempt to design sensors for a specifi c gas or vapor, however, quite oft en the target gas is not the only gas detected by the sensor as a result of cross-sensitivity (a sensor’s reaction to an interfering gas).
Cross-sensitivity can result in either positively or negatively skewed results. For example, positively skewed results can lead to the belief that there is too much of the target gas present, which will result in the implementation of preventative mea-sures such as increasing ventilation or removing the gas hazard. While these additional precautions are not harmful to workers, they are unnecessary exercises that decrease worker productivity and increase operating costs due to the extra time and equip-ment required to obtain a true reading. Negative eff ects pro-duced by cross-sensitivities may cause workers to believe the in-strument has malfunctioned or, in a worst-case scenario, cancel out the reading of the target gas. Th e negative eff ect created by the unintentionally detected gas lessens the amount of informa-tion provided to workers, thus potentially creating an even more dangerous situation that can be life threatening.
To assess how your selected device will react to cross-sensi-tivity, review the list of known cross-sensitive agents included in the gas monitor’s instructions for use. While doing so, it is important to keep in mind that not every potential interfering gas may be included; so when in doubt, always ask the manu-facturer about the how the monitor may respond to interfering gases found within your work site.
Filters are also another solution to preventing or reducing the eff ects of cross-sensitivity. For example, many SO2 fi lters are cross-sensitive to H2S, so a multi-gas monitor with an H2S and SO2 sensor will give erroneous readings for SO2 due to H2S in-terference. Th e solution is the addition of an H2S selective fi lter to the SO2 sensor.
Ultimately, the best way to prevent interference from outly-ing gases is to be aware of all agents associated with each test site and their eff ects on readings when detected. Th is will aid in purchasing a gas detector suitable for your intended use and environment, as well as in identifying which additional fi lters
Five Features to Look For in Your Next Gas MonitorIntegrating devices with fast response times into your gas detection toolkit contributes to a stronger safety culture.By Ed Ligus
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26 www.ohsonline.com
are necessary to prevent falsely enhanced readings.
3. Buying “reliable” saves money and lives. As mentioned in the family car scenario, it only makes sense to invest in a product that will protect your family time and time again. Th e same goes for gas monitors.
4. A fast response can prevent acci-dents. Speed saves in the oil and gas in-dustry, especially when it comes to sensor response time because it allows workers to be alerted to unseen hazards as quickly as possible. Fast response time (t90) re-
fers to the time it takes for the monitor to display 90 percent of the actual concen-tration. Th is is a critical consideration in selecting a gas monitor that will help you make safety a work site priority.
Vividly illustrating the importance of rapid sensor speed is the following sce-nario showcasing the diff erence between a sensor with a t90 time of 15 seconds and a sensor with a t90 time of 25-40 seconds during an H2S event:
As H2S gas is simultaneously intro-duced to the two monitors, neither mon-itor will react initially. It is only aft er a
few seconds that the instrument with a t90 time of 15 seconds will begin to reg-ister a gas amount, while the device with a t90 time of 25-40 seconds will have yet to display a digital readout. Th e monitor with t90 time of 15 seconds will con-tinue to display numbers until it reaches 10 ppm, while the device with longer t90 time remains blank, despite being ex-posed to the same concentration of gas for the same duration of time. Th e work-er wearing this device will start to suff er from a decreased level of oxygen in the blood and decreased level of muscle ac-tivity. Th e worker will experience these eff ects for a total of 10 seconds without the alarm sounding to warn of the dan-gerous H2S level.
Aft er one minute and 35 seconds of gas exposure, the device with the 15-sec-ond t90 time will measure 15 ppm and go into an A2 alarm, alerting the worker of the dangerous conditions and allowing evacuation of the contaminated area. An additional 42 seconds will pass before the monitor with a t90 time of 25-40 seconds will alert the wearer to dangerous gas lev-els, during which time symptoms such as eye irritation, headache, dizziness, nau-sea, throat and eye irritation, coughing, and breathing diffi culty may develop. Ad-ditionally, by the end of these 42 seconds, the actual level of exposure will have risen to nearly 20 ppm. At this level of expo-sure, all of the previous symptoms will continue to worsen, and memory loss may occur.
By selecting devices with fast response times for your gas detection toolkit, you contribute to the prevention of fatalties and a stronger safety culture.
5. User-friendly devices keep safety simple. Simple, eff ective equipment will always result in greater compliance and more frequent use. When workers strug-gle with equipment because of its design and/or operation, they tend to view it more as a hindrance and less as a helpful asset that can save their lives. Th at’s why it is of the utmost importance to choose the gas monitor that seamlessly integrates into workers’ everyday routines.
Ed Ligus is Draeger’s technical product specialist. He has spent 32 years with Drae-ger working with gas detection products.
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28 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2014 www.ohsonline.com
Four of your team members are hard at work, side by side at your facility. Each is wearing a brand-new gas detec-tor that was calibrated and bump tested only a few hours ago. Th e problem is that two of the instruments are in
high alarm, one is in low alarm, and the fourth is not in alarm at all. Which instrument is defective? Th e two instruments in high alarm? Th e one instrument in low alarm? How about the instrument not in alarm at all? Are they all broken? Actually, the instruments may all be working perfectly.…
Many members of the safety community have spent a lot of time recently debating which Lower Explosive Limit (LEL) sen-sor technology is superior: the industry-standard catalytic bead (CB) technology, which has been in use for more than 50 years, or the newer infrared (IR) sensor technology. Much has been written about the strengths and weakness of each technology and can easily be found by your favorite search engine. Th is ar-ticle will discuss the intersection of correlation factors, calibra-tion gas, LEL sensor technologies, and their impact on ensuring every worker returns home at the end of his shift .
Let’s start with a quick summary of the sensor technolo-gies. Both CB and IR sensors are designed to protect against the combustion of gases in the atmosphere, not the detection of one combustible gas specifi cally. In other words, an LEL sensor does not know whether it is detecting pentane, methane, or propane, but it only recognizes that one or more combustible gases are in the atmosphere. For this reason, both CB and IR sensors must be characterized through calibration. Th e McGraw-Hill Science and Technology Encyclopedia defi nes calibration as “the process
of determining the performance parameters of an instrument by comparing it with measurement standards.”
Once calibrated with a particular gas, the instrument will display LEL values assuming all gases in the environment are that one specifi c gas. If a sensor calibrated to methane detects ethane, the instrument will display LEL values assuming it is truly methane. Many members of the safety community under-stand this challenge and have procedures in place to account for this sensor limitation. (Please note that this article refers to LEL IR sensors, not gas-specifi c sensors like methane IR. LEL IR sen-sors are sometimes called Hydrocarbon IR sensors.)
Correlation factors are used to translate instrument readings from the units of the calibration gas to the units of a second de-sired gas. For example, correlation factors can be used to trans-late readings on a pentane-calibrated instrument to equivalent units of ethane.
Th e next challenge is that most members of the safety com-munity were trained on the industry-standard CB LEL sensor technology. Th is training leads to typical alarm levels of 10 per-cent LEL and 20 percent LEL because most CB correlation fac-tors are relatively close to the reading on the display, typically two times or less. Th e logic is the combustible gases in the at-mosphere will not exceed 40 percent LEL (20 percent LEL high alarm multiplied by a correlation factor of 2), assuming a worst-case scenario. Even assuming a +25 percent error in the reading, the user is still below the lower explosive limit and has time to retreat to a safe location.
With the continuing emergence of IR technology, many us-ers assume the sensor performs in the same way as catalytic bead technology, even though the detection technology is very dif-ferent. Not only is that assumption incorrect, but also it can be very dangerous. Calibrating CB and IR with the same gas oft en leads to dramatically diff erent results. Th e table below identifi es correlation factors for CB and IR sensors, standard calibration gases, and common gases found in the fi eld.
Th e formula to translate your instrument’s readings to the actual concentration in the atmosphere is: Instrument Reading
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Don’t Underestimate the Importance of LEL Correlation FactorsYour team’s safety depends on selecting the right correlation factor, calibration gas, and LEL sensor for your application.By Scott Jubeck
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(% LEL) = Gas Being Sampled (% LEL) divided by Correlation Factor.
Th e following examples were devel-oped to prove the importance of the com-bination of correlation factors, calibration gas, and LEL sensor technology in ensur-ing the safety of your team.
In this basic example, both CB and IR
sensors, when calibrated with methane, are very accurate in their detection of methane, as expected. A pentane-cali-brated catalytic bead LEL sensor will read high because the correlation factor is 0.5. On the other hand, a propane-calibrated infrared LEL sensor will read low at 3 per-cent LEL.
Th is example highlights the impor-tance of two best practices: 1) Calibrating to the known hazard in the atmosphere will lead to the most accurate results. If methane is the known hazard, calibrate your LEL sensor to methane. It doesn’t
matter if you are using a CB or IR sensor. Correlation factors are never perfect and will introduce error into your readings, so calibrating to the known hazard leads to the most accurate results. 2) Catalytic bead LEL sensors calibrated to pentane typically have correlation factors of less than two and oft en close to one. For that reason, many gas detection manufactur-ers recommend pentane calibration for CB sensors because the instrument will reduce the error between the real gas con-centration and the instrument reading.
Th e second example shows a poten-tially dangerous scenario in the fi eld. Some gas detection manufacturers rec-ommend methane-calibration for their IR LEL sensors. Even with 60 percent LEL ethane in the atmosphere, a methane-calibrated IR LEL sensor will display only 9 percent LEL.
Th is example highlights a third best practice. It is that setting low alarm lev-els are very important for safety. Many industry leaders recommend a 10 per-cent LEL low alarm and 20 percent LEL high alarm levels. In the example above, a methane-calibrated infrared sensor will trigger a 10 percent LEL low alarm only with 65 percent LEL ethane in the atmosphere. Although the instrument will alarm late, the atmosphere is not yet combustible.
In Example #3, a methane-calibrated CB LEL sensor is now the culprit in alarm-ing late. All three of the other sensors are in alarm, with the infrared sensors in high alarm. Example #2 showed the infrared sensors alarming slowly, while Example #3 shows that catalytic bead sensors also have this limitation at times.
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www.ohsonline.com MAY 2014 | Occupational Health & Safety 31
Acetylene is a common welding gas. When using acetylene, it is very impor-tant to understand which type of LEL sensor to use. Some IR LEL sensors will not detect several combustible gases, in-cluding (but not limited to) acetylene, hydrogen, and carbon disulfi de. In this scenario, the infrared sensor will not re-spond at all, regardless of concentration. Th e calibration gas also will not impact the result, as the sensor simply will not detect acetylene. Check with your gas de-tection manufacturer for details.
CB LEL sensors detect combustible gas by burning it. With low levels of oxygen, combustion is incomplete or impossible. In atmospheres with less than 10 percent
oxygen, users should not trust the LEL readings on their instruments because the sensor does not have adequate oxygen to properly detect the hazard. Dilution tubes or IR sensors should be considered when oxygen levels are less than 10 percent vol-ume. Again, ask your manufacturer for details since each CB sensor responds dif-ferently to low levels of oxygen.
Also, in Example #5, the methane-cal-ibrated infrared LEL sensor does not alarm due to the 3.8 correlation factor. Th is situation was also found in Example #2. Th e atmosphere actually must reach 38 percent LEL before reaching a 10 per-cent LEL low alarm. Again, this highlights the fact that users must understand that
IR correlation factors are oft en dramati-cally diff erent than CB correlation factors.
Two other considerations should be made when comparing CB LEL to IR LEL sensors: 1) CB LEL sensors may be inhib-ited or poisoned by various chemicals, in-cluding silicone. When these sensors are exposed to silicone, their reaction to com-bustible gases is reduced or eliminated. Many everyday items (like Armor All®) are proven to damage CB LEL sensors. IR LEL sensors are not poisoned by these chemi-cals. 2) Correlation factors for CB LEL sensors may change over time as the sen-sor ages. Th is is particularly important for methane detection when calibrating with a gas other than methane. Periodic exposure of a known concentration of methane gas to pentane-calibrated sensors is recom-mended to validate performance.
Scott Jubeck is the Global Product Man-ager of Multi-Gas Solutions at Industrial Scientifi c (www.indsci.com).
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EMERGENCY RESPONSE TRAINING
32 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2014 www.ohsonline.com
Performing the same action repetitively pro-motes muscle memory. Musicians and ath-letes oft en use the technique to help perfect certain skill sets. Facilities can use a similar
training strategy to make sure that everyone knows exactly what to do when there is an emergency.
Even though it typically interrupts everything, in-creases the production manager’s blood pressure, and makes employees roll their eyes every time there is a drill, going through emergency response exercises regularly helps everyone to know instinctively what to do. An employee who inherently knows what steps need to be taken when an alarm goes off or when something unanticipated happens is less likely to pan-ic, freeze, or do something unexpected.
Whether the facility calls them emergencies, ac-cidents, disasters, or incidents, they all share a com-monality: According to most preparedness experts, although they are unplanned, emergencies are pre-dictable. Facilities located in coastal areas can expect fl ooding and hurricanes. Facilities with machines can expect them to break down.
Because emergencies are predictable, plans can be put in place and properly communicated through
training so that everyone is prepared and knows ex-actly what actions to take when they do occur.
Preparing employees involves more than point-ing to the nearest illuminated exit sign and hoping they’ll remember that when an alarm goes off fi ve or six years from now. Employees who experience drills regularly and can answer these six questions will be better prepared to handle emergencies and to take the correct actions.
1. What is an emergency?Less than a generation ago, the defi nition of an emer-gency could be segmented, depending largely upon a person’s isolated perspective. For example, to an offi ce worker, it may be someone having a heart attack. To the plant manager, it may be an entire line unexpect-edly shutting down. To a spill responder, it may be a spill threatening to leave the boundaries of the facil-ity. Acts of terrorism and natural disasters were rarely even considered.
Now, planning for emergencies needs to encom-pass many diff erent scenarios: from fi rst aid to rescue operations; from chemical spills to fi res and explo-sions; from natural disasters to active shooters and
Get Everyone on the Same PageEvery employee needs to be able to answer these six questions in an emergency.BY KAREN D. HAMEL
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www.ohsonline.com MAY 2014 | Occupational Health & Safety 33
other forms of terrorism. Recognizing that emergencies can take many diff erent forms and identifying the scenarios that may af-fect the facility are vital steps in emergency planning and education.
Each facility will have a unique set of emergencies. Recognizing what constitutes an emergency allows steps to be taken to mitigate and plan for those emergencies. Facility managers are also in a better po-sition to help employees understand how those emergencies may aff ect them and what actions they need to take when some-thing unexpected does occur.
2. What is an emergency action plan?Emergency action plans are required by a number of diff erent OSHA regulations. Well-prepared plans outline the facil-ity’s procedures for reporting emergencies, document emergency evacuation and exit routes, and list methods for accounting for everyone aft er an evacuation. Th ey also document procedures for employees who will remain to operate critical plant pro-cesses before evacuating and for anyone who will perform rescue or medical duties during an emergency.
Simply knowing that there is a plan is an important fi rst step. Employees should know where to access copies of the plan and understand how it helps to keep them safe when there is an emergency.
3. Who is in charge?Roles and responsibilities can be diff erent during emergencies. While a president or vice president may customarily make deci-sions concerning purchases, operations, or other functions, this individual may not be the primary person in charge when there is an emergency.
Even for employees whose only role in an emergency is to pull an alarm or evacuate, knowing where to go and whom to report to aft er they evacuate is vital so that evacuation coordinators know not to send someone into the building to look for them. Employees who will take response actions need to know where to report and who is in charge of response planning and operations.
Establishing clear lines of authority and
communicating those lines of authority helps to avoid chaos and keep responsibili-ties within everyone’s span of control.
4. What exactly do I need to do when there is an emergency?No matter what the scenario is, well-trained employees who are comfortable performing their expected duties should be able to handle emergencies instinctively. Whether they are evacuating when they hear an alarm, providing fi rst aid, cleaning up a chemical spill, or sheltering in place, the actions that need to be taken should be second nature.
Each employee should, at a minimum, know at least two ways to get out of the building, where to go once they exit the building, and whom to report to. Employ-ees with critical roles or tasks should be able to perform them as if they occur every day.
Evaluate every drill and encourage feedback. Observe employees who have response roles. Can they perform the roles comfortably? What worked well? What didn’t? Working through issues before there is an actual emergency is far better than having someone not be able to per-form necessary duties in a crisis situation.
5. Who can talk to the media?During an emergency, the media can be a blessing or a curse. It sometimes seems as if journalists have a knack for fi nding the least-knowledgeable person to quote or feature in their news segments. Having a media plan that includes the names of fa-cility personnel who will speak with media representatives, as well as policies for post-ing information on social media, can help avoid information leaks and the potential for misinterpreted or confl icting messages reaching the public.
Media plans should establish policies that direct which individuals are permit-ted to speak to the media or post informa-tion to social media on behalf of the facil-ity. Also, they should document a means of handling media requests for quotes or other information. Because even “no com-ment” can be misinterpreted, teaching em-ployees to say “Please contact (name) for more information” or something similar
will help to channel requests to personnel who have been trained to work with the media and are in a position to provide ac-curate information.
6. How is my facility going to recover from this?Th is may not be a question aft er every emergency, but it will likely be a question aft er a widespread natural disaster, a signif-icant fi re, or a large chemical release. At the most basic level, employees simply want to know if they will have a job tomorrow.
Facilities with business continuity plans will be able to answer that question because procedures already have been established to rebuild, reestablish, and regrow the fa-cility with the least amount of interruption and in the shortest amount of time.
Robust plans even will establish roles and responsibilities for groups of employ-ees and account for employees who may need to take time to repair or rebuild their own homes or attend to other family mat-ters before returning to work.
An Eye Toward the FutureIt can be hard to shift from the “Ugh—not another drill” mindset. Drills are disrup-tive and it’s easy for them to become rou-tine, with everyone simply following the masses of people headed out the nearest door. But until all employees are as com-fortable performing their expected duties as they are signing their names, improve-ments or changes to the plan may still be needed to help with comprehension and comfort levels.
Involving employees in planning eff orts can help teach them why drills are impor-tant and encourage understanding. It also can help them become leaders, encourage safe behavior during an emergency, and re-mind others of their roles until everyone is on the same page. Karen D. Hamel is a technical specialist for New Pig Corp. She has more than 20 years of experience helping environmen-tal, health, and safety professionals fi nd solutions to meet EPA, OSHA, and DOT regulations. She is a hazmat technician, serves on the Blair County, Pa. LEPC, is a CERT trainer, and has completed a variety of hazmat response and NIMS courses, in-cluding Planning Section Chief. She can be reached at 1-800-HOT-HOGS or by email to [email protected].
Drills are disruptive and it’s easy for them to become routine, with everyone simply following the masses of people headed out the nearest door.
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34 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2014 www.ohsonline.com
AIHce 2014 Preview
Each year, thousands of health and safety professionals convene to discuss trends, best practices, and concerns in the envi-ronmental health and safety industry as
part of the American Industrial Hygiene Confer-ence and Expo. Th is year, they’ll head to the 1.3 million-square-foot Henry B. Gonzalez Conven-tion Center in San Antonio from May 31 to June 5 for AIHce 2014. In addition to keynote speakers, breakout sessions, and special events—such as AI-HA’s 75th anniversary celebration—the event fea-tures new products and solutions from more than 250 exhibiting companies.
Here are our tips and tools for what to expect, both for those who are attending and those attend-ing virtually.
Educational SessionsWith 137 technical sessions spanning more than 35 content tracks, there’s an educational session sure to interest every industrial hygienist and environ-mental health and safety professional. Topics range from aerosols to biological monitoring, ergonom-
ics, confi ned spaces, control banding, green build-ing/LEED, hazardous chemicals, nanotechnology, noise, toxicology, and many more. Th ese topics are covered in a variety of formats, including gen-eral educational sessions, lectures, discussions over lunch, and poster sessions.
Th is year’s conference also features a variety of special breakout sessions, including a June 4 screen-ing of the 2013 documentary fi lm “Blackfi sh,” which explores the death of a trainer by a killer whale at SeaWorld Orlando. Other special sessions include “Pandemic Preparedness: Respirator Supply Issues” on June 3 and “Train-the-Trainer Workshop: Im-proving IH Exposure Judgments” on June 5.
Th e American Industrial Hygiene Association is celebrating this milestone anniversary with sev-eral festivities, including a cocktail hour during the opening reception in the expo hall, a historical dis-play that highlights AIHA’s history, commemorative 75th anniversary T-shirts, and a photo booth. Th ose with a competitive spirit can participate in the 28th annual American Industrial Hygiene Foundation Run/Walk, a 5K run/2K fundraising walk that be-gins at 6:30 a.m. on June 3 and costs $35-$40.
Keynote SpeakersTh is year’s conference features four keynote ses-sions that are sure to be lively and informative. On Monday, June 2, from 8-9:30 a.m., Peter Ley-den, founder and CEO of Reinventors Network, presents an opening general session titled “Th e Next Tech Paradigm Shift s Th at Will Change Your World.” In this presentation, he plans to discuss the digital revolution and what business owners and professionals need to know in order to stay ahead of the curve.
Th e Stewardship Keynote speaker (11 a.m. to noon, June 2) is Jennifer Nash, executive director of Regulatory Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Her speech is titled “Th e Challenge of Product Stewardship,” and she will discuss product steward-ship best practices and the keys to engaging retail-ers and establishing partnerships.
NIOSH Director Dr. John Howard, always a popular and entertaining speaker at these events, will speak on “Evolution & Journey to a Safer To-morrow” during the 8-9:30 a.m. general session on June 3.
Th e fi nal keynote speaker is Scott Nova, execu-tive director of the Worker Rights Consortium in
Conference Celebrates AIHA’s 75 YearsSan Antonio features gorgeous botanical gardens; restaurants, bars, and galleries along the famed River Walk; SeaWorld San Antonio; Six Flags Fiesta Texas; and a wax museum.BY JAMIE FRIEDLANDER
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AIHce 2014 Preview
36 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2014 www.ohsonline.com
DETECTOR TUBE SYSTEMNextteq’s line of Gastec pumps and detector tubes measure gases and vapors in more than 600 applica-tions, making them valuable tools for gas detection and measurement, as well as detecting leaks and fugitive emissions. Gastec’s easy-to-use pump is lightweight and rugged, and its one-stroke piston action provides reliable operation with no partial samples. Nextteq’s Thermal Ring provides on-the-spot measurement of ambient temperature for tests that require temperature correction. Measurement is fast, convenient, and accurate. The direct-read length of stain tubes offers distinct lines of demarcation for easier viewing. BOOTH 6033www.ohsonline.com/productinfoCIRCLE 300 ON CARD
DOCKING STATIONDraeger’s X-dock series provides auto-matic bump tests, calibration, reduced test gas consumption, short testing times, and comprehensive documenta-tion for portable gas detection instru-ments. X-dock reduces testing periods by up to 15 seconds and reduces test gas fl ow by up to 200 ml/min over conventional test systems, saving both time and money. X-dock is available in different versions. The X-dock 5300 comprises a control unit, including a module for a gas detector of the X-am or Pac series of portable gas monitors. The X-Dock 6300 and 6600 consist of a control unit and are expandable with up to 10 modules. BOOTH 4019www.ohsonline.com/productinfoCIRCLE 301 ON CARD
SINGLE-GAS MONITORThe Tango™ TX1 Single Gas Monitor from Industrial Scientifi c is a gas monitor that contains two identi-cal sensors for the detection of the same gas. A three-year runtime and DualSense® Technology increases worker safety, regardless of bump test frequency, while reducing overall maintenance costs. The Tango detects CO, H2S, SO2, and NO2. Its sensor technology includes two of the same type sensor for the detection of the same gas, making users 85 times safer than they would be using a typi-cal single-gas monitor. It is powered by one replaceable 2/3 AA lithium battery that will power it continuously for three years. BOOTH 5019www.ohsonline.com/productinfoCIRCLE 302 ON CARD
Washington, D.C., who will speak on “Globalization and the Cost of Worker Health & Safety Worldwide” from 8-9:30 a.m. June 4.
Th e Leyden, Howard, and Nova general sessions will be broadcast live as part of the Virtual Conference this year, with 20 additional sessions included in that package, which for those signing up now is priced at $325 for one day to $870 for all four days.
Alamo City AttractionsTo kick things off , the conference includes a “Bienvenudo a San Antonio” welcome brunch June 2 at 10:30 a.m. so that guests can mingle and learn about the city. For those who plan to arrive ear-ly or stay a few days late, San Antonio has many special attrac-tions. For history buff s, visiting the Alamo is quick and easy—it is only a few minutes’ walk away from the convention center. Shopping fans can head to El Mercado downtown to shop for jewelry, clothing, and more at the indoor/outdoor market.
Th e city also features gorgeous botanical gardens; restau-rants, bars, and galleries along the famed River Walk; SeaWorld San Antonio; Six Flags Fiesta Texas; and a wax museum. Th ere are River Walk boat tours for those who have downtime during the day.
Looking AheadAIHA and the American Conference of Governmental Industri-al Hygienists co-sponsor the conference. Conference organizers plan to release Th e AIHce + Stewardship app in May to help at-tendees navigate the expo. Th e app will feature a Friends feature to share schedules and plans with other attendees, an integrated Twitter feed about the conference, and general session listings and exhibitor information so you can craft the perfect schedule each day.
Jamie Friedlander is an associate content editor at Occupational Health & Safety magazine.
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AIHce 2014 Preview
38 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2014 www.ohsonline.com
SINGLE-GAS MONITORScott Safety’s Protégé ZM single-gas monitor is a zero-maintenance solu-tion, meaning no battery charging and no sensor calibration is necessary to operate the monitor. The monitor’s high-performance battery provides two years of operation and in typical condi-tions, calibration will not be necessary during the operational lifetime. Oxygen, CO, and H2S models are available. Protégé ZM is ergonomically designed and meets IP66/67 requirements for ingress protection. Booth 5036www.ohsonline.com/productinfoCIRCLE 303 ON CARD
WIRELESS NOISE DOSIMETERThe doseBadge from Cirrus Research plc is a wireless personal noise dosimeter that is ideal for personal noise exposure measurements. The doseBadge Noise Dosemeter mea-sures, stores, and calculates the parameters essential for compliance with noise regulations. Measurements can be downloaded to the supplied software for analysis and reporting. The device comes in a rugged metal case with no cables, controls, or exter-nal microphone. BOOTH 3060www.ohsonline.com/productinfoCIRCLE 304 ON CARD
PORTABLE LIGHTING SOLUTIONAir Systems International Inc.’s Air Light-II™ features a rugged design, stable platform, and IP-68 rated light heads that are designed for use in any weather condition. The lights are powered by a 12 VDC sealed, 35 amp hour AGM lead acid battery. The Air Light-II™ Dual provides 1800 lumens of light and Quad 3600 lumens. The Air Light-II™ XP provides 7000 lumens, one of the brightest confi gurations in DC powered portable area lighting on the market. BOOTH 6042www.ohsonline.com/productinfoCIRCLE 305 ON CARD
ESCAPE AND RESCUE KIT3M offers a controlled descent device for escape and rescue at height and a high-altitude upgrade for its 3M™ Ad-fl o™ Powered Air Purifying Respirator system. The 3M™ and DEUS™ Escape and Rescue System lets workers steadily descend from heights up to 590 feet, while the 3M™ Adfl o™ Turbo Assembly with High Altitude Upgrade can provide continuous fi ltered air to welders at altitudes up to 10,000 feet. The new escape and rescue system is available with two controlled-descent device options—the 3300 device and the 3700 device. BOOTH 5001www.ohsonline.com/productinfoCIRCLE 306 ON CARD
UNIVERSAL GAS DETECTORMeridian is Scott Safety’s next-gen-eration fi xed gas detection solution. It supports a full range of toxic and combustible sensors, including Scott’s standard and Rock Solid electrochemi-cal, catalytic bead, infrared, and a new metal oxide semiconductor sensor for H2S detection. Meridian can support up to three sensors per transmitter, with each sensor offering its own 4-20 mA output to the DCS. Hot swappable plug-and-play sensors make it easy to install or replace sensors in hazardous locations without powering down the instrument. BOOTH 5036www.ohsonline.com/productinfoCIRCLE 307 ON CARD
EMPLOYEE WELLNESS SOFTWAREReadySet™ from Axion Health, Inc.is an employee health, safety, and wellness software solution that im-proves workplace productivity through workfl ow optimization and employee engagement. The new Supervisor Portal feature allows supervisors and managers to quickly and easily track the compliance status of their direct reports. They can check on pend-ing and overdue job-related health, certifi cation, and safety requirements without accessing protected medical information. BOOTH 3072www.ohsonline.com/productinfoCIRCLE 308 ON CARD
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REAL-TIME DUST MONITORThe Microdust™ Pro real-time dust monitor from Casella CEL is a handheld monitor-ing device for assessing employee risk for exposure to dangerous levels of dust and aerosols. The all-new CEL-712 Microdust Pro uses a laser diode-based light-scattering sensor to instantly detect dangerous concentrations of airborne particles and aerosols in the workplace, for spot checks and walk-through surveys, or when performing continuous evaluation of fast-changing environments. It can be used independently to measure material processes and fi lter performance, or to capture release events. It can also be paired with a cyclone, fi lter cassette, and sample pump for size-selective or gravimet-ric monitoring. Booth 5043www.ohsonline.com/productinfoCIRCLE 309 ON CARD
SOUND-LEVEL METERThe Optimus Red from Cirrus Research plcmeets the requirements for a Class 2 sound-level meter. The Optimus Red 162C device in particular includes features such as data-logging of measurements and calibration records, 1:1 octave fi lters, voice tag audio recording, a single timer, and TWA dose. All products in the Optimus Red Range include a 15-year warranty, 4GB memory, license-free installation, 120dB measurement that spans all the way up to 140dB (A) and 143dB(C) peal, and real-time 1:1 octave band fi lters. BOOTH 3060www.ohsonline.com/productinfoCIRCLE 310 ON CARD
PORTABLE GAS MONITORDraeger’s X-am® 2500 portable gas monitor detects O2, CO, NO2, H2S, and SO2 and is perfect for use in industrial applications. The X-am 2500’s innovative, catalytic Ex sensor has a high degree of drift stability and resis-tance to silicone and hydrogen sulfi de. The sensor boasts an expected life of more than fi ve years and is extremely sensitive to fl am-mable gases and vapors. The X-am 2500 has Ex approval for zone 0 (for use in areas subject to explosion hazard). Additionally, it is not sensitive to elec-tromagnetic radiation and is water and dust resistant in accordance with protection class IP 67. BOOTH 4019www.ohsonline.com/productinfoCIRCLE 311 ON CARD
AIHce 2014 Preview
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The SV 104 noise dosimeter truly gives professionals the edge in hearing conservation. It is the only personal noise dosimeter with:
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COMBUSTIBLE DUST
42 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2014 www.ohsonline.com
We’ve been blogging and writing a lot recently on the basics of combustible dust. Makes sense; aft er all, what safety professional knows exactly how much
of their particular dust, in their particular facility, un-der a certain set of circumstances is OK? And if you don’t yet have a dust collection system, how do you know what you need? Even if you have a collector, do you have the proper Process Hazards Analysis (PHA) to understand your dust’s potential for explosibility?
Plant and facility safety professional customers of-ten will call and say they think they need a dust test but do not know what the next step is. Th ey’ll ask, “How do I collect a sample?” “What is a Go/No-Go test?”
While we off er a list of testing services to deter-mine the defl agration hazards of dust samples per ASTM International, OSHA, National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA), and UN (United Nations), know-ing the basic tests can go a long way for tackling your safety needs.
In Professor Paul Amyotte’s “An Introduction to Dust Explosions: Understanding the Myths and Re-alities of Dust Explosions For a Safer Workplace,” Amyotte off ers a section on Practical Guidance:
“Th ese observations help to explain the advice given by experienced industrial practitioners on the matter of acceptable combustible dust layer thick-nesses. Th eir comments, although anecdotal, have a fi rm foundation in the physics and chemistry of dust explosions. Scientifi c underpinning by the aforemen-tioned diffi culties in physically dispersing and chemi-cally reacting excessively thick dust deposits is intrin-sic to the following expressions:
■ Th ere’s too much layered dust if you can see your initials written in the dust.
■ Th ere’s too much layered dust if you can see your footprints in the dust (Anonymous, 1996. Per-sonal communication, with permission).
■ Th ere’s too much dust if you can’t tell the color of the surface beneath the layer (Freeman, R., 2010. Personal communication, with permission).
■ I tell my plant manager to write their name on their business card. It’s time to clean up when they can’t read their name because of layered dust. (Anonymous, 2012. Personal communication, with permission).”
So, what is a combustible dust? You might be won-dering this before you worry about how to ship it off to be tested. Per the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety: Essentially, a combustible dust is any fi ne material that has the ability to catch fi re and explode when mixed with air. Combustible dusts can be from:
■ most solid organic materials (such as sugar, fl our, grain, wood, etc.)
■ many metals, and■ some nonmetallic inorganic materials.Some of these materials are not “normally” com-
bustible, but they can burn or explode if the particles are the right size and in the right concentration.
Th erefore, any activity that creates dust should be investigated to see whether there is a risk of that dust being combustible. Dust can collect on surfaces such as raft ers, roofs, suspended ceilings, ducts, crevices, dust collectors, and other equipment. When the dust is disturbed and under certain circumstances, there is the potential for a serious explosion to occur. Th e buildup of even a very small amount of dust can cause serious damage.
OSHA defi nes combustible dust as “a solid mate-rial composed of distinct particles or pieces, regard-less of size, shape, or chemical composition, which presents a fi re or defl agration hazard when suspended in air or some other oxidizing medium over a range of concentrations.”
Which Workplaces Are at Risk?Dust explosions have occurred in many diff erent
types of workplaces and industries, including:■ Grain elevators■ Food production■ Chemical manufacturing■ Woodworking facilities■ Metal processing■ Recycling facilities (e.g., paper, plastics, metals)■ Coal-fi red power plantsDusts are created when materials are transported,
handled, processed, polished, ground, and shaped. Dusts are also created by abrasive blasting, cutting, crushing, mixing, sift ing, or screening dry materials.
Combustible Dust Basics: How to Collect a Sample and What Does a Go/No-Go Test Mean?Any activity that creates dust should be investigated to see whether there is a risk of that dust being combustible.BY ANNMARIE FAUSKE
0514ohs_042_044_Fauske_v3.indd 42 4/10/14 1:27 PM
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44 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2014 www.ohsonline.com
COMBUSTIBLE DUST
Th e buildup of dried residue from the processing of wet materials also can generate dusts. Essentially, any workplace that generates dust is potentially at risk.
So, do you have something that might be hazardous in your facility? You need a simple test to fi nd out whether it’s explosible. Th at’s a “Go/No-Go Test.” Collect a dust sample and fi nd out if and what it takes to ignite. Air sampling is not necessary to determine whether or not a dust is combustible.
Dust testing is performed on the sample as it is received (“as received”) from your facility. It may be screened to less than 420 μm (40 mesh)—OSHA’s and NFPA’s demarcation of a “dust”—to facilitate dispersion into a dust cloud. Particle size may vary widely, depending on the sample.
It’s easier than you think:
* Please note: If you suspect you may have an electrostatically charged dust, collect the sample by using a plastic-coated shovel or scoop.
A Go/No-Go Screening Test, based on ASTM E1226, “Standard Test Method for Explosibility of Dust Clouds,” is an abbreviated, set explosion severity testing at two or more dust concentrations to determine whether the sample is explosible. Th is test is generally performed with samples tested “as received” or sieved with more than 100 grams (approximately 0.25 pounds) of sample less than 420 μm required.
A Combustible Dust Screening Test is based on VDI2263 and UN 4.1 combustion testing. Th is test is to determine whether a dust in a pile supports self-sustaining fl ame propagation. [More than 30 grams (approximately1 ounce) of sample less than 420μm required; more than 300 grams (approximately 0.67 pounds) of sample less than 420 μm required if testing metal dusts.]
Th e Go/No-Go chart discusses the outcomes for your tested dust. If your test sample is a “Yes, it explodes,” then further tests can be run to determine how quickly and how severe the explosion will be (KSt/Pmax Test), followed by testing what concentration of dust in the air will cause a risk of explosion (MEC Test). Next, another test can determine whether a spark will cause an explosion (MIE Test).
But what if your Go/No-Go test result is a “no”? We next look at what temperature it will take make your dust ignite. To fi nd the Minimum Autoignition Temperature (MIT) of a dust cloud in the air, the MIT tests the minimum temperature that would cause your dust cloud to ignite. Next is the Layer Ignition Test (LIT), which de-termines the hot-surface ignition temperature of a dust layer. Finally,
a VDI 2263 burning behavior test is conducted to determine wheth-er a dust will burn and, if it does, how quickly it will spread. It is followed up by a UN 4.1 Burn Rate test for additional confi rmation.
All of these tests start with the Go/No-Go Test. A comprehen-sive Process Hazards Analysis (PHA) can apply your test results to real-world scenarios at your facility. Here are some other tests run for dust explosibility screening:
■ Go/No-Go Screening + Combustible Dust Screening Pack-age. Both tests run in tandem as a screening package.
■ Sample Characterization Test. It includes determining the sample moisture content and particle size distribution (more than 30 grams of sample less than 420 μm required).
■ “Hard-to-ignite” Explosibility Test. Tested as above, but with a 400 J ignition source [more than 100 grams (approximately 0.25 pounds) of sample less than 420 μm required]
Unless otherwise instructed, dust testing is performed on the sample “as received” from your facility, as mentioned earlier. It may be screened to less than 420 μm (40 mesh) to facilitate dispersion into a dust cloud. Particle size may vary widely, de-pending on the sample. Per ASTM recommendations (and some NPFA requirements), samples should be tested at a particle size less than 75 μm and less than 5 percent moisture. Please note that testing materials in a method not complying with the ASTM/EU recommendations may produce explosion severity and explosion sensitivity data that is not considered conservative enough for ex-plosion mitigation design.
AnnMarie Fauske, MBA, is the Marketing Manager of Fauske & Associates, LLC (www.fauske.com). She wrote this article with as-sistance from Ashok Dastidar, Ph.D., MBA, Vice President, Dust & Flammability Testing and Consulting Services for Fauske & Associ-ates. For more information on your dust testing questions or needs, contact Jeff Griffi n at griffi [email protected] or 630-887-5278.
Knowing the basic tests can go a long way for tackling your safety needs.
0514ohs_042_044_Fauske_v3.indd 44 4/10/14 1:27 PM
HEARING PROTECTION
www.ohsonline.com MAY 2014 | Occupational Health & Safety 45
About 22 million U.S. workers are exposed to hazardous noise levels at work, and hear-ing loss is the second-most-common oc-cupational illness in America, according
to NIOSH and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. NIOSH considers it crucial to improve the perfor-mance of hearing protectors, noting in April 2013 that failure to properly fi t and use hearing protectors may be the leading cause of work-related noise-induced hearing loss.
A new technology that won a top agency award that month is part of the fi t testing revolution that could solve this problem. NIOSH Director Dr. John Howard announced that an ear plug fi t testing system developed by agency employees had won the Technol-ogy Category of 2013’s Bullard-Sherwood Research-to-Practice Awards. Th e HPD Well-Fit™ system measures a plug’s performance within 4-7 minutes, using a computer, sound-isolating headphones, and an algorithm to calculate the worker’s Personal At-tenuation Rating. Th e employees who received the award—William J. Murphy, Ph.D., Mark R. Stephen-son, Ph.D., David C. Byrne, M.S. CCC-A, and Christa L. Th emann, M.S. CCC-A—discussed the system’s usefulness in a NIOSH Science Blog post one month later, writing that the speed of the test “makes it fea-sible to re-train and re-test the worker until mastery in fi tting the protector has been achieved.”
Jérémie Voix, Ph.D., an associate professor in the engineering department of the University of Quebec, in Montreal, has been involved in hearing protec-tion research for the past 14 years, including working with Sonomax Technologies Inc., a company based in Montreal that pioneered the on-site, custom-fi tted hearing protection category. “We were convinced that we could really prevent noise-induced hearing loss by properly fi tting and protecting workers with good products, that would be custom products—custom molded to their ears,” he explained.
Voix devoted his Ph.D. research to fi t testing, which involves measuring the attenuation experi-enced in the fi eld by someone wearing a custom-fi tted ear plug. Being able to pinpoint quickly how much at-tenuation a wearer obtained from a given plug allows the attenuation to be adjusted, or tuned, so the indi-vidual is fully protected from dangerous noise levels
but can hear equipment warning signals, for example.“Th at was really new for the fi eld. In seven sec-
onds, you can see whether someone was properly fi t-ting an ear plug, and maybe he hadn’t for the last 20 years. Realizing that in just seven seconds was some-thing that was a real breakthrough in this domain,” Voix said during a March 2014 interview.
Now off ered by several companies, this type of fi t testing in recent years has revolutionized this PPE cat-egory. “What was amazing for me, because I really was at the heart of those developments—now it becomes really the trend. It’s granted that everybody has to fi t test hearing protection devices. I remember the fi rst time I pitched the idea, the pushback was, ‘Well, Jéré-mie, we don’t have 10 seconds to test people.’ Nowa-days, all of the Fortune 500s that do buy hearing pro-tection devices and ear plugs would require that the manufacturer have the ability to test for each worker the exact attenuation that could be documented, and trained, and so on.”
A large percentage of the biggest plants in North America are aware of the availability of fi t testing, he said, and the adoption curve for it looks very similar to the way employers and safety managers accepted and implemented individual fi t testing of most respi-ratory protection devices.
The attenuation can be adjusted, or tuned, so the individual is fully protected from dangerous noise levels but can hear equipment warning signals, for example.
Fit Testing’s Benefi ts
More and more studies are coming out that document the value of ear plug fi t testing for industrial workers, Voix said. “Th ey [employers] realize that a lot of work-ers did not necessarily pick the best products for their ears,” he said. “Th ey just picked the product that was closest to the door and used it for 10 years and did not pay attention that the next one might actually be better for their morphology and their ear canal shape.”
Voix agreed that workers who have been fi t tested can be trained better to fi t ear plugs properly, and he said seeing the attenuation data for themselves em-powers and motivates workers to take ownership of their own hearing protection.
“Th at was so important because personal protec-tion equipment really is personal. And if you don’t have that direct connection with them, and it’s just
The Fit Testing RevolutionMore and more studies are coming out that document the benefi ts of ear plug fi t testing for industrial workers.BY JERRY LAWS
0514ohs_045_046_Hearing_v2.indd 45 4/10/14 1:28 PM
HEARING PROTECTION
46 www.ohsonline.com
someone putting it in for them—now it be-comes yours and you know how to fi t it in,” he added.
Th e OSHA/NIOSH/National Hearing Conservation Association alliance pro-duced a Best Practice Bulletin1 about fi t testing in August 2008. It listed these seven benefi ts from using it:
“1. Can be a valuable training tool. OSHA’s Hearing Conservation standard re-quires employers to train employees in the use and care of hearing protectors (29 CFR 1910.95(i)(4)) and requires employers to ensure proper initial fi tting and supervise the correct use (29 CFR 1910.95 (i)(5)).
2. Can be used as a train-the-trainer tool to teach others how to train employees.
3. Can assist with the OSHA required audiometric testing follow-up procedures.
a) Audiometric test follow-up proce-dures require that when the evaluation of an audiogram indicates an STS, employees already wearing hearing protectors must
be refi tted and retrained in their use and provided with hearing protectors off ering greater attenuation if necessary (29 CFR 1910.95 (g)(8)(ii)(B)) and b) Individual fi t testing protocols will validate the amount of attenuation aff orded by the individual user’s hearing protector and will enable the employer to better fulfi ll this requirement to provide a hearing protector with greater attenuation if necessary.
4. Can provide useful documentation regarding hearing protector adequacy and training. Th e soft ware provides a written record of the attenuation achieved for the given hearing protector.
5. Can be used as a tool to assess the overall eff ectiveness of an employer’s hear-ing conservation program.
6. Can enable the hearing conservation-ist to match the employee’s hearing protec-tor attenuation to his/her noise exposure level. Th is may be particularly useful in hearing-critical jobs or for those with hear-
ing impairment.7. Can aid in the selection of appro-
priate hearing protection for new hires. A variety of protectors can be tested, and the appropriate model can be selected for best protection.”
EPA Rulemaking At a StandstillOSHA requires that employees be protect-ed from excessive noise through measures that follow the standard hierarchy of con-trols. However, the regulation that requires ear plugs to be tested and assigned a Noise Reduction Rating (NRR) is an EPA regu-lation, 40 CFR Part 211, Subpart B. Hear-ing protection professionals have known for years that NRRs based on laboratory tests diff er widely from attenuation actu-ally achieved in the fi eld, and so these pro-fessionals have been keenly interested in testing that produces more realistic values. Th ey also hoped that EPA would succeed in revising Subpart B, as the agency proposed in August 2009.
EPA proposed2 to change the packag-ing’s label to display the NRR as a range of value that “indicate the lesser and greater levels of protection that a user can achieve when used according to manufacturer in-structions.” Th e revised standard would allow a new generation of signifi cantly im-proved HPDs, including custom molded plugs and active noise reduction designs, the agency stated.
Th e revision also would have required recurring testing, at three- or fi ve-year in-tervals, during the life of a product.
Five years later, the rulemaking is at a standstill. “You know, I’ve been on all those working groups and standards committees for the last fi ve years. . . . And now they be-lieve it will not actually happen,” Voix said, adding that he understands no one at EPA is even assigned to the noise issue at this time.
Th at leaves the unrealistic NRRs in place, so a legislative fi x to the problem is being attempted to remove the issue from EPA’s purview entirely, Voix said.
Jerry Laws is the editor of Occupational Health & Safety.
REFERENCES
1. http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.hearingconservation.org/resource/resmgr/imported/AllianceRecommendationForFitTesting_Final.pdf
2. http://www.epa.gov/air/pdfs/HPDFact-SheetAugust32009.pdf
Seeing the attenuation data for themselves empowers and moti-vates workers to take ownership of their own hearing protection.
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0514ohs_045_046_Hearing_v2.indd 46 4/10/14 1:28 PM
CHEMICAL SAFETY
www.ohsonline.com MAY 2014 | Occupational Health & Safety 47
On March 26, 2012, OSHA adopted the United Nations Globally Harmonized Sys-tem (GHS), an international approach to hazard communication. GHS was negoti-
ated through a multi-year process by hazard com-munication experts from many diff erent countries, international organizations, and stakeholder groups. While GHS is based on major existing hazard com-munication standards from around the world, includ-ing OSHA’s hazard communications standard (1994), GHS employs separate and distinct criteria and meth-odology for hazard classifi cation and categorization of chemical substances.
OSHA, in adopting GHS, recognized that diverse and sometimes confl icting international require-ments created confusion among workers and compa-nies seeking to eff ectively use information contained in various hazard communication documents. OSHA noted that labels and safety data sheets for foreign-made products included unfamiliar symbols and haz-ard statements. OSHA further determined that given the diff erences in hazard classifi cation criteria, labels on U.S. product exports and foreign product imports could be inconsistently or incorrectly interpreted once they cross the border. OSHA’s expectation in the adoption of GHS appears to be that international ac-ceptance of GHS will promote utilization of consistent information on labels and safety data sheets for vari-ous chemical products sold worldwide.
Unfortunately, in its wholesale adoption of GHS, OSHA may have overlooked the fact that this har-monization system has detailed criteria and meth-odologies for determination of acute and chronic adverse health eff ects from exposure to given chemi-cal substances that may be inconsistent with judicial standards of causation promulgated by federal and state courts following Daubert v. Merrell Dow Phar-maceuticals, 509 U.S. 579 (1993). Standardization of format, order of information, label elements, signal words, precautions, and hazard statements is laudable, but the substance and choice of a given standardized statement/precaution will still depend on the hazard risk assessment based on tools and methodology in-corporated in GHS. To the extent that this methodol-ogy is inconsistent with Daubert,1 chemical manufac-turers/importers may face increased regulatory and
litigation risks in attempting to designate hazard clas-sifi cation and categorization for a given chemical sub-stance. GHS may require manufacturers/importers to reference health hazards that would not otherwise be recognized under Daubert and its progeny. Manufac-turers/importers’ reference to health hazards pursuant to GHS may constitute admissions where causation is otherwise disputed.
In Daubert the Supreme Court of the United States determined that federal courts must evaluate the va-lidity of scientifi c evidence that purports to establish a credible case of causation between exposure to a given substance and an adverse health eff ect before its admission into evidence. Under Daubert, the scien-tifi c proposition a party seeks to admit into evidence must not only be generally accepted, but also be vali-dated through accepted scientifi c methodology. Both the scientifi c conclusion and methodology by which causation is established must meet an accepted frame-work applied by the court as part of its “gatekeeper” responsibility.
Th e Federal Judicial Center has produced a “Refer-ence Manual On Scientifi c Evidence” for use by federal courts. Many state courts have adopted the principles enunciated in Daubert in order to establish proof of general causation. Courts following Daubert generally refuse to accept causation evidence based on extrap-olation, for example, in the absence of reproducible studies demonstrating an adverse human health eff ect from exposure to a given chemical substance.
EU Courts Have Rejected DaubertTh e important dates for purposes of application of the Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) as amended by GHS, as it pertains to manufacturers’/importers’ responsibilities, include June 15, 2015 (the date manu-facturers must comply with GHS); Dec. 1, 2015 (the date that distributors shall not ship a product unless it contains a GHS label); and June 1, 2016 (the date for updating alternative workplace labeling and hazard communication).
GHS has been adopted as a component of the European Union’s regulatory framework for regula-tion of chemical substances. Th e European Regula-tory Framework that adopted GHS was updated in December 2006 (REACH).2 REACH is an integrated system for registration, evaluation, authorization, and restriction of chemicals presently managed by the Eu-ropean Chemical Agency (ECHA).3 Th ese regulations require manufacturers and importers to draw up a de-tailed technical dossier, including information on each chemical manufactured, its potential uses, and its in-trinsic hazards based on relevant studies. Hazard clas-sifi cation is determined in many cases by the European
GHS Adoption in the Face of DaubertUnfortunately, wholesale adoption of GHS hazard classifi cation system principles will disrupt various chemical hazard assessment programs and heighten problems manufactur-ers and importers will face.BY JAMES M. HOFERT, DANIEL W. MCGRATH, AND FREDERICK J. UFKES
0514ohs_047_049_Hofert_v3.indd 47 4/10/14 1:29 PM
48 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2014 www.ohsonline.com
CHEMICAL SAFETY
Commission for the Environment working group composed of recognized experts.4
Courts in the European Union will not overturn hazard classifi cations and/or cat-egorizations made by the Commission and approved by member states unless a com-plaining party demonstrates a manifest er-ror of assessment or misuse of power. Th e European Union judicature confers on the Commission broad discretion in determin-ing the hazard classifi cation and categoriza-tion of a chemical substance and will not substitute its assessment of scientifi c and technical facts for that of the Commission.5
Hazard classifi cation under GHS is de-termined on the basis of the total weight of evidence as evaluated by application of expert judgment. Responsible parties are to review all information bearing on the haz-ard classifi cation, including but not limited to in vitro testing, animal studies, human epidemiological and clinical studies, case reports, extrapolations, implementation of the Read Across Method based on the similarity of chemical molecules, as well as data based on structure activity relation-ship models. Several of these methods, used to demonstrate general causation, are frequently rejected by U.S. courts fol-lowing Daubert.6 Human epidemiologi-cal evidence is not necessary to establish a classifi cation or categorization under GHS if other relevant evidence supports classifi -cation and/or categorization.7
Courts in the European Union have, in turn, rejected Daubert, noting that admis-sibility of expert opinion evidence in Eu-rope is governed by §79 of their Evidence Act, which enunciates a diff erent and more liberal standard for establishing causation than §702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence.
Th e adoption of GHS may result in what several authors have described as “classifi cation shock,”8 the realization that a given chemical substance is more hazard-ous than previously described.9
Adoption of GHS would appear to re-fl ect a relaxed standard of “proof of causa-tion,” at least as it relates to the defi nition of type, degree, and severity of a hazard as-sociated with a given chemical substance as it appears on labels and within data sheets, particularly in cases of risk of injury from chronic exposure. Daubert and its progeny generally reject use of case reports alone, as well as extrapolation and/or structural ac-tivity relationship models among other evi-dence as demonstrating proof of causation
in the absence of human data.10
Appendix A to the Hazard Communi-cation Standard, as amended, consistent with GHS, appears to adopt these vari-ous methods for hazard classifi cation and categorization contained in GHS as valid evidentiary principles to be considered in the completion of a hazard analysis. Federal OSHA modifi ed its hazard com-munication standard to conform to GHS to, in part, facilitate international trade of chemical products and promote consis-tency in the classifi cation and labeling of chemicals internationally. However, stan-dardized warning symbols, pictograms, and phrases are, to a large degree, depen-dent on hazard classifi cation and catego-rizations that, in turn, are dependent on the defi nition of acceptable methodology and proof as it pertains to demonstration of a causal link between exposure to a sub-stance and a given health eff ect.11
Under GHS, a chemical substance will be classifi ed based upon type, degree, and severity of the hazard (hazard class and category). Th e GHS standards (commonly referred to as the “Purple Book”) establish agreed hazard classifi cations and commu-nication provisions with explanatory in-formation on how to apply the system. Th e defi nition of health and physical hazards provided in Appendix A and B to HCS, as amended, and the defi nitional paragraphs of 29 C.F.R. 1910.200(c) appear to be con-sistent with criteria provided in the GHS “Purple Book.”
Appendix A to HCS provides a general approach to classifi cation of chemical sub-stances, including “bridging principles.” Hazard classifi cation includes concepts such as acute toxicity and “carcinogenic-ity,” among others. Hazard categorization not only refl ects the degree or severity of adverse health eff ects, but also, in many cases, is defi ned by the strength of evidence supporting the purported health eff ect cat-egorization.
GHS suggests a tiered approach for mix-tures. In assessing a mixture, the manufac-turer or importer must use available test data for the mixture as a whole, use “bridging principles” to extrapolate from other data, and/or estimate hazard type and severity based upon known information relating to the individual ingredients of the mixture.
Under previous HCS standards, a man-ufacturer/importer would generally sim-ply determine whether a given substance
caused a health eff ect or not. (For example, a given substance either was or was not a carcinogen.) Under the new standard, classifi cation of a chemical substance as a carcinogen is categorized under one of two categories, Category 1 having two subcate-gories. Categories relating to carcinogenic-ity, for example, are as follows: Category 1 – known or presumed human carcinogen; Category 1(a) – known carcinogen based upon human evidence; Category 1(b) – presumed to be a carcinogen based on animal data, extrapolation, and other evi-dence; Category 2 – suspected carcinogen based on the strength of the evidence and additional considerations. Similar categori-zations are applied to other adverse health eff ects associated with chemical exposure, including but not limited to reproductive toxicity, mutagenicity, and target organ sys-temic toxicity.
Th e potential problems in using the GHS hazard classifi cation system, in light of long-standing precedent refl ected in Daubert and its progeny, are clear based on review of opinions written by European Union courts upholding hazard classifi ca-tions and categorizations under GHS.
In Etimine SA v. Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the European Union court ruled against manufacturers contest-ing the classifi cation of boric acid as a Cat-egory II reproductive and developmental toxin. Th e court dismissed arguments re-lating to the lack of human data in uphold-ing the classifi cation. Th e court accepted results from validated structural activity relationships and expert judgment consis-tent with GHS principles. Th e court also accepted extrapolation from animal data as support for the Category 1 classifi cation. Th e court rejected criticism of methodol-ogy cited by chemical manufacturers used to perform the animal testing. Th e court held that the route of administration used in carrying out animal testing was not a matter of legal assessment but of scientifi c opinion.12
Problems for U.S. Manufacturers and ImportersUnder Daubert, experts are required by courts to look at the reliability of a study’s fi ndings, its design, and the suffi ciency of the data before suggesting that a HazCom-triggering event has occurred. In addition to study design, other factors that should be assessed under Daubert and its progeny
0514ohs_047_049_Hofert_v3.indd 48 4/10/14 1:29 PM
49
include statistical signifi cance and exposure and dose/response pa-rameters. Extrapolation from animal data in the absence of human experience is generally frowned upon and denoted as a question-able practice under Daubert. Federal and state courts in this coun-try have recognized that diff erences in animal metabolization of a substance oft en prevent extrapolation of data to humans. Manufac-turers may well face situations where application of GHS principles as applied to a given chemical substance require a warning about a health eff ect which U.S. courts would not otherwise require, in the absence of credible evidence as defi ned by cases following Daubert that the product can actually cause the health eff ect. Th is places the manufacturer/importer in a potential catch-22 situation. Should manufacturers/importers follow GHS methodology to the letter, they may be required to include Health Hazard risks on labels and data sheets not otherwise required under Daubert. OSHA should consider clarifi cation of its adoption of GHS methodology and parameters in relation to the classifi cation and characterization of the health hazards of a given chemical sub-stance to ensure consistency with established requirements relating to proof of causation under principles set forth by Daubert.
James M. Hofert is a partner in the Chicago law fi rm Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP. He is an experienced trial lawyer who has a substan-tial practice in the areas of complex tort litigation and environmental law, including construction injury, bad faith, product liability, toxic tort, and medical malpractice. Daniel W. McGrath, a partner at Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP in Chicago, focuses on product liability, mass and toxic torts, environmental, and medical device litigation.
Frederick J. Ufk es is a partner and trial attorney in the Los Angeles offi ce of Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP. He has more than 30 years of experience in product liability and environmental litigation and has tried numerous cases to verdict.
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REFERENCES1. Daubert v. Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579 (1993)
2. www.osha.gov/dsg/hazcom/hazcom-faq.html, http://ec.europa.eu/enter-prise/sectors/chemicals/reach/index_en.htm, etimine v. secretary of state for work and pensions eu: case c-15/10 celex no. 610C0015(2011)
3. Ibid
4. Ibid
5. Ibid
6. In re Rezulin 2004 wl 288 4327 (S.D. NY 2004)Haggerty v. Upjohn Co. 950 FS 1160, 1164 S.D. FLA 1996 aff’d. 158 F.3d 588 (11th Cir. 1998) Wade Greauex v. Whitehall Labs, 874 FS 1441 Dvi 1994 aff’d. 46 F3d 1120 (3 Cir.1994). The authors recognize there’s not necessarily unity of opinion among circuits.
7. Etimine Supra;Nickel Institute v. Secretary for Work & Pensions eu:case c 14/10 celex no. 610J0014 (2011)
8. Amaba Pty. Ltd. v. Dust Disease Tribunal & Booth 2010 Nswca 344
9. Newest HazCom Chemical Hazard: GHS Classifi cation Shock OHS 10/1/13
10. Glastetter v. Novartis Pharmaceutical Corp. 107 F. Supp. 2 1015 (E.D. Mo.2000) aff’d. per curiam 252 F.3d 986 A Circuit (2001), Goeway v. United States 886 F.Supp. 1268 (DSC 1995), Sorenson v. Shaklee 31 F.3d 638 (8th Cir. 1994.)
11. http://www.osha.gov/dsg/hazcom/ghs.html
12. See footnote 2.
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VISION PROTECTION
50 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2014 www.ohsonline.com
Every day, about 2,000 U.S. workers have job-related eye injuries. Th is statistic should make all of us see the startling need for workers to wear safety glasses. Th e Occupational Safety
and Health Administration has stated a number of times that as much as 90 percent of these injuries can be prevented with the proper use of safety glasses.
According to OSHA’s 29 CFR 1910.132, employers must provide training for each employee who is re-quired to use PPE in the workplace. How do we assist the workers to decide which glasses are best for their application? It is important for us to look at the coat-ing options and application needs and understand how to determine the proper fi t.
First, recognize that all coatings are not equal. Th ere are many options for coatings with signifi -cant performance levels in the industry. Time spent evaluating coating performance will reward you by making the correct selection and best performing product. Challenge your eyewear supplier for testing data. Many safety directors have started turning to uncoated lens options to save some money. Is there a place for uncoated lenses in the industry? Yes, they absolutely have a place. Uncoated lens options can of-fer a cost savings for visitor or walk-through glasses. If uncoated options are only used for non-work related situations, they might assist with the bottom line. Th ere are a number of reasons you would not want to use these options while working, however. One is fog-ging; another is scratches that impede vision.
Now that we have seen the need for coatings in working environments, let’s look at the options avail-able. For the past 18 years I have seen safety direc-tors struggle with the need for premium coatings. If a worker’s glasses are fogging, it will pose a potential risk. Workers might attempt to “look around” the fog-ging or remove the glasses out of frustration. Th ere are a number of fog- or condensation-reducing coat-ings. Th e main options feature either a hydrophilic or hydrophobic coating. Hydrophobic, or water-fearing, coatings repel the condensation, causing the liquid to bead and roll off the lens. In contrast, hydrophilic, or water-loving, coatings absorb the condensation, caus-ing the water droplets to spread across the lens.
“While people have noticed these diff erences since ancient times, a better understanding of these prop-erties, and new ways of controlling them, may bring important new applications,” said David L. Chandler of the MIT News Offi ce.
Embracing New TechnologiesTh e safety industry has done an exceptional job in re-cent years of embracing new technologies to improve workers’ vision.
One common issue wearers have with anti-fog and condensation-reducing coatings is that the coatings wear off . Many users ignore manufacturer instruc-tions. Th e majority of safety glasses manufacturers off er cleaning options, such as a pre-moistened lens cleaning towelette or spray and tissue options.
It is important to follow manufacturer recom-mendations. A major pharmaceutical company contacted me a few years ago: An employee had scratched his eye when the glasses broke as he donned them. Th e safety director sent me the glass-es to determine why they broke. When I received them, I noticed the material was extremely brittle. Upon further discussion, we discovered the wearer had cleaned the glasses with 80 percent alcohol and household cleaners for 30 days. Th e combination of the chemicals caused the polycarbonate frame to dry and easily break. If the wearer had followed the man-ufacturer recommendation of using proper cleaning products, the accident might not have occurred.
Another common concern is that with the in-creased expense of the anti-fog coating, some manu-facturers do not apply a scratch-resistant coating. When this occurs, the lens becomes scratched eas-ily, thus causing reduced visibility. Users should ask manufacturers if the anti-fog coating also provides a hard coat or scratch-resistant coating.
Ensuring Suffi cient ProtectionAnother common question with safety glasses is what to wear in certain circumstances. I’m oft en asked, “Will all safety glasses work for every circum-stance?” Th e answer is an emphatic “No!”
Safety directors are challenged to assist workers in determining the best coverage, fi t, and lens option. Many times, I have walked into plants and observed workers not wearing safety glasses. When asked, they say that they only have fl ying debris “sometimes,” so
Choosing the Best Protective EyewearSafety glasses selection seems so simple on the surface, but many factors should infl uence the choice.BY MIKE MYRICK
MC
R S
AFETY
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they don’t need to wear them all the time.A co-worker of mine walked into a factory that manufactured
car seats. In the area he walked through, there were many workers using rivet guns and rivets were fl ying, but workers did not think this was a hazard. Any time debris has the potential to be airborne, you have a potential risk. Th is can include, but is not limited to, dust, fl ying debris, and chemicals, in addition to bump hazards.
Eye FatigueAnother issue with applications is the amount of light in the area workers are exposed to in a given shift . Eye fatigue is a common and very genuine issue in the work place. Th e ANSI/ISEA Z87.1-2010 standard in section 7 discusses the amount of visible light that is transferred or allowed through the lens. For example, a typical clear polycarbonate lens off ers a 15 percent fi lter, or it allows 85 percent visible light. As you change the tint of the lens, you will change the amount of visible light transmission, thus changing the clarity of the worker’s eyesight.
An example would be a construction worker working outdoors during daylight hours; he would need to wear a gray or mirror lens to fi lter light on sunny days. Th at same worker would need to change to clear or lighter shades lens option on cloudy days to ensure full visibility. In applications where a worker will be dealing with glare from water or metal, a polarized lens would be most applicable.
Use caution when using polarized lens options in the safety in-dustry, however. Aft er multiple tests of polarized lenses in the safe-ty industry, we have found that some do not meet the high-impact portion of the standard. In general, polarized lenses that meet the standard tend to cost more than other shaded lens options. If in doubt, ask the manufacturer to provide you with test data. In areas that include heavy debris, sparks, or chemical splash, faceshields provide additional protection to the entire face.
Ask Them What They WantSo how do you choose a safety glass that your workers will wear and be safe with? First, this is a common struggle among safety directors. Do not feel alone. As a safety director, I struggled to get my workers to wear their safety glasses. So what worked for me? I asked them what they wanted.
I know many of you just threw the magazine across the room or clicked to close your browser. For those that are still with me, hav-ing the workers give input will help you empower them to help you. Ask them what they like and don’t like about the glasses they are currently using. Document that information and have a reputable manufacturer assist you in analyzing with need.
Many workers want a more stylish option, which will typically translate in a higher-priced option. Keep in mind, an average injury will cost the company $36,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If you look at it that way, the increased expense is very small. If the workers feel they look good and the glasses are com-fortable, they will be more likely to wear the glasses.
Coatings, applications, and choice, oh my! Safety glasses se-lection seems so simple on the surface, but many factors should infl uence the choice. Evaluating the need, the type of hazard, and employee choice will assist in protecting the worker.
Mike Myrick is a Product Trainer and Analyst at MCR Safety in Collierville, Tenn.
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PRACTICAL EXCELLENCEB Y S H A W N G A L L O W A Y
52 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2014 www.ohsonline.com
When you achieve a year without a recordable injury, do you know why this was a winning year? What is your confi dence and strategy to win even more next year?
Goals in safety should be focused on winning, not failing less. Are we winning more today than yesterday? Are we winning the hearts and minds or nudging more hands and feet? You don’t win more by holding ground; you win by continuously advancing. You don’t win more by creating more rules of the playing fi eld or by increasing incentives; you win more by creating a culture where winning is a shared desire. You win more when winning is a habit.
Vince Lombardi, known as one of the most successful coaches in NFL history, believed, “Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while; you don’t do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Win-ning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.” Is winning a habit in your organizational culture?
Winning in safety isn’t necessarily accomplished with more ef-fort, programs, activities, paperwork, and meetings. In fact, many times, less is more. Training is never sticky enough for all of the in-formation to be retained. Increased emphasis on the number of Job Safety Analyses, behavior-based safety observations, toolbox talks, and inspections can contribute to improved performance, but only to a point.
In fact, beyond this “point,” more eff ort for the sake of more also can contribute to disengagement and lack of interest if it is perceived as non-value-added or too much. Remember, those impacted by safety eff orts should be treated as the customers of the eff ort, not the targets, when discretionary engagement is the goal. Compliance-based improvement initiatives have a lot of limitations.
With less time, attention, and resources, it is vital that the choice to win be focused on perception of value over quantity if we want a culture with a desire to win, rather than just doing the minimal necessary to get by. Most employees already have an intrinsic desire to win in safety. Th ey want to return home injury free and, to many of the workforce, this is winning. Unfortunately, they are incorrect. To win is not the absence of failure, and safety is not the absence of injury. But herein lies the challenge: What does winning look like in safety, how aligned is everyone on this, and how do you create a sense of winning aft er you have achieved zero injuries?
What does winning in safety look like in your organization? Many of us have traveled to other locations or companies and,
while touring the location and inter-acting with a representation of the culture, thought to ourselves, “Wow, they are impressive.” What did you see and hear that prompted that? If you were to leave your company and return several years later aft er an impressive, positive transformation occurred and they, indeed, achieved Safety Culture Excellence, what would you and others see that indicates why your group has won? What would be observable that is diff erent than today’s reality? Most importantly, how did that gap become closed?
In consulting with most of the top-tier organizations in safety performance, even the best aren’t always on the same page. Th is is largely due to competition in onboarding, initiatives, measure-ments, and performance appraisals. But that aside, if the executive leaders are not on the same page about what safety excellence looks like, what it takes to achieve and sustain it, and how to monitor continuous improvement progress, imagine what happens when this cascades throughout the organization.
If winning in safety is defi ned by what we collectively do to prevent injuries and incidents, it is easier to evolve the focus from results to activity-based measurements. However, we mustn’t stop there. Some activities contribute to results, some only contribute to luck. Th e focus should be on activities that add value and advance the culture to sustain the injury-prevention eff orts and activities that capture more hearts and minds. Otherwise, safety excellence comes to mean “no injuries,” a dangerous cultural belief that rein-forces risk-taking, as long as you don’t get hurt.
Aft er achieving zero-injuries, winning is defi ned by an en-hancement in the beliefs, behaviors, and stories that shape the decisions and experiences of others, all of which can be and have been measured to validate progress in organizational improvement eff orts. But for winning to become habitual in a safety culture, we must fi rst get what this looks like into the heads of those whose hearts we seek and must be positively reinforced when we are mak-ing visible progress. Otherwise, we might be moving hands and feet, but surely winning is more than compliance behavior. Or are you satisfi ed with a culture of failing less?
Shawn M. Galloway is the co-author of STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence and president of ProAct Safety. He has helped hundreds of organizations within every major industry internationally achieve and sustain excellence in performance and culture. He is also the host of the acclaimed weekly podcast series Safety Culture Excellence®. He can be reached at 800-395-1347 or [email protected].
Winning in safety isn’t necessarily accom-plished with more effort, programs, activi-ties, paperwork, and meetings. In fact, many times, less is more.
Compliance-based improve-ment initiatives have a lot of limitations.
Is Winning or Losing a Safety Culture Habit?
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NEW PRODUCTS WWW.OHSONLINE.COM/MCV/PRODUCTS
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TEMPORARY CONDUCTOR SUPPORTLineWise’s Temporary Conductor Sup-port (TCS) holds energized conductors above the crossarms when additional clearance is needed. The TCS is light-weight yet durable and attaches to most sizes of crossbars. Field-tested and ap-proved by transmission and distribution maintenance professionals, LineWise’s TCS features a foam-fi lled fi berglass rod and aluminum wire holder. At 49.5 inches tall, the TCS consists of 32-inch clear span insulation. It has a vertical load capacity of 300 pounds and a horizontal load capacity of 150 pounds, while weighing only 23.5 pounds itself.www.ohsonline.com/productinfoCIRCLE 320 ON CARD
DEFIBRILLATOR CASESThe Plastic Defi brillator Wall Case from Allegro Industries is made of corrosion resistant ABS plastic with high visibility graphics and comes with three optional slide-in shelves. Two additional plastic models are available with fully sealed, waterproof strobe and audio alarm and with decimal alarm only. The metal cases are constructed with corrosion-resistant steel and feature a door-front window and latch handle. Available in a large or small size, the metal cases are equipped with a battery operated audio alarm and a waterproof strobe feature is available on the small model. www.ohsonline.com/productinfoCIRCLE 321 ON CARD
DRIVER ASSIST SYSTEMSFairbanks Scales, Inc. offers three driver-assist systems ideal for automat-ing vehicle weighing and identifi cation in landfi lls, transfer stations, quarries, recycling plants, and other material han-dling operations. The innovative FB2550 Driver Assist Terminal allows the driver to interact with the terminal without ever leaving the vehicle, which speeds up the vehicle weighing process and reduces operating costs. The system eliminates safety concerns and liability that arise when drivers walk across scale platforms and traffi c lanes. www.ohsonline.com/productinfoCIRCLE 322 ON CARD
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WWW.OHSONLINE.COM/MCV/PRODUCTSPRODUCT SPOTLIGHTS
54 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2014 www.ohsonline.com
UPGRADE TO AXION ADVANTAGE™The AXION Advantage system offers safety professionals a medically superior response for upgrading existing emergency equipment. The AXION MSR™ design and technol-ogy improves existing emergency equipment with the optimal victim comfort system while maintaining ANSI compliance. With four Advan-tage kits providing the necessary pieces to convert 80% of existing eyewashes and showers, your facil-ity will have the tools to upgrade older Haws® products, replace ineffective products, and test for continued ANSI compliance.
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MORE AIR. MORE WEAR.™
Airwave® is the next wave in respira-tory protection – a revolutionary step forward from today’s dispos-able respirators. Its patent pendingwave technology allows easier breathing for cool comfort, providing the protection you need all day long. Plus, it also delivers on the Moldex® commitment – comfortable, durable respirators that increase compli-ance and decrease costs.
www.moldex.com/ohs
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SAVE TIME, SAVE MONEY WITH DRÄGER X-DOCK
Dräger X-dock provides automatic bump tests, calibration, reduced test gas consumption, short testing times and comprehensive docu-mentation for portable gas detec-tion instruments. The X-dock offers different modular confi gurations to test multiple monitors, while signifi cantly reducing the amount of calibration gas used.
Visit www.draeger.com/xdock
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TANGO™ TX1 SINGLE GAS MONITOR
By wearing the Tango™ TX1, workers will be the safest single gas monitor users in the world. A three-year runtime and DualSense® Technology increases worker safety, regardless of bump test frequency, while reduc-ing overall maintenance costs. Its DualSense Technology includes two of the same type sensor for the detection of the same gas, making users 85 times safer.
Visit www.indsci.com/tango.
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DEFOG IT™. HELPING TO REDUCE THE 2000 DAILY WORKPLACE EYE INJURIES
Eye protection. It’s a must in so many workplace conditions, yet is often unworn because of lens fogging or discomfort. Increase compliance, and help reduce the risk of eye injury, with Defog It anti-fog cloths. Defog It provides 8+ hours of fog-proofi ng on all types of safety eyewear in heat, humidity and cold, plus physical exertion. Each reusable cloth offers up to 20 wipe-on applications and stores in a handy resealable pouch. Request a sample to test in your workplace – info.defogitworks.com/defog14Call 1.888.ENDS FOG or visit www.defogitworks.com.
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VERATTI® MINI OTG™
New from Encon®, over-the-glass safety eyewear was never this com-fortable. The defi ned side shield, brow guard and underside offer maximum protection and fi ll the need for less bulky protection for low-profi le prescription eyewear us-ers. Choose a ScratchCoat® coating for protection against abrasions and scratching or an ENFOG® coating for maximum protection from fogging. Compliant with ANSI Z87.1-2010 and CSA Z94.3-2007 standards.
http://enconsafety.com/mini-otg
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www.ohsonline.com MAY 2014 | Occupational Health & Safety 55
PIP N95 CONE RESPIRATOR: EFFICIENT AND COMFORTABLE
PIP’s “N95” respiratory masks pro-vide 95% fi ltration effi ciency against airborne particles. Experience all day comfort with low breathing resistance and a soft inner lining. Available with and without an exhalation valve, this fl anged mask offers a better face seal. Features ultrasonic welded latex-free straps (no staples). NIOSH approved.
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BOUTON® OPTICAL BULLSEYE: A TRENDY NEW DESIGN WITH A GREAT FIT
With a lightweight, rimless frame, the Bullseye has a trendy design that hits the mark with a lens treat-ment to fi t your application. The fl ex-ible bayonet style temples provide a secure fi t, in addition to the molded nose bridge designed to fi t a vast majority of users. Anti-fog lens coating comes standard, and there are a variety of other technical lens treatments available (anti-refl ective, indoor/outdoor blue, and gradient). The Bullseye has a 9 base curve lens and meets ANSI Z87.1+ and CSA Z94.3.
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ABRASIVE BLAST RESPIRATOR
Announcing the NEW North® CF7000 Series Abrasive Blast Respirator from Honeywell Safety Products, developed to solve the tough environmental and physical issues encountered during abrasive blasting. An innovative design that is lightweight, with distortion-free panoramic range of vision and a patented lens cartridge system, CF7000 is NIOSH approved as a Continuous Flow Supplied Air and Air Purifying Respirator (when used with North P100 fi lters). Visit http://www.honeywellsafety.com/ProductNews/Vol1/Issue1/Respiratory for more info.
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SCAPE® RESPIRATOR
The SCape® respirator provides better escape protection at a lower program cost than bottle based alternatives. Its patented, instant-on powered ventilation system allows your employees to escape a plant chemical incident with confi dence. The SCape® is produced by ILC Do-ver, the designer and manufacturer of advanced respiratory protective equipment for demanding applica-tions that require exceptional reli-ability. To learn more about SCape® click here. http://www.ilcdover.com/SCape-CO/CBRN-Escape-Respirator/
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56 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2014 www.ohsonline.com
OH&S CLASSIFIEDS
[email protected] us at 773.777.7100
www.specializedsafetyproducts.comManufactured & assembled in USA
Specialized Safety Products
Personnel Blow-Off Gun
SAFE alternative to compressed airMeets OSHA guidelines
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Also ideal for cleaning equipment & components
STILL using compressed air for cleaning?
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PRODUCT LITERATURE WWW.OHSONLINE.COM/MCV/PRODUCTS
TRAIN THE TRAINERThe Scaffold Training Institute provides “Train The Trainer” programs and on-site training anywhere in the world. Training ma-terials include 340-page manuals, DVDs, a Powerpoint presentation, videos, and Interactive Computer Based Training on CD-ROM. Cours-es ranging from 8 hours to 40 hours in length are available. Visit or call 1-800-428-0162 for details. www.scaffoldtraining.com
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Can Your Company Afford a Cost of a Cut?Protect your two most valuable
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Ph: 314-645-3900 email:[email protected]
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ADVERTISER INDEX
www.ohsonline.com MAY 2014 | Occupational Health & Safety 57
CIRCLE # ADVERTISER PAGE # CIRCLE # ADVERTISER PAGE # CIRCLE # COMPANY PAGE #
FREE PRODUCT INFOQuick, Easy and Direct...get the info you need NOW!
Go online to ohsonline.com/productinfo to request free information from advertisers in this issue. Search by category or by company.
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50 Allied 100 LLC 12 www.AEDSuperstore.com28 Alpine Technical Services 39www.alpinetech.us/32 Ansell 11www.ansellpro.com5 Arizona Instrument 8www.azic.com24 Blackline GP S 37www.blacklinesafety.com6 Columbia Southern 17www.ColumbiaSouthern.edu/OSHmag7 Cool-Off, LLC 46www.cool-off.com43 Creative Safety Supply 12www.labeltac.com8 Draeger 13www.draeger.com9 Encon Safety Products 26www.enconsafety.com/aquarion26 ESC S ervices 30www.escservices.com/ohs39 Gateway S afety 23www.gatewaysafety.com2 Haws Corp. 19www.hawsco.com4 Howard Leight by Honeywell 60www.howardleight.com/FirmFit38 ILC Do ver 51www.ilcdover.com37 Industrial S cientifi c 35www.indsci.com19 Kee Safety, Inc. 49www.keesafety.com36 Kimberly-Clark P rofessional 31www.kcprofessional.com25 Larson Electronics LLC 20www.larsonelectronics.com10 MCR S afety 2www.mcrsafety.com11 Moldex-Metric, I nc. 9www.moldex.com12 Nanofi lm T echnology 40www.defogitworks.com13 National Safety Congress & Expo 22www.congress.nsc.org/ohs134 New P ig 29www.newpig.com
20 NFPA 2014 Conference & Expo 53www.nfpa.org22 OH&S 2014 New Product of the Year Contest 43www.ohsonline.com42 OH&S May 2014 Supercast 15www.ohsonline.com23 Pacifi c Handy Cutter 49www.go-phc.com14 Protective Industrial Products 59www.pipusa.com15 Radians 25www.radians.com16 SafeStart 27www.safestart.com29 Safety Optical Service 21www.SideShield.com17 Sensidyne, LP 41www.sensidyne.com1 TenCate 3www.TenCateFabrics.com/Safety3 3M 5www.3m.com/PUSH-TO-FIT21 TSI I ncorporated 16www.tsi.com18 Workrite U niform 7www.workrite.com
Product Spotlights57 Draeger 54www.draeger.com/xdock58 Encon Safety Products 54http://enconsafety.com/mini-otg59 Haws 54www.hawsco.com68 ILC D over 55www.ilcdover.com62 Industrial S cientifi c 54www.indsci.com/tango63 Moldex 54www.moldex.com/ohs64 Nanofi lm T echnology 54www.defogitworks.com67 North by Honeywell 55www.honeywellsafety.com/ProductNews/Vol1/Issue1/Respiratory65 Protective Industrial Products 55www.pipusa.com66 Protective Industrial Products 55www.pipusa.com
Product Literature56 Scaffold Training Institute 56www.scaffoldtraining.com
Classifi eds51 BlueWater Ma nufacturing 56 www.bluewater-mfg.com52 Rutgers School of Public Health 56http://ophp.sph.rutgers.edu54 The Safety Knife Company 56www.safetyknife.net/53 Specialized Safety Products 56www.specializedsafetyproducts.com 55 VAC-U-MAX 56 www.vac-u-max.com
AIHce 2014 New Products305 Air Systems International 38 www.ohsonline.com/productinfo308 Axion Health Inc. 38 www.ohsonline.com/productinfo309 Casella CEL 40 www.ohsonline.com/productinfo304 Cirrus Research plc 38 www.ohsonline.com/productinfo310 Cirrus Research plc 40 www.ohsonline.com/productinfo301 Draeger 36 www.ohsonline.com/productinfo311 Draeger 40 www.ohsonline.com/productinfo302 Industrial Scientifi c 36 www.ohsonline.com/productinfo300 Nextteq 36 www.ohsonline.com/productinfo303 Scott Safety 38 www.ohsonline.com/productinfo307 Scott Safety 38 www.ohsonline.com/productinfo306 3M 38 www.ohsonline.com/productinfo
New Products 321 Allegro I ndustries 53 www.ohsonline.com/productinfo 322 Fairbanks Scales, Inc. 53 www.ohsonline.com/productinfo 320 Line Wi se 53 www.ohsonline.com/productinfo
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BREAKTHROUGH STRATEGIESB Y R O B E R T P A T E R
58 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2014 www.ohsonline.com
Whether they’re visible or not, a range of forces aff ects everything in our natural and organizational world. Great leaders are akin to martial arts masters in knowing they can achieve what others see as magical
results by fi rst understanding and then directing the resultant ener-gies aff ecting any situation. Th is allows them to truly harness the power to make desired changes happen as easily as possible. On the fl ip side, those who ignore or, worse, seek to actively oppose these implacable vectors are fi ghting steep uphill battles.
For example, take balance, which is critical in any activity. Physics reveals that Stability and Mobility are countervailing forces. In other words, the more stable you are (think of lying supine/on your back), the less mobile; conversely, the more mobile you are, the lower your stability (think of a great running back in full stride who can be brought down by a defensive player’s hand swiping one foot.) Similarly, for organi-zational change agents, there’s typically a tradeoff be-tween holding one’s ground vs. agilely shift ing direc-tion when unexpected opportunities arise.
Yet many leaders allow themselves to be tilted toward either of two extremes. On one edge are the left -brained logicians, carefully and meticulously pre-planning objectives, then shrugging off any information that appears distracting, all the while fi rmly holding to the course of their preset plans. (Mottos: “You can never be prepared enough,” “Look before you leap.”)
Th ese contrast with the opposite-spectrumed, right-brained in-tuitives, planning with lesser detail, who rely on extending their an-tennae to receptively monitor signs of the right moment to agilely move when unexpected opportunities arise, then adjusting plans on the fl y. (Mottos: “Ready, Fire, Aim,” “He who hesitates is lost.”)
But balance again rules. Take my daughter, Kyra Bussanich. Have you heard of the Food Network’s show Cupcake Wars? Well, she’s won this three times! (You can Google her.) And she’s the only gluten-free baker to ever win this show—without ever being awarded any “handicap points” for baking with changing multi-mixes of ingredients when competing against traditional bakers who used tried-and-true pastry fl our.
Her back story is one of balancing perspectives. In college, she was on track to become a lawyer. But her carefully planned life choices were derailed when she was diagnosed with Crohn’s Dis-ease as a sophomore. Th ough she graduated with honors, illness prevailed for years. Having an incurable condition changed her perspective on what to do with her life. Aft er years of unsatisfy-ing jobs, she decided to go back to what she really enjoyed when younger, creating pastries. So she chose to apply to a fi rst-rate bak-ing school. Th en, because she couldn’t eat the glutenated desserts she was being taught to prepare, she experimented, fi gured out the keys to delightful, breakthrough gluten-free baking and, well, the rest is history. (And she’s also living healthy without medication.)
Even so, her movement hasn’t ended from eye-on-the-future-prize planning to acknowledging and incorporating current forc-
es. She’s continually off ered tempting possibilities; she’s given out her unique creations at the Golden Globe Awards, been featured in many broadcast media, had ship cruises built around her, and much more. On a daily basis, it’s challenging for her to weigh and then balance planning where she wishes to go with the many out-of-the-blue opportunities directed her way.
Th ose of us who are less well known may not be besieged with the same number of tempting off ers. However, every leader has daily choices about how much to maintain continuity toward ob-jectives and how to seek out and be receptive to new opportunities.
How to maintain a balanced leadership perspective?■ Aim for broad goals and be more fl exible with how you ac-
complish these. Revisit plans to see to what degree these are still relevant.
Johnson & Johnson has a long-term credo, a set of values that guides the company’s decisions. Know-ing that anything that just exists on paper is likely to become stale, senior executives meet yearly to see how to apply the credo to their current world, changes, and demands among customers, regulators, a range of shareholders, and the market. Keeping fresh on their credo has enabled Johnson & Johnson leaders to weather potentially destructive situations that were otherwise out of their control.
Th inking through possibilities is more useful than a frozen-in-time document. As General (and President) Dwight Eisenhower contended, “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”
■ Revisit your plans regularly. Maintain a mindset of being willing to modify or even let go of previous plans.
■ Remind yourself to see the opportunities potentially pres-ent in any change, no matter how upsetting these fi rst appear. Kyra has mentioned many times that, though of course she wished she didn’t have an autoimmune disease, without that reality and its re-lated critical dietary restrictions, she’d never have made the break-throughs in gluten-free baking that she has (and then been able to shine a light of possibilities for many others).
■ Enlist the people close to you to join you in the balancing act. Even the most well-intentioned person sometimes becomes hyp-notized by the daily whirl of activities and can’t see the opportuni-ties for the data. Having associates who are alert and who nudge your attention helps to build your leadership eff ectiveness.
Balance is crucial to success. I’ve seen how easy it is for leaders to become distracted and overwhelmed by change or, alternately, to become out-of-touch and disconnected by holding on to the past. But I’ve also seen how strong leaders continue to renew a balanced mindset, to be able to make careful, wide-perspective plans while simultaneously staying responsive to changing circumstances. For many, including Kyra, this is their real superpower.
Robert Pater ([email protected]) is Managing Director, Stra-tegic Safety Associates and MoveSMART®, www.movesmart.com.
Balancing Leadership Perspective
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