A Davinci Code in Safety: Revealed
Now....I do not profess to be the smartest guy in town, but I really struggle with chasing references and information. I love scavenger hunts, puzzles, and such, but when researching leads to a circle of dead ends, I realize how hair can grey so quickly.
My most recent example of this was with regards to fire extinguishers and powered mobile equipment. The 3 challenges were as follows:
- What are the parameters in defining powered mobile equipment
- Size of Fire Extinguisher required for the equipment
- Recommended Mounting Location on the equipment.
While clearly, loaders, skid steers, forklifts, scissor Lifts, and such are considered powered mobile equipment, where do the likes of power jacks, power trowels, uni hoists, etc fit in? When referring to the Safety & Health Act and Regulations, one is provided with only a vague description, with no black and white. This leaves the individual to spend a lot on unnecessary time looking for something which could have been defined in a sentence. The alternative is to either assume that the equipment in question is or isn't in the category. To err on the side of caution, I went with the assumption that it did.
What size of Fire Extinguisher is required for Equipment "X". The Act and Regulations again leave you in the grey...and not 50 shades of it. It is silence, other than a referral to the Fire Code. Sounds great! Now we're getting there. I'm not sure if I missed the class where they explain how to access the Fire code online, but If it is available, by the time you find it, the gaskets on the equipment would have dried up rendering it useless anyway. As simple as it sounds, there is no simple step in finding the code itself, not to mention any reference to the fire extinguisher specifications for Powered Mobile Equipment. One is left scratching their head.
And lastly, one would expect the manufacturer to have some kind of reference to where to mount the fire extinguisher if and when you get one. Well.....let me tell you all, if they do, it is clearly on a high level access only.Obviously above my pay grade.
So here we are, Health and Safety Professionals, trying to be proactive; we may have to ask the company to approve more extinguishers than actually required. You may have to ask for approval to purchase bigger, more expensive fire extinguishers than required. And you may have to get the ok to mount the fire extinguisher on or in the equipment without actually knowing how it might impact the safety or the integrity of it.
So at the end of the day, this all plays a part in the buy-in of safety for so many people as well as fiscally responsible allocation of funds. In this case, at least two different governmental agencies have muddied the waters, and seem too have washed their hands of it, and manufacturers have omitted key information required to make a good educated decision,. Now the Safety Professional is left working with minimal information to make decisions which potentially impact the entire company and the Safety Program as well.
I realize that this might seem somewhat exaggerated, but when you consider how defining things provides clarification, failure to do so, provides only confusion. And confusion causes uncertainty. Uncertainty provides doubt. And doubt is a problem. Especially when it comes to safety.