Safe, Efficient, Profitable: A Worker Safety Podcast
Joe and Jen Allen of Allen Safety LLC take their combined 40+ years of worker safety, OSHA, EPA, production, sanitation, and engineering experience in Manufacturing Plants including Harvest Plants/Packers, Case Readies and Further Processing Plants, Food Production Plants, Feed Mills, Grain Elevators, Bakeries, Farms, Feed Lots, and Petro-Chemical and bring you their top methods for identifying risk, preventing injuries, conquering the workload, auditing, managing emergencies and catastrophic events, and working through OSHA citations. They're breaking down real safety opportunities, safety citations, and emergency situations from real locations, and discussing realistic solutions that can actually be implement based on their personal experiences spending 40+ weeks in the field every year since 2001. Joe and Jen are using all of that experience to provide a fresh outlook on worker safety by providing honest, (no sponsors here!) and straight forward, easy to understand safety coaching with actionable guidance to move your safety program forward in a way that provides tangible results.
Safe, Efficient, Profitable: A Worker Safety Podcast
Elevated Work & Fall Protection: Top 5 Problems & Solutions #58
Elevated Work and Fall Protection and Prevention Challenges and Solutions:
This episode can be used as a safety short, manager continued education, or used as a toolbox talk.
Our episode begins by acknowledging the wide-ranging challenges encountered in elevated work scenarios. From incorrect or no tie-off points to accessibility issues and equipment limitations, these factors significantly impact worker safety and productivity in industrial settings.
Key Challenges Explored:
Tie-Off Points and Accessibility Issues:
We address the critical issue of tie-off points being insufficient or inaccessible in many industrial environments. This challenge often requires workers to improvise or delay critical safety measures, posing serious risks.
Scaffold Inspections and Safety Protocols:
The importance of thorough scaffold inspections is highlighted, emphasizing the need for comprehensive training and adherence to safety protocols to mitigate hazards effectively.
Equipment Limitations and Innovative Solutions:
Discussions focus on the limitations of traditional equipment such as ladders and lifts, particularly in reaching elevated areas safely. Innovative solutions and specialized tools are explored to overcome these challenges.
Specific Worksite Examples and Real-Life Scenarios:
Real-life examples, including navigating high-pressure vessels and accessing hard-to-reach areas safely, illustrate the complexities and risks involved in elevated work tasks.
Continuous Safety Assessments and Harness Inspections:
The importance of ongoing safety assessments throughout the workday, including harness inspections and equipment checks, is underscored to prevent accidents and ensure worker well-being.
Practical Safety Solutions and Innovations:
The video concludes with practical safety solutions and innovative approaches aimed at enhancing workplace safety. These include engineered solutions, alternative tools, and proactive measures to minimize risks during elevated work activities.
SEO Keywords:
Elevated work safety, fall protection, fall prevention, ladder safety, ladder program, elevated work program, tie-off points, scaffold inspections, industrial safety challenges, high-pressure vessels, harness inspections, lanyards, fall arrest, winch, equipment limitations, safety solutions, elevated work protocols.
Conclusion:
Join us as we navigate through the complexities of elevator work safety, offering valuable insights and actionable solutions tailored to industrial environments. Stay informed and proactive about workplace safety by subscribing to our channel for more safety tips and industry updates.
Call to Action:
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What are we doing today?
Speaker 2:Let's do elevated work stuff.
Speaker 1:Okay, I truly don't know what he's going to cover, so but buckle in, I guess.
Speaker 2:Elevated work. All right, all right, welcome back to the episode. We've been doing these for a while now. We're trying, we're trying people, yeah.
Speaker 1:So if you, I, if this is a good episode, can't say for sure, because I don't know what he's going to cover, but if it is, please share. That really does help us. Share these with anybody who could benefit, because we are doing these for free and they do take a lot of time, so that would be amazing.
Speaker 2:All right, elevated work, tie-off points that's problems. So this is all elevated work problems.
Speaker 1:Okay, first one is tie-off points.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm with you.
Speaker 2:Where are they?
Speaker 1:Nowhere generally. They're not you go in plants.
Speaker 2:you look up, you're like I don't see any, but we can switch to our harness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree. So the other caveat to that if you're thinking along these lines, if you're like, well, why wouldn't you just use the I-beams? Well, you go to the shop. There's no beam wraps there, Right?
Speaker 2:So there's that, and you've still got to find a way to get to them.
Speaker 1:That also, yep, yep.
Speaker 2:Saying maybe your boom lift or your scissor lift or anything doesn't work, your ladder's not tall enough, whatever. Yeah, all the point is that that's why it's first. I agree, because that was when I first became a safety manager, years and years ago. That was one of the first projects I had to do, and I still.
Speaker 1:Eliminated work assessment is what we call it.
Speaker 2:It was very difficult to figure that out Of all the places we need to wear a harness, where can we tie off?
Speaker 1:Well, it's not just that Because. Well, it's not just that, because you've got to remember, this isn't production. Eight to five, right, this is periodic maintenance work. That's routine, but kind of not, but kind of is. This is because of the industry we were in cattle and meat production. This is sanitation.
Speaker 1:So this is sanitation daily. It's also intensified cleaning when that has to happen. So that was one of mine that we had to do intensified cleaning, and we had to figure out okay, that's great, you're telling us we have to clean all this from food safety side, but how?
Speaker 2:Yeah, how, though? All right, there will be some solutions towards the end.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yep. So hang in there. Solutions are at the end.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Scaffolds Well hang, well hang on, because I got another one that goes with tie-off points sure um, they're behind me and not rated there you go there's some kind of rail system let's just weld something we're good yeah, all right.
Speaker 2:So here we go, scaffolds. It's super dark in room, as in a few days ago I was like, hey, is there somebody?
Speaker 1:in here.
Speaker 2:Hello, I was like yes I'm like, but he's up four stories in a scaffold. I was like alone.
Speaker 1:We need some lighting.
Speaker 2:Maybe we need a spotter, maybe we need a way for him to get down quickly.
Speaker 1:Can we let people know that there's somebody working in there? Because had you closed all that up. You would have been like, hey, I'm still in here. So scaffolding, the inspections of it we have trouble, we have competent people trained. I'm like, can I?
Speaker 2:see the document. We of it, we have trouble.
Speaker 1:We have competent people trained.
Speaker 2:Can I see the document?
Speaker 1:We don't have it here, Okay well then, how do I know? Right, yeah, so this is contractors and location stuff so we're supposed to be doing periodic inspections on our scaffold to make sure it's still good to go right. Can we have the competent person, have the tag or the training documentation? We need documents, like we need documents. We need more documents.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you need a cable tie off for work, because sometimes the scaffold won't work. You can't get to it. Sometimes the boom lift can't go, sometimes the ladder won't get to it.
Speaker 1:Well, here's the other thing you've got to consider what are we really trying to reach? And I can use a ladder and I can use a scaffold and I can use a lift, but if using any of those things still means I have to reach out, climb out, stand on a mid rail, step across something and be straddling a platform and the unit and there's open space below me. We've got to come up with a different plan right.
Speaker 2:so here's another one got the the pallet. I'm 40 feet up in the air, got a big opening inside the building. The lift's bringing up the pallet. They bring it to me. I walk over to get stuff off the pallet. I got to be tied off. It's all a bit of work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like a mezzanine type situation. Yeah, we bring the forklifts, the spice areas second floor of everything. Yes, second floor warehouse mills factories, all kinds of second floor, second floor yeah, mills for sure, yeah, second floor of any time we bring in materials, ingredients, boxes and we bring them to a mezzanine, or so we know we're bringing it there now you can buy systems that that like rotate and do protection.
Speaker 2:I'm just telling you day in and day out the we gotta figure out some kind of concept. Yeah, how are we going to get to that?
Speaker 1:It's a leading edge because it has to be open for the forklift but a person still has to come on the other side with some kind of unit and move it. So, whether that's themselves a pallet jack, a forklift something, but we still have to have a system to manage that person being Okay, tell me about that.
Speaker 2:Because now I'm on the second, third level. I got to open this overhead door. The chain is at the door, so it forces me to stand at the opening and I have to keep running the chain until the door gets all the way up, which means I'm at the opening the entire time the door is going up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm right next to it. We're right there, right there on the edge. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Warehouses, mills to do that. But the point of it is that's the scariest part. It's not the palette, it's.
Speaker 1:I gotta get the door open yeah, yeah, because you have to stand there and use force to open something right next to a leading edge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I get that another one is um, I'm doing elevated work but got rails. But really do I climb over the rail to get in the mixer blender? Do I climb over the?
Speaker 1:rail to get the access point.
Speaker 2:Yeah I climb over the rail to do a, but there's no other way to do it because there's no tiles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I get that we have a railing for production.
Speaker 2:And fall protection during the day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, during the day. But we have to get on the other side of that Work on it, you have to do any kind of work, and so how do we get over into that? It's either stepping off a ladder or it's climbing over something, correct?
Speaker 2:in a lot of rails. Yeah, so it was never made for that oh, I could say daffs, yeah absolutely gut bins anything like that, mixer blenders like you said. Yeah, yeah all right here's another one elevator work something kind of weird. Um, I inspect my harness during the day, but not the rest of the day.
Speaker 1:Okay, so tell me about that. So I'm doing a project.
Speaker 2:You give me the harness, I wear it, I inspect it. 630 in the morning. Really, I should be inspecting it all day, but I don't. I take it off, I throw it to the right, I throw it to the left, I put it back on home. It's hot, it's wild how we'll find harnesses damaged during the day and they'll say we inspect them all, they're fine. Well, no harnesses ever failed inspection, usually when you get it out of storage. So it fails the inspection while you're using it during the day.
Speaker 1:yeah, so what I think that the thing is is that we had some kind of failure on the harness absolutely, but we didn't catch it and we didn't notice when it happened no, we missed, because we expected it to swarm.
Speaker 2:We missed it.
Speaker 1:So something slipped, it tore cut up my webbing, some of the grommets popped out.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Maybe I was, maybe the belt loop didn't go through all the way On the D-ring.
Speaker 1:I was going into a vertical space and it just so happened, that's when the back fall indicator popped. I didn't fall though, but it still popped Correct, like maybe the, the hooks readjusted because they'll do that. You know they something gets caught up and it slides real quick and we didn't realize it popped.
Speaker 2:It's wild how that'll go during the whole day and you'll walk with somebody, be like hey, your harness has been activated they're like what are you talking about?
Speaker 1:I inspected it and maybe they really did. They just didn't see that it got. But so, yeah, part of that, I think, is help your friends out, if you see they got something weird going on, let them know them know.
Speaker 2:Somebody has an elevated work assessment form. Okay, that's great. I love filling those out in the morning. The only problem is if you go up in the scissor lift and the elevated work form says you have to tie up before you get out of the lift.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And I go initially to get out of the lift to weld the eye bolt so I can hook into, to get out of the lift. Okay, how do I do the first?
Speaker 1:one. How do you do the first part? That's the problem, Thinking through that concept.
Speaker 2:So yes, you've done the elevator work permit. Yes, you did, maybe, a project analysis. Yes, you just said yes, you did the pre-check for the boom. But at the end of the day, before you climb out to a line break or welding, before you climb out of that unit, you have to be hooked to something, and that is where all the crazy is.
Speaker 1:Is that moment right there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I spent a lot of time on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Every last few weeks I've been doing that. How do we get from where we're at, elevated, to the part we're supposed to be tied up and there's nothing to off to get. Yeah, we haven't gotten it installed yet, right, yeah, but the person got to be tied off to install it. Yeah, he's got.
Speaker 1:But he's got to be out of the unit to weld it, to install it. Yeah, you're almost in steel protocol.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, it's it's, that's your evaluation, so don't get caught up. And when they're doing projects or daytime, or nighttime, to get caught up, and well, who's going to be the first initial?
Speaker 1:yeah, yes, we have to do this and we all agree that's the thing to do, but how are we going to do the first part of it? Correct, yeah, got it.
Speaker 2:Another one is so. I'm standing on a high pressure vessel. Okay, yep got it, which in my world it means no, but people do. So let's start with that, because what we do for like we manage leaks and we combine spaces, so both of them make me nervous.
Speaker 1:Some tanks are flat on top and they have a place to stand and some are rounded on top.
Speaker 2:I've got to stand on a high pressure vessel this round, Okay, and that's we need. We need a whole bunch of stuff to do that, and my deal is cause we had an example a few months ago. I was like, but if we have a catwalk in front of it and I can reach through the rail and to do what I need to do, I would rather do that before I ever stand on a high-pressure vessel.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So in my world you could do things like a positioning belt Correct that prevent you from going beyond a certain point Right Now.
Speaker 2:If you want to build catwalks, then go over that, but don't touch the vessel, Because I've seen people do that.
Speaker 1:Well, we don't want to damage the integrity of the unit, that's correct I integrity of the unit. That's correct, I mean. So there's that piece of it too.
Speaker 2:So now I don't have a vessel, maybe I have a piece of equipment that rotates horizontally. Okay, if that piece of equipment rotates horizontally.
Speaker 1:Like a tumbler or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or like any kind of long piece of equipment that rotates Well to work on those. You don't work on them on the side, you don't work them underneath, you work them on the top. So as you do those tasks, you may have to stand on that, but your footing is never going to be stable. So running a grinder, for example, doing elevated work, you can't get the footing right because of the slickness.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking of rendering right now, when you're talking about slick and dirty. You're talking about slick and dirty. Yeah, nowhere to really stand.
Speaker 2:So you're doing elevated work. But your elevated work the pressure you got to put on a grinder or a task you got to do is not enough with your footing, so you got to get creative. How are you going to do that now?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, the pressure has to be a certain way with some of those.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're not going to hold the grinder and just hope it does its job.
Speaker 1:Some of the saws and some of the grinders require sometimes two hands. You've got to also consider fatigue. Doing stuff with one hand, that's different. Trying to exert that force, it's about body positioning and ergonomics, depending on how long they're going to do it to you. You can get an injury on a shoulder by holding equipment for a length of time when it's really supposed to be two hands.
Speaker 2:you know then my last one is for all my food plants is sampling, whatever it is yeah, yeah over the edge yeah tool, reaching through the thing there's so many times see people stand up on a mid-rail to get above it, to get the sample because they engineered the safety side for you to stay away.
Speaker 1:But you've got to get to the product inside and take a sample of it, and it's way down there, right, it's way down there.
Speaker 2:So you see people leaning over to get that sample.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's the catwalk, and then there's the mid-rail and they're like leaning on the floor down below, which is weird also that they're a food safety person, maybe leaning on the floor.
Speaker 2:The top of the rails on the rails to get. Or now you say I took the sample, now sanitation's got to clean it and they've got to get that spot.
Speaker 1:That's back here yeah, so I gotta. How do we do that?
Speaker 2:I gotta take the curves underneath me and I gotta clean this back in here because food safety says I gotta do that. How am I gonna do that?
Speaker 1:yeah, so for I going to do that. Yeah, so for situations kind of like that, I found tools are really really helpful. There's ways, there's different kinds of nozzles available and different attachments that we can use for things like that. There's different tools that we can use to get our samples, so that we're not having to lean through over on.
Speaker 2:You can also build another rail system in just that part for helping with sanitation or helping with sampling or helping for elevated work. If it's a reach, if it's a place someone has to reach over and grease like bearings, you can put another piece of pipe there, basically.
Speaker 1:So it keeps you from laying it over. I see railings that you can actually take off, I mean they're add on take off. Now back to your mezzanine thing. There are different gate systems that I've seen in use. That rotate One is rotating.
Speaker 2:So what I want you to do if you're watching this is don't get caught up in an elevated work scenario permit system evaluation. What you want to do is you want to say, okay, here's 42 jobs that we're doing. How do I not go out and be risky?
Speaker 1:Whatever that is, Can I avoid doing this in some way? Do I have to put them in this position? Is there a tool I can use, an engineering way that I can use? Is there a place I can?
Speaker 2:open a hole and take a sample that's a ground level Instead of way up top. I have to climb on top of it. Can I clean it from ground level. Yeah, I do that a lot. I'll tell people clean ground level because, then you're not climbing on top of stuff yep.
Speaker 1:Is there a place that I can engineer to stand can? I use a different tool. I mean we've used drones in some capacities to do different things. If we need photos, I mean there's all different kinds of things that we can use to try and avoid going at elevation. If we do, we can put something maybe a little bit more stable in place that's correct then just trying to lean off a ladder to hook into a tie-off point.
Speaker 1:there's better things that we can probably do If we're accessing that enough to have a permanent tie-off point installed.
Speaker 2:Then let's find a permanent way to not tie off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's figure out how we just get out of that completely, altogether, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So that's our elevated work random stuff you don't think about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And in terms of the elevated work assessment, if you've got some of these risks going on and you want to start working on that list of how to navigate through that, we do have an entire module elevated work, fall arrest, fall protection, all of that good stuff on allensafetycoachingcom. Otherwise, we can work with you on fall assessments. You can contact us, allen-safetycom for in-person services. We do those all the time. Work with you on realistic solutions that don't break the bank, because we know that's not useful.
Speaker 2:All of these are our opinion. Yeah, so that's the other thing.
Speaker 1:It's our opinion. Take it how you want. You really have to do a case-by-case basis analysis when it comes to false stuff because it is so unique and it is very dynamic in terms of the subject. But you can always reach out to us If you hop on the coaching site. One of the great benefits is you get to email us for free as part of the coaching site member.
Speaker 2:So if you have specific. We do a lot of FaceTime solutions. Yeah, lots of.
Speaker 1:FaceTime and photo solutions, lots of email solutions, things like that. So that is an option for you if you don't want to bring us on site and do something like that. If you are struggling with this subject or have more questions, that's a great option for you. Otherwise, if you just want to hang out and see what we're up to, we've got all kinds of videos that we post about our travels and where we're going. I'm going to hit about four different states this week.
Speaker 2:Yes, you are.
Speaker 1:You can kind of see what we're up to Jen Allen and Joe Allen and LinkedIn. Otherwise, you can reach us Allen Safety LLC. That's our handle on all the different socials. So TikTok, instagram, facebook, all that good stuff you can reach us out there. If you've got ideas for different episodes or subjects you want us to cover, direct, message us and we'll try and work it into our schedule.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we appreciate you listening.
Speaker 1:Have a great week, everybody, take care. Thank you for listening to Safe, efficient, profitable a worker safety podcast. If you're looking for more in-depth discussions or step-by-step solutions on all of the different safety and regulatory topics, please visit us at wwwallensafetycoachingcom for web-based virtual coaching and training, or at wwwallen-safetycom to book our team for onsite services, training sessions, to order merchandise, to learn more about our team and what services we provide in the field, or just simply to request a topic for us to cover on our next podcast. If you found today's podcast helpful and would like to support our podcast further, please help us by subscribing, liking and sharing this podcast with anyone that could benefit from the information we cover here, as that helps us to continue to put out this free content. Thank you so much for your support. Thank you.
