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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
Most Facilities Underestimate This Key Safety Risk #safetytraining #safety
Does your facility use this tool that creates over-looked safety risks?
Episode Summary:
In this episode of Safe, Efficient, Profitable: A Worker Safety Podcast, Joe and Jen Allen put a spotlight om an overlooked source of workplace injuries: hose handling. While hoses are a staple tool across manufacturing, sanitation, and agricultural facilities, the hosts reveal practices and conditions that can lead to significant injuries.
Through real-world examples, the episode breaks down the top hose-handling opportunities, encouraging safety professionals and plant management to evaluate their cleaning processes to see if any of these risks are at their facility.
Ready to evaluate your facility’s hose risks? Allen Safety offers on-site and virtual coaching for sanitation safety evaluations. Visit AllenSafetyCoaching.com or Allen-Safety.com to connect with our team. Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe so more teams can eliminate hose hazards before injuries happen.
Key Topics Covered:
⚠️ One of the top underestimated injury sources
🪜 Hose handling at elevation
🔥 Hot water
💪 Ergonomics
🧼 Partial washdowns and product changeovers
🚫 Training
💡 Storage and transport risks
🧪 Chemical vs. water
🧤 Nozzle problems
☔ Spray angle
✅ Practical solutions
🔍 Behavior-based audits
SEO Keywords:
hose handling safety, sanitation injuries, chemical hose risk, ergonomic hazards, workplace water pressure injury, cleaning injury prevention, hose safety training, sanitation safety audits, ladder hose hazard, scissor lift hose use, PPE hose spray, Allen Safety coaching, behavioral safety in sanitation, worker injury prevention, cleaning safety podcast
This video is intended for educational purposes. Solutions offered are not designed to take the place of an attorney , safety, or medical professional, and should not be taken as legal or medical advice. It is recommended that viewers consult a safety consultant, medical provider or an occupational safety legal team as applicable to help navigate their specific circumstances.
All right, welcome back. Safe, efficient, profitable Worker Safety Podcast. Today we're going to give you one item. That is a great indication that you can evaluate how often you use this item, and I think that there's a direct correlation with risk to your facility or injury. So all right, let's go.
Speaker 2:One item. So this thing has what chemical so?
Speaker 1:we use it with chemical water, it with water, and we use it a lot of times to do the word clean something. So whether that's scoop out stuff or wash stuff down or whatever, we usually use this and can be elevated and be can it be stored Yep.
Speaker 2:Can we drove over?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we can drive over. We have a lot of injuries with this. In regards to turning the item on turning it off and general use from location to location along with. You said elevation and that is poses All right, woo. So if you really kind of back up and think, most locations that manufacture a product have to clean at some point, and a lot of times water is used with that. So whether that be wash downs at my barns, whether that be shower washing, whether that be, house keeping down mill we call it housekeeping at some places, keeping it a mill, obviously sanitation at the plants.
Speaker 1:We use water or we use chemical and we use hoses and we're having a lot of injuries around or maybe not the best hose handling, we'll say so these are just a random list, no particular order of things to look for.
Speaker 2:So you should do an evaluation. These are things to go. Let me check, see if I have this, if I have this, and then that will tell you whether there are parts of your program, how much risk you may be having at your facility.
Speaker 1:We'll give some solutions at the end, so just hang in there with us and let's just dive right in. Here we go.
Speaker 2:Number one is ladders.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you said elevation.
Speaker 2:If that hose is by somebody and they're standing on a ladder but the hose goes between their legs, somebody accidentally or under the feet, and someone accidentally pulls the hose back, air, it throws them off the ladder.
Speaker 1:Well, and also just considering things like what your three points of contact rules are.
Speaker 2:Is it two hands? How'd you even get up there? How did you get down?
Speaker 1:Are you requiring them to use two hands?
Speaker 2:Does it have to be running the whole time or can you turn it off?
Speaker 1:Yep, what's what's going on with that? And I'll actually throw one in here too. And that's used in a scissor lift.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Using hoses in a scissor lift. I know that there's been some pretty significant events over that in in history, so that elevator leftover that elevated work concept you got to look at.
Speaker 2:So we'll give solutions in the end. But the point of it is that elevation? That's definitely one, whether it be ladders or any kind of pic aerial absolutely hot hot hoses, hot water, that's random, not just daytime, nighttime, because there's no word what hot is yeah so people have different amounts. What they call it hot changes during the day too. Sometimes it can be cooler and you're using it. All of a sudden it gets real hot and you're not ready for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so obviously has to do a little bit. You know, talk to your utilities, boilers obviously is a big thing and the water temperature change.
Speaker 2:you're spraying something that's coming back on you and you're not ready for that.
Speaker 1:Well, and again, it really depends how hot are you running your water using your boilers and your seams and stuff? So also, everybody thinks that the water that I use, it melts the skin off and you know. If it's anything above lukewarm, my kids feel like they've just been burned to pieces. So you know, everybody has a different thought process on what hot is. So we need to maybe look at evaluating.
Speaker 2:The size hose determines the weight. Oh so how long it is, how the diameter of it is weight and the length, because now I'm carrying this heavy hose up. You would never carry a fire hose somewhere, but people will have the same way, that's through hallways, through all yourself. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Maybe now to get to my area.
Speaker 2:Get caught on equipment down here. Someone's pulling it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, go up a catwalk up, a catwalk down.
Speaker 2:Think of how long the hose, what we expect, where we go with it. That's correct, maybe, yeah, shorten it up.
Speaker 1:Evaluate the size, diameter and, like you say, where are we all storing them?
Speaker 2:There's a big one Because pressure can change During the night, because the pumps Turn on and off and how many are being used, or what room is being cleaned, in what order. The length of the hose Can change the pressure, diameter of the hose Can change the pressure. People don't think about that. They're doing a job and all of a sudden it takes off Like power washers. They'll be cleaning something and it changes on them.
Speaker 1:There's been some too high a pressure.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Or significantly more pressure than the user thought.
Speaker 2:Transport at the end of the job.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's when we see a lot of injuries. The hose weighs a lot, it's heavy.
Speaker 1:Gets caught on something you kind of tug at it, yep no-transcript.
Speaker 2:Big, a lot of stuff to carry at one time. All right, the next one I have is the weird product changeover. What that means is maybe we clean the parking lot, maybe we clean the production line real quick for 30 minutes, but you don't want to get anything else wet. You're just doing one little area so you may grab this hose that doesn't work or that hose or have to climb over something or something. Maybe you run. It's weird stuff like that where if you do normal sanitation, we may lock everything out, but if it's running during the day and do a product changeover, they may. Should clean one belt and because it could be a chemical, it could be water, and then you're looking at where is that chemical? You may wear something different at night during sanitation, but use the same chemical during the day and not wear as much, could you? Oh, I'm doing it real quick.
Speaker 1:It's only five or ten minutes well, I think the thing that we also need to keep in mind is depending on how you do your chemicals right. So some are foamers, some are hard, and so you're actually hooking up to an inline situation on a wall.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:And depending on if you have the same hose color for chemical or different for water differentiate. You know they may grab a hose that has a whole length of chemical in it, correct? And it hasn't been cleaned out with water and they're not wearing the right PPE for that or they're not ready for that, there can be an injury there, absolutely Especially if they're grabbing one that was sanitation drill quick and they're using it on day shift, absolutely Like you said, to do a wash down or something.
Speaker 1:Another one is training overall on it, because everybody's like why do you have training on everybody else's hose? Yeah, yeah, yeah, like you know, we used.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's kind of like the ladder. Why do you need to train a ladder?
Speaker 1:because you do yeah, you know, we also have a conversation about knife handling training. This is kind of the same thing, because it can cause a lot of not ergonomics, but it can cause ergonomic issues but there is a significant amount of ergo issue. This is where your ergo stuff of like the weight, the shoulder, the back, the hand, many gloves I'm wearing, yes, you know, based on how your nozzles are, that can be a real problem.
Speaker 1:That can be a huge hand issue in terms of inflammation in there and just lots of pain and discomfort from an ergo side.
Speaker 2:It can be hot, cold, wet. I can't hold it. Well, it's hours, it's pressure. I'm trying to do it in a certain angle and hold it out there.
Speaker 1:And sometimes based on, like you said, the pressure and how large your hand is or whatever. You know that changes the comfort, how you can hold that nozzle, but there is a little bit of vibration in there. So it's all the things, from an ergonomic standpoint that you would say are not great.
Speaker 2:And then and then you decide to spray it overhead. So now you've got PPE issues. So maybe it's chemical or maybe it's water. Yeah, we see people to wear like a coat like this, like this shirt here, and they'll just be pouring the chemical water. Well, that's gross all night long or all day, yeah, so you get. So, even where you apply, you may be fine where you're at.
Speaker 1:Now you gotta look, you gotta look at where it's at or worse, yeah look at where you're spraying it at yeah, look at the angle where they're standing to actually use the hose itself. So maybe they do need to have an elevated platform so that they can get a different angle on it, and it's not just that's a solution.
Speaker 2:How about having a different connection point for them?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's one of your solutions connection points change where they're able to stand, so it kind of can change their ppe change the length and the diameter to make it a little bit more user-friendly.
Speaker 2:Maybe look at different storage locations so they're not having to tote it the length of the host maybe look at different things, like Like I can roll this card out. Maybe I put it in a tote at the end of the day. Use a forklift or a pile of jack. Take it off the floor.
Speaker 1:Yep, absolutely so there's different solutions or different options.
Speaker 2:So these are our opinions. Do an evaluation. Don't take our word for it. Evaluate your stuff.
Speaker 1:Go, look at what you have, look at your risk and believe, the more hose handling at elevation and you start adding layers, your risk is going to go up so that's what you're really looking for is how often are we doing cleaning processes, how often are we using, what can we do to eliminate it?
Speaker 1:what other layers are we adding, and is there a way that we can make it a little bit more user-friendly? Absolutely so. If you want more information, joe and I do uh, and our team for that matter do sanitation audits, cleaning audits, things like that, evaluations, if you will. I don't love the word audit, because it's not really what it is.
Speaker 2:We're there to see how to make your process run safer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's more like a behavior-based safety type approach.
Speaker 2:What can we do to eliminate the risk?
Speaker 1:I'm not looking at your paperwork in your solutions. So if you want, if that sounds awesome, like I said, allen-safetycom you can reach out over there. Otherwise, allen-safetycoachingcom has some really great resources as well. That's our coaching site and again, with that you get free email based coaching. So really great value if an in-person visit is not in the budget. And I think that's it for today that. 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 wwwallensafetycom to book our team for onsite services, training sessions, to order merchandise, to learn more about our team and what services. Thank you so much for your support. Thank you.
