PPE AND RISK MANAGEMENT

Risk Management, the corner stone of any safety program, is a systematic approach to minimizing an organization's exposure to risk, lessening the negative effect of risk, and avoiding risk altogether if possible. Providing PPE is often considered a risk management strategy, but there are hidden layers of risk inherent in a PPE program that are frequently overlooked.

Failure to work through a rigorous PPE Buying Decision Process, using the OSHA recommended process as the foundation, runs the risk of providing inadequate or inappropriate PPE. Remember, 60% of those injured on the job were wearing the PPE they were supplied. The risk of that happening can be greatly reduced with an improved PPE Buying Decision Process. (See prior posts for details). Because there is a structured PPE Buying Decision Process readily available, failure to use it is taking a risk.

Buying cheap PPE that has to be assembled by the user, especially head protection, introduces the risk that the PPE will not be assembled correctly and its protective properties will be compromised. Quality PPE comes from the factory fully assembled by trained factory experts. Every component of a protective cap must be assembled correctly in order for the complex impact energy control process to function properly. If the suspension is installed incorrectly by a user, and it can be something as simple as not seating a suspension leg fully in its pocket, nobody knows it and the wearer is at a high risk of injury if an accident happens. Because there is top quality, high performance protective caps available, failure to use them is taking a risk.

Failure to consider the “human” side of PPE, the need for comfort, adjustability, and style, is very risky because it is the primary reason PPE is not worn. 40% of injured workers were not wearing the PPE they were supplied. The leading reasons were that it was “too hot, too heavy, didn’t fit, kept them from doing their jobs and looked weird”. This usually occurs when PPE is bought on purchase price alone. The leading brands of PPE contain adjustability features for a perfect fit and feel. They are ergonomically designed for proper balance and stability. They have clean, sleek designs that provide a professional look. Because top quality PPE is available in every category, failure to use it is taking a risk.

Quality Head Protection

Not taking the time to develop a store of knowledge about the different PPE designs, materials, and levels of performance is risky. You should know that injection molded, preformed faceshield windows eliminate the risks of distortion, potential weak spots, and poor faceshield/window seal that are present in flat windows stamped from sheet stock. You should know the risks associated with hard hat accessory mounting slots. You should know the risks of inferior auto darkening filter lenses that don’t always work how they should when they should. There are many more examples. The information is available from suppliers, OSHA, NIOSH and other sources. Failure to do your homework puts you at great risk of using PPE that is inadequate for your hazards.

Providing PPE to employees is a basic risk management strategy. But providing the wrong PPE for the wrong reasons could be exposing workers to unnecessary risks. If there is a better alternative to what you are doing or what you are using, and you fail to utilize it for any reason, you are taking a risk.

INVENTION OF THE WELDING HELMET

(Correction: In our haste to respond to a comment we inadvertently listed Charles E. Bowers, Sr. as the inventor of the welding helmet and the founder of The Fibre-Metal Products Company. We should have listed his father Frederick M. Bowers as the inventor and founder. Charles E. Bowers, Sr. was the President of Fibre-Metal for many years and held more than 45 patents. But his father invented the welding helmet and founded the company.)

Today we received a comment about our "WELDING HELMET" post. The commentor challenged our statement that the "Fibre-Metal Products Company invented the welding helmet". He said that statement is "false" and claimed that William Dinkuhn invented the helmet.

The primary goal of this Forum is to foster a discussion. We welcome comments and respect readers right to challenge anything we say. But this comment was from "Anonymous" with no identification of who he was and no documentation or substantiation of his claim that our information was false. So there is nothing to discuss.

For our regular readers, there is overwhelming documentation and substantiation of the fact that Frederick M. Bowers, the founder of The Fibre-Metal Products Company, invented and produced the first welding helmet in 1905. There are ample records,  dated photographs, extemporaneous comments from others at the time, etc to prove it. Mr. Bowers had his helmet invention patented in 1914 with the patent being approved in 1915. The patent is below.



I have been in the welding helmet business for almost 50 years and with all due respect to Mr. William Dinkuhn, I have never seen nor heard of a "Dinkuhn" helmet. A quick search of the Internet shows just one entry and that was a one line answer to a question on Answers.com, again by "Anonymous" saying that William Dinkuhn invented the welding helmet in 1916. That is a full 11 years after Frederick M. Bowers had invented and was producing welding helmets, and 2 years after Mr. Bowers had received a patent on his invention.

UPGRADING PPE CAN REDUCE INJURY COSTS

Injury frequency, severity and cost data for 2009 (the most recent data) is now available from the three major sources that compile it. The National Safety Council, The Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Liberty Mutual Safety Index each report similar, but not exactly the same results. There are no absolutes, much of the information is based on estimates, but a few things are clear:

 1. Following the trend of recent years, the overall (all industries) lost time injuries are down by a fraction to about 2 per 100 full time employees. But at least a portion of that is because there are fewer workers working fewer hours.


2. The industry segments with historically high LTI’s (construction, manufacturing, agriculture, health care) remain at about 4 per 100 workers.

While injury frequency and severity went down or stayed about the same the cost of those injuries increased. The following model, updated with the latest estimated data, shows the various outcomes of an accident. A safety expert once said “when an accident occurs, the only difference between a fatality and a near miss is the outcome”:

Based on this data, companies on average are incurring between $106,000 and $212,000 in injury costs for each 100 employees they have. That cost comes right off of the bottom line. If for no other reason, this information should be enough to overcome the inertia we discussed in our prior posts on The PPE Buying Decision. If an employer is spending money on PPE, but is still experiencing high injury costs, obviously, what they are using is not working. Investing the time to determine the most appropriate PPE for the hazards, and investing the money to upgrade to the highest quality PPE available provides an ROI in terms of reducing injury costs.

Properly selected, high performance, comfortable PPE that is worn everyday instead of being left in a locker, reduces injury costs by pushing them down the Cost Pyramid. For example, if an accident occurs, resulting in a worker being struck on the head by a falling object, the result may be a $53,000 LTI if the worker was wearing a low price 4-point suspension protective cap. But if that worker was wearing a high quality protective cap, with a high performance Impact Energy Control system, like the Fibre-Metal SUPEREIGHT brand by Honeywell, or any other top quality cap, the result may be reduced to a $1,200 trip to the nurse. So by investing an additional $10.00 or so in the better quality PPE, the company saved $51,800 on just that one accident.

Safety officials and all others involved in the PPE Buying Decision should capture those savings and use the information to justify their investment in a top quality PPE Program. It can be done on a per accident basis, or overall results can be compared with the aggregate statistics for their specific industry. The LTI for Construction Laborers is 4 per 100 employees. If a company upgrades its PPE and their LTI rate drops to 2 per 100 employees, the Safety Department should calculate and take credit for the savings.

PPE suppliers should play an active role in this process by being able to explain the differences of their products and “Dollarizing” the benefits of upgrading to their products. In the old days, presenting the features of a product was enough to make a sale. Then we had to develop a benefit for each feature. Adding value followed and today, the impact on a customer’s bottom line must be clearly stated. If you can’t explain how your product will reduce costs or increase profit, you can’t compete with suppliers that do.

And that applies to inside sales people and customer service associates as well as the field sales force. They must be able to talk a customer through the “Value Chain” to the bottom line impact just like a sales person in order to help customers justify buying their products or to help customers gather enough information to buy their products.

The CEO of a Top 50 Construction Company said PPE was “one of the 10 most important buys his company makes because of the potential risks and the opportunity for cost savings”. He went on to say that “injury costs and workers comp costs are the last major cost saving potentials available”. Whether it is a PPE supplier trying to sell a PPE program upgrade to a customer, or a company Safety Official trying to sell a PPE program upgrade to top management, the need to reduce injury costs should be the starting point.