A Zero Compromise Approach to Flame Resistant Clothing
Don’t let your company’s standards or the industry standards get away from you.
During tough economic times, organizations will be faced with many difficult challenges regarding the resources utilized to maintain the health and safety of workers and contractors. Whether it’s human resources, materials, tools, equipment or even personal protective equipment (PPE). Often, the direction to cut costs lands in the hands of the supply chain/ procurement department. When it comes to any of these products, the company needs to rely on subject matter experts. This provides direction to determine if the products meet company and industry standards and specifications that protect the organization against the risk of loss to people, equipment, materials or the environment.
In the discipline of health and safety, we focus on the hierarchy of controls to eliminate or mitigate risk. These controls start with elimination of the hazard or substitution of the product or process with less hazardous alternatives. The next level of controls is developing and implementing engineering controls, followed by administrative controls (policies, training etc.). The last, but certainly not least, line of defense is personal protective equipment.
Personal protective equipment is an important component of anorganization’s hazard control strategy, and because it is the last line ofdefense, it is just as important as the other hazard control strategies.
Unfortunately, personal protective equipment does not always get the attention it deserves. There are many products in market which are purchased solely on the factor of cost. Company standards and specifications on personal protective equipment reference regulatory or industry standards, however, not all products on the market meet regulations or industry standards, in particular, flame-resistant clothing. Flame-resistant clothing is a significant control in the protection of workers against the hazard of flash fire and also arc flash.
Occupational health and safety regulations fall short of specifically specifying that flame-resistant clothing meets either the NFPA 2112 Standard on Flame-Resistant Garments for Protection of Industrial Personnel Against Flash Fire or CGSB 155.20 Standard on Workwear for Protection Against Hydrocarbon Flash Fire. This is a great first step in evaluating flame resistant clothing; however, as many of these standards are pass/fail, companies need to evaluate the complete results not just if the fabric or garment “meets” or is “certified” to the standard. This responsibility ultimately falls on the employer to verify that the flame-resistant garment supplier is providing garments that meets its standards and specification.
The company needs to provide, whoever is responsible for purchasing, clear
language instructions on standards and specifications for flame-resistant
clothing. Industry standards should be used as the starting point and the company should clearly enforce the specific requirements. Prior to completing the purchasing agreement, a couple of points to consider are:
· To ensure the garment supplier is qualified and provides quality garments and that the materials, fabric and accessories, meet specifications and all components of supply chain are quality certified e.g., ISO 9000.
· Garments are tested by an independent third-party testing agency e.g. UL and results of the tests are evaluated to ensure the product meets the company specifications and expectations.
These requirements need to be included in the purchasing contract. This contract should also include the requirement for the supplier to provide ongoing periodic garment testing in compliance with the industry standard referenced.
The challenge during these economically trying times is maintaining company and industry standards and specifications to ensure the health and safety of employees and contractors. Ultimately, management is responsible to ensure their communication around being fiscally responsible includes a clear understanding that the health and safety of workers and contractors cannot be compromised and is non-negotiable.
Well written, thanks