A trend that's finally coming of age in the maintenance department involves using oil analysis techniques to determine the health of a hydraulic system. Like a blood sample, a good analysis offers in-depth information on what is going on in your system and is a great indicator of the things you often don't see until it's too late. In addition, like a blood sample, misunderstanding the facts or misinterpretations can be very costly.

By removing damaging contamination, it's possible to eliminate up to 80 percent of hydraulic problems. To do this however, the maintenance professional must first determine the level of contamination in a system through an oil analysis. Once this is established, findings can be compared to manufacturer's specifications.

This is where a good quality oil analysis is required. The challenge is often deciding what to do once the analysis is returned. You're in the majority if you were to ask yourself the question: "what do I do when I get the results of the analysis?" Sadly, the answer for most is: "file it". More often than not, the results are put in a drawer or thrown it in a pile somewhere. This is usually due to an uncertainty of what to do with the results.

Oil samples are incredibly effective maintenance tool. When used properly, they act as a lifeline to prevent system breakdowns. The key is knowing what to look for and how to use it. Although all components in oil samples are important and say something about your system, there are two key factors to look for in the results that are the most important.

The first is the ISO particle count. This is a measurement of the amount of particles in a system often indicated by a two or three digit code. Eg: ISO 16/13 or ISO 16/13/10. These three numbers typically refer to levels of particle sized 2 micron, 5 micron and 15 micron respectively. In December, 1999 the ISO altered the the fluid cleanliness code; the digits now represent 4 micron, 6 micron and 14 micron.

Don't let this confuse you however; a high-quality oil sample should also indicate the total amount of contamination particles in each of those sizes. This is exactly what the ISO standard reflects. Each of the three numbers refers to the amount of particles of a particular size present in the oil. In other words, if your sample is 16/13/10, the 16 refers to the 2 micron (old measurement) or 4 micron (new measurement). The 13 represents 5 micron (old) or 6 micron (new) and the 10 refers to 15 micron (old) or 14 micron (new). You would then look up 16, 13, and 10 on an ISO chart which would tell you the amount of particles of that particular size in your sample. It makes it much easier when the lab results already show a total particle amount. If your lab does not do this now, ask them to.

What is a good count then? Check the manufacturers' specifications as an indication. You would be doing well if your oil is kept at a range around ISO16/13. This will keep you system running very well, reduce your breakdowns by as much as 65 percent and make your oil last longer.

The second key issue is the TAN or Total Acid Number. This number reflects the acidity of the oil and the fluid's general condition. You want this number to be below 1 using the standard test. Once your oil exceeds 1 the oil should be disposed of.

It is very important that a company have a good lubrication program in place. If you are not sure how to do this, contact a consultant who specialises in lubrication programs and oil analysis and you could end up saving thousands of dollars.

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Webster is with Triple R America Ltd., Toronto, Ontario. He can be reached at (416) 413-9202 or by e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Scheduled plant shutdowns have very specific goals and targets for safety, quality, schedule, and cost. Safety performance is typically measured by the number of injury incidents (fatality + lost time incidents + medical aids) and performance compared to past shutdowns using this measure.

Achieving the safety goal requires a coordinated effort by all stakeholders. While excellent performance is expected throughout plant operations on a day-to-day basis, additional effort and rigor during shutdowns is required due to increased activity levels.

Shutdown teams
A shutdown team should be employed to manage the project. This team needs to bring together a strong, diverse and technically qualified group with the necessary experience to execute and monitor the project. Cost effectiveness, consistency and attention to the technical and regulatory demands are of utmost importance.

Working together, the project teams ultimate goals are to control the risk of worker exposure to occupational health and other safety risks associated with shutdown activities and to control risk of airborne fibres and contaminants into the plant environment.

The shutdown project team needs to have experience in plant operations, hazardous materials management (asbestos, lead, PCBs, mercury, catalyst handling), occupational hygiene and construction safety to ensure success and prevent "grinding halt" issues from occurring.

Occupational health and safety hazards associated with shutdowns
A pre-assessment of work areas should be completed by the shutdown team during the pre-planning stage of the project. The assessment should involve a discussion of work scope and a visual assessment of the work area for potential worker exposure risks. Potential risks need to be flagged and brought to the attention of the shutdown team. A detailed plan then needs to be developed for dealing with the hazards.

Occupational health and safety hazards that need to be integrated into the shutdown plan include:
- airborne contaminants (asbestos, flyash, coal dust, catalyst dusts, welding fumes, refractory ceramic fibres, lead, radiography) ;
- personal fall protection;
- falling objects;
- eye protection;
- slipping and tripping hazards;
- proper storage of gas/air cylinders; and
- confined space entry and vessel ventilation.

Airborne contaminants
In dealing with airborne contaminants, the shutdown team's goals are: to control risk of worker exposure to airborne fibre; to control risk of airborne fibre release into the plant environment; and to identify improvements to programs.

Personal fall protection
Workers exposed to falls need to meet the minimum requirements of provincial/local occupational health and safety (oh&s) regulations. If handrails or floor gratings are removed to facilitate work, workers must use approved fall restraint or fall arrest equipment. Other workers must be protected by either temporary scaffold guardrails or a flagged/ribboned area a minimum of six feet from the fall hazard. The flagged area should be not left unattended for long periods of time.

Falling objects
Job tasks that pose a risk of falling objects should be flagged off. A plant procedure should be developed and understood for flagging and ribboning. Past experiences that have resulted in near miss incidents with falling objects include: hoisting materials and equipment; storage of tools and material laid down inside the toe boarded area of a scaffold or work platform; passing of materials or equipment from hand to hand outside the bounds of the handrails and toe boards, work platforms and scaffolds.

Eye protection
Safety goggles are worn during work tasks that involve grinding, buffing, cut all saw operations. While chipping welding slag or grinding a weld, safety glasses and a welding helmet or cutting is usually acceptable protection.

Slipping and tripping hazards
Slipping and tripping hazards are common during shutdowns, and can be minimized by ensuring contractors implement proper housekeeping procedures. Wet materials such as oil, wet ash, and water, should be cleaned up immediately or flagged off as slip hazards.

Areas used for lay-down equipment must be arranged to prevent tripping hazards in common walkways. Hoses, cords, and air lines must be arranged to prevent tripping hazards in walkways. Scaffold support piping and hoist support piping (typically used for hoists at floor levels) should be flagged and ribboned for visibility.

Proper storage of gas/air cylinders
All air and gas cylinders should have main valves closed before workers leave their areas for all breaks. Regulators should be removed and safety caps installed at the end of each work shift. All cylinders should be securely stored at all times.

Confined space entry and vessel ventilation
Confined space work during shutdowns can be associated with asbestos abatement, refractory removal and replacement, chemical cleaning, catalyst handling, welding/gouging, and coating applications to name a few. In these "closed in" environment, there is usually an increased potential for worker exposure. Attention needs to be given to heat stress, personal protective equipment and ventilation requirements. All personnel entering into a confined space must have specialized training.

Vessel ventilation is critical prior to workers entering into the confined space. The key reasons vessels are ventilated are: to purge the vessel of process contaminants such as hydrocarbons, interts, steam; for comfort ventilation; for heat stress control; and to control generated contaminants. Success of ventilation is verified by gas testing prior to entry. Gas testing typically includes testing for lower explosive levels (LELs), oxygen (02) percentage, toxics such as H2S, and CO. Gas testing should be conducted with ventilation equipment both on and off and during changing conditions.

Health and safety planning and communication
An important aspect of pre-planning is to integrate occupational health and safety into the overall shutdown plan and project scope. Ownership needs to be created by the shutdown team which will involve key project stakeholders, occupational hygienists, contractors and trades.

Unique hazards occur during shutdowns that sometimes are not well understood by plant personnel. It is therefore important during pre-planning stages that a clear work scope is prepared and a plan is put into place to manage all safety and occupational hazards.

To bring increased focus on occupational health and safety during shutdowns, the following activities require additional attention:

- daily tailboard meetings with a specific occupational health and safety agenda;
- daily communication/safety meetings addressing work concerns, policy compliance, and worker safety;
- documented safe work plans and hazard assessments for all work scope;
- frequent audits and attesting;
- random and planned occupational health and safety inspections; and
- incident investigation.

Occupational health and safety budgets and resources need to be considered for collection and analysis of hazards such as asbestos, lead, refractory, silica, welding and off gasing materials. Specialized instruments such as photo-ionization detectors, flame-ionization detectors and portable GCs are excellent for quick detection, but sometimes are expensive and not easy to obtain.

Post-shutdown review and feedback
Learnings extracted from shutdown and shutdown projects are good for identifying efficiency improvements. Feedback should be encouraged from all stakeholders including plant owners, shutdown team representatives, occupational hygienists and contractors.

Call a post-shutdown meeting to discuss improvements that could be made to avoid costly mistakes in the future. Action items will come out of the meeting.

This group, with the assistance of an occupational hygienist, can develop a checklist of potential occupational health hazards that were associated with shutdown activities.

The occupational hygienist could even be brought into the pre-planning meetings in the months heading up to the shutdown to go through the checklist and to conduct a hazard assessment of the work area with the shutdown team.

Areas identified as a potential hazards should be flagged. Potential hazardous materials such as asbestos and lead should be tested, and if possible, abated prior to shutdown commencing. Areas that can not be abated should be cleaned and isolated to protect workers from airborne contaminants release.

A communication plan should be put into place during shutdowns, which include daily communication meetings with key representatives on the project. Items discussed in the meeting should b e passed onto all workers as part of their daily safety tailboard meetings.

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Bill Martin, is the Regional Manager for the Alberta-based Environmental Health Professionals (EHP). EHP is a full-service provider of health and safety services including industrial hygiene, indoor air quality, training and education, safety, auditing, hazardous materials services, WCB claims management, ergonomics and contract personnel.

The issue of interpreting the CSA standard for machine guarding is being discussed once again in safety circles, thanks to Ontario's new requirements for Pre-Start Health and Safety Reviews.

These changes require industrial machine owners and lessees to obtain a report from a professional engineer before beginning work. That report must have the engineer's seal and signature, as well as state that the engineer is satisfied the machine complies with all applicable safety regulations. Failure to comply with these requirements can mean stiff penalties for officers, directors, owners, lessees and engineers — anywhere from $25,000 to $500,000 or a year in jail.

Pre-Start reviews make it very important to have a well-defined machine guarding standard. But the existing standard, CSA Z432, only states that machine safeguards must be "reliable." What does "reliable" mean? People may interpret the word in a number of ways.

The European standard EN-954 both explains and classifies a reliable safety system. The standard demonstrates that different safety system components require different levels of reliability. For example, an area where there is a high risk to human life will have a greater standard of reliability than a lower-risk area.

This European method, in my opinion, is a good engineering practice and one that is needed in the Canadian definition of reliable systems. In absence of a clear definition, the concept of reliable safety components can be difficult to grasp — whether you are reviewing the safety of a new machine or retrofitting an existing one.

The CSA standard is the only one currently available, and we must work with what we have. Since there is no clear definition of reliable, the best practice for Ontario machine owners is to hire an engineer who has a clear understanding of the concept of reliabliity and is registered in Ontario. That engineer can then work with either the owners or directly with the vendor to advise on what safety components need to be part of the equipment to ensure it will pass the Pre-Start review.

For more information about Pre-Start reviews, contact the Ontario Ministry of Labour at 1-800-268-8013, or you can visit their Web site at www.gov.on.ca/LAB/main.htm.

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Simon Fridlyand, P.Eng., is the president of S.A.F.E. Engineering, a company specializing in Pre-Start Health and Safety Reviews and audits for fire code compliance. You can reach him at (416) 447-9757.

Most people who spend their working lives in the plant environment probably figure they could retire early if they just had a dollar for every time they've heard one or more of the following:

• "Safety is our number-one concern";
• "We're striving for a zero-lost-time injury record this year";
• "You can't push productivity while ignoring safety"; or
• "We're looking to build a comprehensive safety culture."

Cliches about plant safety, however, only serve to underline the obvious. Of course facilities want to maximize uptime while at the same time eliminating or seriously reducing injuries. Of course employers want everyone — from those in the management boardrooms to tradespeople on the shop floor — to be in agreement about working safely throughout a facility. And of course it makes sense from a corporate-philosophy standpoint — both internally and from a sales and public-relations perspective — to encourage a safe workplace.

Saying something and actually doing it, though, are two very different matters. When it comes to plant safety, it's things like the actual implementation of a defined culture and resolving the high-uptime/low-injury dilemma that are hard to do. Clearly, folks with management roles in plant engineering, operations and maintenance bear a good deal of the responsibility when it comes to achieving the goals set forward by the standard safety adages.

Motivated by high-profile advocates like reliability-centred maintenance guru John Moubray, plant professionals are increasingly focusing their attention on the "human" side of large-scale plant disasters, and smaller-scale (but no less important) preventable injuries on the shop floor. And from the overall corporate-philosophy perspective, CEOs and boards of directors are continually espousing plant safety as a long-term return on investment — increased spending on safety training, certification and inspection now means big savings later, especially if these expenditures are compared with due diligence in the case of accidents that do occur.

As companies hone their occupational health and safety (OH&S) strategies and work to roll them out onto the shop floor, plant engineering/operations/maintenance professionals serve key roles in many areas, including the following:

• Monitoring and maintaining equipment and facilities at safe levels while ensuring production targets are met;
• Securing and complying with Ministry of Labour inspections;
• Handling the legislative and practical aspects of equipment re-design;
• Serving on a company's Joint Health and Safety Committee (JHSC), usually as a legislatively-required representative of management;
• Transmitting corporate philosophy on safety to shop-floor personnel through various forms of communication — written, oral presentations, leading by example — and providing outside training where necessary; and
• Working with industrial hygienists or other in-plant safety personnel to secure and implement appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE).

Plant professionals are also taking an increased role in safety for strictly legal reasons. In Ontario, for example, legislation that supports the requirement for a pre-development review (PDR) to be conducted on significant changes to a plant's physical structure or important equipment extends liability to owners and/or lessees of buildings and equipment — as opposed to their manufacturers or vendors — which in many cases can extend further to the plant professionals themselves. In all cases, unfamiliarity with the appropriate legislation is not a sufficient defence against litigation.

Outside of the pragmatic, equipment-and-engineering-based requirements of safety, there is the "softer" side of safety to consider, as engineering, maintenance and operations professionals are being called on in greater numbers to help transmit company-wide initiatives, often under the banner of "behaviour-based safety" (BBS). Based on research beginning in the 1930s, BBS on a corporate level holds that through rewarding (or "positively reinforcing") a desired set of safe behaviours, a company can encourage these practices in a lasting way. And as companies try in different ways to shape the safe-practices behaviour of their employees, it's only logical that plant professionals should be called on to help spread the word. (For more on BBS in the plant environment, see "It's all in your head" by Scott Bury).

All of these safety responsibilities can seem pretty daunting — especially since professionals who read PEM have a host of primary operations and maintenance goals in the forefront of their working lives.

So how do you address them? In the PEM Special Report on plant safety that follows, we'll look at both the equipment/operations and behaviour-based approaches to safety in greater depth. But as an introduction to these topics, we asked a handful of practitioners about how they see the role of the plant professional in the overall safety initiatives of companies.

Michelle Gault, editor of Canadian Occupational Safety (COS) magazine — a sister publication of PEM and one devoted to professionals like occupational hygienists and safety managers/co-ordinators who work specifically in OH&S in a wide range of occupational settings — comes into contact with the major issues of workplace safety on a daily basis. Gault says that the move towards corporate-wide safety initiatives is increasingly focusing on the potential liability of those responsible for process and machinery. "When safety professionals try to 'sell' CEOs and heads of companies on safe-workplace initiatives, they are also selling them on the long-term benefits," she says. "And for people concerned with maintaining production levels, this can mean comparing the potential cost of accidents with whatever you are spending on inspection or training. One big lawsuit can wipe out the gains brought about by a whole lot of production uptime."

Gault also says that the maintenance/operations professional needs to be aware that there are some pretty powerful forces opposing a company's attempts to create a safe workplace. "It's very rare that someone willingly works unsafely and just blindly disregards regulations," she says. "But given the repetition of a lot of jobs on the production side of things, and the fact that people are often attempting to perform many tasks at once, safety concerns are often simply overlooked. One of the keys for shop-floor managers is finding ways to remind people continually of their responsibilities."

Mike Jessome, maintenance manager at the Brantford, Ontario-based automotive-parts manufacturer Westcast Industries, emphasizes the role of the maintenance and operations manager in ensuring the proper safety training for employees. "Educating people is key — but it can also be one of the hardest things to do, especially when you are talking about a tradesperson with 20 years experience and set way of doing things" says Jessome. "But if you do not provide the appropriate training, the consequences can be huge in terms of a whole range of things — personal injury, legal liability and lost production."

Jessome also stresses two other themes commonly heard in the pages of PEM — communication and data collection — when it comes to changing a safety culture from the maintenance/operations side of things. "Obviously, it's not a change that happens overnight," he says. "But the biggest challenge is just to make people aware of their individual responsibilities and to get them to start thinking as a group about how they want to create a safer workplace. And when you are able to track accidents — just like you can keep track of any industrial process — you are better able to find out how to reduce them."

As the people responsible for monitoring and maintaining equipment and processes in plants, maintenance/operations professionals have a prime opportunity to improve a company's safety record. Gino Palarchio, one of the people at the heart of the joint initiative between CMMS software developer Ivara and steel-making giant Dofasco (for which he and the two companies won 1999 Awards for Maintenance Excellence in 1999 for best-maintained large plant and best technical innovation), says that data-collection within the RCM methodology is a big part of ensuring safety in any plant. "Safety plays a big part within most failure-mode-analysis tools," he says. "If you are taking a pro-active approach to equipment, you are necessarily looking at maintaining it well before any personal safety issues would arise."

Palarchio adds that in the event of any unforeseen or unpreventable equipment failures that do cause injuries, the RCM methodology is one of the most due-diligent maintenance practices available. But he says that even though RCM can play a big part in overall safety, it's something that — like any good comprehensive safety program — has to embraced by an entire company from top to bottom. "Typically, you cannot delegate safety," he says. "The ideal state is to completely eliminate all unsafe environments, and that means that employees at all levels have to feel that they play a part in the process, including pointing out flaws in design, re-engineering equipment and the like. It sounds like a cliche, but for all the emphasis on machinery and diagnostics in our profession, safety really is all about people."

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Paul Challen is the former editor of PEM Plant Engineering and Maintenance and a freelance writer based in Dundas, Ont.

On October 7, 2000, the Ontario government amended the existing regulations surrounding pre-development reviews (or PDRs). Under the old PDRs, anyone who wanted to begin construction, reconstruction or alteration of any equipment, machines or devices was required to have a review signed by an engineer before work started. This, however, was unrealistic. From my experience, the majority of people could not provide the PDR before beginning the work. Ontario's new regulation 582/00 requires a Pre-Start Health and Safety Review, or PSR, before certain hazardous machines, devices or processes are operational.

The regulation also specifies that a professional engineer who is licensed in Ontario must conduct a review for the majority of situations specified by the regulation. In cases involving toxic substances with Occupational Exposure Limits, any appropriately qualified expert may also conduct the review. The owner is also responsible for ensuring that the individual conducting the review carries professional liability insurance. Other than a certificate of authorization from the Professional Engineers of Ontario (PEO), the engineer does not need to meet any specific requirements. Either an employee engineer or an outside consultant can perform the PSR, but employee engineers should be forewarned that engineers who give advice and provide certification can be held liable under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. Only the person whose stamp or signature is on the report is responsible under the Act, and there is no statute of limitations — the signature is valid forever. Any professionals who provide PSRs should make sure to obtain the necessary liability insurance and get the proper coverage.

Previously, the PDRs had to be stored near the equipment in case of a review by the Ministry of Labour. Under the new rules, the PSRs must be presented to either a Joint Health and Safety Committee or a health and safety representative, as well as to any Ministry inspector.

If some, or all, of the measures in the review are not taken, owners must submit written notice to the Joint Health and Safety Committee specifying which acceptable alternative measures have been taken prior to the equipment's first use. In the end, the Ministry of Labour has the final responsibility for enforcing this regulation.
PSRs are required under the following circumstances:

Storage and dispensing of flammable liquids:
When certain quantities of flammable liquids are stored or dispensed. (The requirements of Ontario Fire Code part 4 applies to flammable and combustible liquids)

Guarding:
When safeguarding devices that signal an apparatus to stop. Examples of these include: light curtains, safety mats, two hand control systems and barrier guards that use interlocking mechanical or electrical safeguarding devices.

Racks and racking systems:
When industrial pallet racks, movable shelf racks and stacker racks made of cold-formed or hot-rolled steel structural members are used.

Potentially explosive processes:
When there are any processes involving flammable liquids or combustible liquids heated above their flash point and processes where flammable gases or combustible dust are potentially explosive.

Dust collectors:
When there are any processes involving handling of combustible dusts, such as flour, chocolate, powder paint, or wood dust, or where a dust collector or filter receiver is required and may create a condition of imminent hazard to a worker.

Molten metal and foundries:
In cases where factory produces aluminum or steel, or a foundry that melts material or handles molten material.

Lifting devices:
In instances when the construction, addition, installation or modification relates to a lifting devices, traveling cranes or automobile hoists.

Occupational exposure to hazardous substances:
When a process uses or produces a substance that may result in a worker's exposure to that substance in excess of any occupational exposure limits. Some examples of this include substances such as silica, isocyanates and asbestos. And while the regulation allows a knowledgeable person or an engineer to sign a PSR, it is not clear how the issue of professional liability insurance would be addressed in this case.

Owners and employers should view the Pre-Start Health and Safety review as a positive change. It will help to ensure health and safety in the workplace, and it shifts the liability for compliance to professionals.

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Simon Fridlyand, P.Eng., is the president of S.A.F.E. Engineering, a company specializing in Pre-Start Health and Safety Reviews and audits for fire code compliance. You can reach him at (416) 447-9757.

Ontario and Nova Scotia have recently introduced regulations mandating owners or lessees of certain hazardous equipment — or equipment used in hazardous processes — to obtain a report bearing a seal and signature of a professional engineer. In Ontario this regulation known as a "Pre-Start Health and Safety Review" (it was formerly called a "Pre-development review").

A engineer would need to get involved in such an inspection process involving any machine where a safety interlock or light curtain is required, or any process where flammables or combustibles are handled. There are no other requirements for third-party review or certification. The buck stops right there, with the inspection engineer.

I view the engineer as playing the role of what is often called the "authority having jurisdiction". The authority having jurisdiction is defined as an organization, office or individual responsible for approving equipment, an installation, or a procedure. In other similar cases like the approval of electrical installations or building construction, the authority having jurisdiction would be an electrical inspection body, or a municipality. Approval process usually consists of verification of equipment, machines or installations, in accordance with nationally recognized codes and standards.

A list of acceptable codes and standards is usually included in various regulations governing process or equipment. The majority of industrialized countries have their own standards for a specific product. The European community has adopted a list of harmonized standards acceptable throughout Europe. In Canada, certain American standards are acceptable together with our own. However in some instances our standards are simply not available.

A good example of a product governed by ambiguous or non-existent standards would be a light curtain, which is commonly used as a guarding device. There are two CSA standards related to light curtains, CSA-Z142 and Z432. Neither of them would require examination of the light curtain from a safety performance point of view. In other words, the current standards would require examination of the device from an electrical shock hazard point of view — but not from performance point of view.

Compliance to the standard will confirm that a worker may not be electrocuted by the light curtain, but will not confirm that the injury will be prevented by the device. The obvious question, then, is why do we need a light curtain in the first place? The answer is that it should be a useful safety device, provided it has been evaluated from a performance safety point of view. There are European standards, which evaluate the performance of such devices, but these standards are not recognized here in Canada. Who is to say that, for example, the prEN 999 Installation Condition draft Standard is a good document? I alone cannot make such a judgment. There is, however, a process by which international standards are evaluated and accepted here.

Many Canadian codes such as the Building Code, Fire Code, and Electrical Safety Code, have cross -references to acceptable standards. But many of them are not Canadian. The Occupational Health and Safety Act in Ontario, for example, does not provide any cross-references to applicable standards mentioned in the Act. Further more, the recently-changed section 7 of "Reg. 851 for Industrial Establishments", known as Ontario Regulation 528/00, has cross-references to current applicable standards without mentioning them.

Would a machine manufactured in Mexico, where there are no standards, be acceptable here? In a catalog of a major light curtain supplier manufactured in Japan, I saw a statement saying that such a device is not allowed to be sold in Japan. It is, however, widely used and promoted here. It bears a CSA label. The meaning of the label is that the device has been investigated from an electrical shock hazard point of view only. People who purchase such devices should be aware of this fact. Purchasers should always ask the supplier about what standard it has been tested to, and what that standard covers. What can we do to change the situation? The answer is simple: Take a proactive approach.

Other codes with cross-references to applicable standards were developed in the past. People who write Occupational Health and Safety Acts should follow their examples. We do not need to wait for a disaster to happen to change our existing regulatory requirements.

Unfortunately, in the past that is often what it took to bring the change about. Spectacular fires, for example, brought the development of codes and standards to the present level. The Walkerton water-supply disaster brought changes to our drinking water requirements. The infrastructure exists to properly address Occupational Health and Safety issues today. We do not need to wait until something happens and then change our requirements. Engineers acting as an authority having jurisdiction should be in the forefront of this change.

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Simon Fridlyand, P.Eng., is the president of S.A.F.E. Engineering, a company specializing in PDRs and audits for fire code compliance. You can reach him at (416) 447-9757.