Page 70 - OHS, July/August 2022

FACILITY SAFETY
Making the extra effort to ensure safety is a good business decision.
facility and understanding which options are most appropriate for that environment, company leaders can mitigate risks, protect their employees, and ultimately save money.
How to Assess Surface Safety
to Prevent Slips, Trips and Falls
The best way to fully identify the safety issues in an industrial or manufacturing facility is to conduct a safety audit. Sometimes called a gemba walk (adapted from the Japanese word gemba, which means “the actual place”), an audit is a focused tour of a facility to understand what is happening on the walkways and other surfaces. Gemba walks can uncover any number of issues, but in this case, it’s a great way to assess slip, trip and fall hazards.
OSHA expects companies to make regular inspections by qualified people. According to the agency, a qualified person must be knowledgeable about the manufacturers’ specifications and recommendations and trained to make these inspections and identify both existing and potential hazards. There are several certifications available, such as the Certified Safety Manager or Certified Safety Professional.
While there are certainly technical specifications to consider, these inspections are quite often focused on simply being observant. If an inspector’s foot slides in a particular spot, that area should be noted and remediated.
Pay close attention. During the walk, inspect ladder rungs, stair treads, railings and other potentially problematic areas for slip and fall hazards.
Follow the liquids. Because wet surfaces are often more dangerous, it’s important to track where all the plant’s water, fats and other fluids are coming from and going.
Walk all stairways and elevated platforms. Because they increase the risk of a worker falling far and fast, pay close attention to stairs and any elevated platforms.
Check poorly lit areas. What people don’t see can hurt them. It’s not enough to see the obvious, inspectors should locate the obscure.
It’s also important to remember that safety is a team effort— lean on the employees on the floor for additional information. Workers will gladly show an inspector where they may be slipping. Also, ask them about near misses, which may not be reflected in a company’s safety statistics but are just as important to acknowledge as actual falls. In addition, workers may simply avoid certain areas, knowing they are unsafe. This first-hand knowledge is invaluable to identify problem areas.
The best way to objectively test a surface for slip and fall safety is to note coefficient of friction (COF), which measures
the resistance between two surfaces. COF has a 0-1 scale, with 1 being the ideal for slip and fall resistance. OSHA maintains that the COF for a walking surface should be .5 or higher, but again, this is merely the minimum standard. ThThe Americans with Disabilities Act recommends a COF of .6 for flat surfaces and .8 for inclines.
To get the most detailed readings, companies can buy or rent a tribometer, an important tool to measure COF. Tribometers read the interactions between surfaces under different conditions, such as wet, dry, greasy and they can provide true measures of the fall risk in the plant. Another option is to bring in safety consultants who already have this sophisticated equipment.
What Constitutes a Safe Surface?
After completing the audit, inspectors may identify a number of areas that need to be retrofitted to eliminate slips, trips and falls. Here’s where COF becomes especially important. Not all non- slip materials are created equally and the best way to choose the right one is to assess their durability and COF under different conditions.
As noted, diamond plate may be adequate in dry conditions but loses COF when it is wet or oily. This risk can be compounded because workers can have misplaced faith in the material’s ability to keep them safe. When people believe a surface is slip-resistant, they may take less care when walking across it.
There can also be indirect risks. While serrated, anti-slip stair treads meet a higher standard for slip resistance, that doesn’t mean they are actually safe. Should someone fall on this surface, they can get cut and severely injured by the serrated edges, possibly even losing a finger.
Metal bonded surface technologies, which have thousands of tiny, random surface peaks and valleys, are hard, durable and have a high COF. These structural peaks retain their anti- slip properties over time, even when wet from water or oils, and maintain anti-slip properties after years of wear, providing effective slip and fall prevention and long-term durability.
Fortunately, determining COF for any commercial surface is easy. The NFSI certifies high-traction floors, providing handy ratings for comparison.
Preventing slips and falls requires a significant investment in time, effort and resources, but the payoff is quite high. According to the National Safety Council, from 2018 through 2019, companies spent around $47,000 per slip or fall on workers’ compensation.2
Ultimately, choosing to make the extra effort to ensure safety is a good business decision. Companies reduce their liability, avoid costly retrofits, show good faith with their employees and, in turn, improve their ability to retain and recruit workers. Those all sound like wins in my book.
William Davidson is the CEO & President of SLIPNOT.
REFERENCES
1. https://www.nsc.org/work-safety/safety-topics/slips-trips-falls
2. https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/work/costs/workers-compensation-costs/
66 Occupational Health & Safety | JULY/AUGUST 2022
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