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Every piece of machinery comes with its own benefits and hazards. Using guards and devices to shield hazardous areas of a machine is essential to protect workers, prevent accidents, and comply with the Occupational Safety & Health Administration’s (OSHA) regulations, as well as American National Standards Institute (ANSI) consensus standards on industrial machine guarding and overall machine safety.
Continue reading “Industrial Safety: 5 Machine Guarding Solutions to Protect Your Employees”
Hazardous area classification is the process of identifying where flammable gases and vapors, combustible dusts, or ignitable fibers can exist at high enough concentrations to ignite or explode. It is commonly used to determine the appropriate electrical fixtures that are required to be installed within the process areas, per NFPA 70 – National Electric Code. Various systems are used nationally and internationally to categorize these environments and ensure safe electrical equipment installation. In all cases, area classification principles guide how locations are assessed and equipment is selected. Continue reading “Hazardous Area Classification Explained: Class, Division, and Zone Systems”
When outside contractors perform maintenance or servicing at a facility, coordination between the contractor and the host employer becomes critical for worker safety. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Control of Hazardous Energy standard (29 CFR 1910.147) requires employers to implement procedures that prevent the unexpected release of hazardous energy during equipment servicing. When multiple employers are involved, OSHA expects both parties to coordinate their Lockout Tagout (LOTO) programs to ensure that no employee is exposed to dangerous energy sources.
Under OSHA regulations, both the host employer and the contractor maintain independent responsibilities for protecting their employees. These responsibilities cannot be transferred from one employer to the other. Instead, both parties must communicate and align their LOTO procedures so that workers clearly understand how hazardous energy will be controlled during the job. Continue reading “Coordinating Lockout Tagout Between Contractors and Host Employers: What OSHA Expects”
Most facilities that are handling/producing combustible dusts are now familiar with the term “Dust Hazard Analysis” or “DHA” and understand that it comes from a standard issued by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), nfpa.org. The most referred to standard is NFPA 652 – Standard on the Fundamentals of Combustible Dust. This is the overarching standard that applies to all facilities and serves as a starting point for the commodity-specific dust standards (e.g., 61 for agricultural and food, 664 for wood products, 484 for metals, 654 for general processing). The requirement for all facilities handling and/or generating combustible dusts to conduct a DHA originated from the 2016 edition of NFPA 652. The 2019 edition of this standard did change the deadline for existing operations to have the DHA completed was updated to September 7, 2020 and several of the commodity specific standards made the same updates. However, the 2020 edition of NFPA 61: Standard for the Prevention of Fires and Dust Explosions in Agricultural and Food Processing Facilities set a different deadline. The deadline for existing food and agricultural facilities to have their DHAs completed is January 1, 2022.
Why would NFPA 61 use a different deadline? This is the only commodity standard that changed the deadline. All other industries kept the September 7, 2020 date. The reason for this deadline comes down to cost and time constraints:
Continue reading “Multi-Site DHAs in the Food and Grain Industries”
Pursuant to Executive Order (EO) 13650 “Improving Chemical Facility Safety and Security”, OSHA was directed to modernize their Process Safety Management of Highly Hazardous Chemicals (PSM) standard (29 CFR 1910.119). OSHA has issued potential revisions to the standard and convened a Small Business Advocacy Review (SBAR) Panel earlier this year. The Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) Panels were conducted back in June 2016, with the completed report placed in the federal docket on August 1, 2016.
OSHA has extended the compliance deadline to July 22, 2016 for those affected facilities previously considered exempted retail facilities under the PSM regulation. In July 2015, OSHA revised the PSM retail exemption interpretation to only exempt those facilities under NAICS codes 44 and 45. As part of this change, those affected facilities are will also required to update their EPA RMP programs from level 2 to level 3.
On December 3, 2015, the International Institute of Ammonia Refrigeration (IIAR) published the new ANSI/IIAR 2-2014: American National Standard for Safe Design of Closed-Circuit Ammonia Refrigeration Systems. This standard replaces the 2008 edition of the standard. This is IIAR’s first comprehensive safety standard and was written specifically for adoption by code making bodies. This change sees the new standard written using enforceable language. Informative topics and guidance are now included in appendices. Historically, ANSI/IIAR 2 has served as the recognized and generally acceptable good engineering practices (RAGAGEP) for safe design and compliance for ammonia refrigeration facilities subject to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Process Safety Management (PSM) and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Risk Management Plan (RMP). This won’t change with the new standard; however, we could see a more formal adoption of the standard by OSHA and EPA.Continue reading “IIAR Publishes New Standard for Ammonia Refrigeration Systems”
On January 18, 2016, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) published the 2nd draft report for NFPA 499: Recommended Practice for the Classification of Combustible Dusts and of Hazardous (Classified) Locations for Electrical Installations in Chemical Process Areas. It is now open for a Notice of Intent to Make a Motion (NITMAM) until February 19, 2016 for those on a Committee Comment, Second Revision, or Second Correlating Revision. The purpose of NFPA 499 is to provide information on classifying combustible dusts and locations and provide recommended practices on proper selection of electrical equipment in hazardous (classified) locations per NFPA 70, National Electrical Code. NFPA 499 is a compendium document to Chapter 5 (Article 500) of NFPA 70 and does not supersede any requirements of other NFPA standards (e.g. NFPA 61, 68, 69, 654, 664, etc.).
The significant changes for the 2016 revision includes classifications and definitions for the following: Continue reading “NFPA 499 Revision Update”
The EPA’s Risk Management Plan (RMP) regulation (40 CFR Part 68) was issued in multiple stages, beginning in 1994. The regulation was modeled after OSHA’s Process Safety Management (PSM) standard (29 CFR 1910.119). The RMP regulation is about reducing chemical risk at the local level. The information from the RMP aids local fire, police, and emergency response personnel in responding to chemical accidents. It also helps citizens to understand the chemical hazards in their communities. The regulation has been left relatively unchanged since its issuance.
Under the regulation, companies of all sizes that use listed regulated flammable and toxic substances above threshold quantities are required to develop a Risk Management Plan and submit the plan to the EPA every 5 years. The RMP must include: Continue reading “Modernizing the Risk Management Plan (RMP) Regulation”
Today, during the Technical Meeting at NFPA’s 2015 Annual Conference, there were two certified motions up for a vote related to the new NFPA Standard on Fundamentals of Combustible Dust – NFPA 652. One motion was to remove the requirement for a Dust Hazard Analysis, and the other was to delay the issuance of the Standard completely. Both motions were defeated by an overwhelming majority of the NFPA voting members, including myself. These votes were the last hurdle in the issuance of the Standard later this year.
NFPA 652 is the first step in developing a single, overarching standard to deal with fire and explosion hazards associated with combustible dust of all types and in all industries. Currently, there are several industry and commodity specific standards, such as NFPA 61 for agricultural dust and 664 for wood dust, that often lack consistency, leading to confusion among users, authorities having jurisdiction (e.g. OSHA), and safety professionals. The development of NFPA 652 intends to alleviate some of the confusion … eventually. Over the coming months, CTI will be writing articles, providing presentations at conferences and online, and consulting our clients with the specifics of the standard. If you are interested in staying in touch with these developments and other news, please email cti@conversiontechnology.com and ask to be included on our Newsletter list.
