01.03.2011

New Harness guide for platforms

The American Rental Association (ARA), the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM), the Associated Equipment Distributors (AED), the International Powered Access Federation (IPAF) and the Scaffold Industry Association (SIA) have issued a joint best practice publication covering Personal Fall Protection for users of aerial work platforms.

Dubbed the Statement of Best Practices of Personal Fall Protection Systems for Aerial Work Platform Equipment, the publication is intended to address confusion in the marketplace and apparent contradictions over when and in which machines a harness and lanyard are required.
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The Joint publication

The use of such equipment is governed in the USA by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations and American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standards both of which reference fall protection when using aerial lifts.

The document provides a great deal of information on fall protection when using aerial lifts and on conducting proper risk assessments when considering fall protection. In essence its says that when using booms and vehicle mounted lifts a harness must be worn with a short fall restraint lanyard.

To achieve this and cope with various different harness points and allow for a wider use of the harness, it suggests the alternatives of an adjustable lanyard, a dual lanyard harness or a recoil type lanyard to a simple short fall restraint lanyard.

However it does state that when these three alternatives are used, a plan needs to be formulated on how to rescue an operator that uses the longer fall arrest lanyards and then goes over the side.

The advice is clear that a harness and lanyard are not normally required in scissor and other vertical type lifts.
The associations say that the key objectives of the best practice document are to:
•Educate the industry on applicable OSHA regulations and the industry-recognized and supported ANSI standards.
•Provide information to assist users and operators during their selection process to identify the most appropriate personal fall protection system for their job functions while operating aerial lifts.
•Inform the user and operator how to recognize and guard against the potential fall hazards associated with the use of aerial lifts.
•Encourage the incorporation of best practices for personal fall protection with aerial lifts into a company’s fall protection plans.

The publication will be available to download free or charge from the websites of all of the associations that produced the document. Click here to see it on the IPAF site

Vertikal Comment

This guide has a lot of good sound advice and while it naturally tries to cope with every eventuality it does confirm IPAF’s view that harnesses with fall restraint lanyards should be used in boom type lifts but not scissor lifts.

The information on the regulations and standards as well as the associations themselves tends to clutter the main message a little, being placed in advance of the main information, but the charts and options and advice is all very clear and easy to read and understand. All in all an excellent publication.