Incident investigations are an important part of your overall workplace safety and health management efforts.

But for an incident investigation to go well, allowing you to correctly determine its root cause(s), implement corrective actions, and avoid similar incidents in the future, you’re going to want to be prepared before an incident occurs.

One aspect of that preparation is simply knowing what an incident investigation is and how to conduct an incident investigation. It makes sense to start at the beginning, right?

But drilling down a little deeper, it pays to have a prepared incident investigation kit that’s fully packed and ready to go when an incident occurs. You won’t have to scramble around wasting time to find stuff, and you won’t have to worry about not having something important in the middle of the investigation.

In this article, we’ll help you get that incident investigation kit ready before you need it when the next incident at work puts you into incident investigation mode.

Also, please know we’ve got a FREE GUIDE TO INCIDENT INVESTIGATIONS that you can download at the link you just passed or by clicking the button at the bottom of this article. 

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Maybe you’ve heard of the Globally Harmonized System.

Maybe you know it’s sometimes abbreviated as GHS. Maybe you know it’s got something to do with OSHA’s Hazard Communication Standard (1910.1200). And maybe you even know about OSHA’s GHS-alignment of the Haz-Com standard back in 2012.

If you do, that’s great. But if you’d like to know more, we think we can fill you in below.

And if you don’t know the stuff above, we think you’ll really appreciate the head’s up below.

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As part of the 2012 GHS alignment of the Hazard Communication Standard (1910.200), OSHA began requiring specific label elements appear on chemical used at workplaces.

One of those label elements was the hazard statement (or hazard statements).

In this article, we’ll briefly explain the required Haz-Com label elements and then explain what a Hazard Communication hazard statement is.

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If you’ve heard of OSHA’s Hazard Communication Standard (1210.1200), updated in 2012, you may also have heard of Hazard Communication pictograms.

But what are they, you may wonder?

Well, we explain just that in this article. So read on if you wanna know.

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In 2012, OSHA revised their existing Hazard Communication Standard (1910.1200) to more close align it with internal chemical labeling practices through something called the Globally Harmonized System (GHS).

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The safety data sheet, also known as an SDS, is an essential component of the OSHA Hazard Communication Standard and of a worker’s right to know about the chemical hazards at his or her workplace.

In this article, we’ll explain what an SDS is, how it’s related to a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) and to the GHS-alignment of Haz-Com, what you’ll find in its sixteen different sections, and even give you some additional information about SDSs, including issues related to employer responsibilities and employee access.

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This is another of our three articles with Ron Gantt focusing on Safety Differently.

If you missed our earlier introduction to Safety Differently, click that link you just passed up. We also have another article on Safety Differently and Incident Investigations.

The focus of this article, though, is on Safety Differently and safety training. Makes sense since we do so much work in safety training, right?

Read on to learn more.

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Like clockwork, every three years, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) updates the Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace (NFPA 70E). The most recent revision occurred in 2015, and it clearly focused on amping up several areas of arc flash requirements.  The new 2018 version on the horizon appears to be similar in emphasis, too.

Alongside the 2015 NFPA 70E, in 2014, OSHA also made updates to the Electric Power Generation, Transmission, and Distribution Standard (29 CFR 1910.269), which addressed the arc flash hazards in the applicable industries covered by this regulation. Similar to the 70E, the OSHA updates to 1910.269 included changes to several areas, such as training, estimations of arc flash energy, minimum approach distances, and personal protective equipment.

And of course, Subpart S, which addresses electrical safety and safe work practices, is also is a large and ever-present OSHA concentration. With good reason.

Each of these areas are intended to prevent catastrophic, and potentially lethal, arc flash and electrical injuries in the workplace. Due to the severity of arc flash incidents, stringent methods are needed to protect workers.

To that end, proper selection of PPE is critical. Arc flash is an unforgiving event if it transpires. Even PPE may not fully protect workers in the event of a serious electrical event, but the wrong selection can be deadly.

We’ll learn more about all that in this article.

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