Forensic Engineers and Consultants

Tag Archive: OSHA regulations

  1. FORKLIFT Etiquette: DON’T BE A LOUSY TIPPER!

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    That is always good advice to follow if you are a forklift driver!  Operating a forklift can be a dangerous occupation.  There are approximately 1 million forklifts (powered industrial trucks) in the US workplace today, and it is estimated that just over 10% of those are involved in some type of accident every year.  Forklift accidents result in dozens of deaths and thousands of non-fatal injuries annually.  About one out of every four of those accidents involves a tipping or overturning forklift, making this the most common type of industrial truck accident.  (more…)

  2. Everybody Has A Part to Play – What’s Your Role?

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    Across industry and construction sites, there are times when employees of different employers are working side by side, or at least on the same site at the same time.  Some industry examples are when chemical plants have contractors on-site for routine maintenance or during process shutdowns for major overhauls or repairs. OSHA refers to these as multi-employer worksites.  In December of 1999, they revised their citation policy which allows for more than one employer at a worksite to be cited for conditions that violate OSHA standards. (more…)

  3. WARREN Welcomes Human Factors Consultant Ellen Szubski, Ph.D.

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    Please join us in welcoming Human Factors Expert Ellen Szubski, Ph.D, to the WARREN family!

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Ellen’s Areas of Expertise Include:

    • Human Factors & Safety
    • Illumination Evaluation
    • OSHA Regulations
    • Premises Liability
    • Slips, trips, and falls
    • Workplace injuries
    • Vehicle/Pedestrian/Bicycle Crash Investigation

    Ellen Szubski is a human factors consultant with Warren. Her expertise focuses on the crash investigations and other personal injury matters. These matters often include collisions and/or crashes involving vulnerable road users and drivers, driver distraction, and slips, trips. & falls. She utilizers her knowledge of OSHA regulations, codes and standards in her analysis of premises liability incident and safety consulting.

    Ellen graduated from Clemson University with a Master of Science in Applied Psychology and a Doctor of Philosophy in Human Factors Psychology. She did her dissertation on “The Influence of Pedestrian Biological Motion on Time-To-Collision Estimates at Night.”  Ellen is a member of the Human Factors and Ergonomic Society (HFES) and its Forensic Professional Technical Group.  She has presented multiple times at the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual meetings.

  4. WARREN WEBINAR: Property Claims Issues at Manufacturing Facilities

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    LIVE WEBINAR: “Property Claims Issues at Manufacturing Facilities” | Presented by WARREN’s President and Senior Consulting Engineer, Jennifer Morningstar, P.E., CFEI.

    COURSE LEARNING OBJECTIVES
    The learning objectives of this course are to provide the attendees with information on the four major facets of property claims that are commonplace in manufacturing facilities.

    They are:

    1. Subrogation against third parties;
    2. Boiler & machinery vs property claims;
    3. Scope of loss, and
    4. Business interruption

    Each facet will be explored and exemplified by at least one case study.

    (more…)

  5. P&ID’s, If You Please – Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams Explained

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    When investigating an industrial incident, one piece of information I always ask for is the relevant P&ID’s for the process.  P&ID stands for Piping and Instrumentation Diagram and is defined as “A schematic diagram of the relationship between instruments, controllers, piping, and system equipment.” A set of P&ID’s for an entire facility allows you to trace the entire manufacturing process from raw material unloading to finished product loadout, including utilities like steam, water, fuel, and air. That’s great information to have, but isn’t especially useful (more…)

  6. The Paths of Chemical Exposure

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    The Safety Hierarchy states that hazards should be mitigated first by engineering controls, secondly by guarding, and lastly by warning/training.  When the first two, engineering controls and guards, fail in a manufacturing setting, a chemical release could occur. A forensic chemical engineer can help determine the root cause of that failure. (more…)

  7. The CE Mark and What Should It Mean to You? Part Two

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    In the previous blog (Part One) we discussed the backstory behind the two stylized letters CE and what it means to the design of machinery bearing the mark.   We outlined some of the requirements of the “Machinery Directive” (MD) which include what are known as “Essential Health and Safety Requirements.” The Essential Health and Safety Requirements incorporate an iterative risk reduction process during design that takes into account (more…)

  8. Structure Fires in Eating and Drinking Establishments

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    Eating and drinking establishments see an average of 7,410 structure fires per year based on a 2017 report published by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). The report analyzed available data from the U.S. Fire Administration’s National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) and the NFPA’s annual fire department survey for the years 2010-2014.

    (more…)

  9. Machine Guarding and Risk Assessment

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    The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) “Top 10 for 2018” violations once again have Machine Safeguarding earning a position on the list. Machine safeguarding was the 9th most cited standard as noted in the list below:

    1. Fall protection, construction (29 CFR 1926.501)
    2. Hazard communication standard, general industry (29 CFR 1910.1200)
    3. Scaffolding, general requirements, construction (29 CFR 1926.451)
    4. Respiratory protection, general industry (29 CFR 1910.134)
    5. Control of hazardous energy (lockout/tagout), general industry (29 CFR 1910.147)
    6. Ladders, construction (29 CFR 1926.1053)]
    7. Powered industrial trucks, general industry (29 CFR 1910.178)
    8. Fall Protection–Training Requirements (29 CFR 1926.503
    9. Machinery and Machine Guarding, general requirements (29 CFR 1910.212)
    10. Eye and Face Protection (29 CFR 1926.102)

    (Source: www.osha.gov/Top_Ten_Standards.html)

    (more…)

  10. How a Central Indian Town Changed the United States Code of Federal Regulations

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    On December 3, 1984, at a pesticide ingredient manufacturing facility owned by Union Carbide, a leak occurred in the Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) plant. Due to the toxic nature of the gases released and the plant’s proximity to local residences, the death toll was in the thousands; both plant workers and nearby residents.  The first recorded public meeting in response to this incident was on December 9th, in Institute, WV, the site of Union Carbide’s only US MIC production unit.  Full disclosure: my father was a research & development chemist for Union Carbide and Institute is about 10 miles down the Kanawha River from my hometown of Charleston, WV. (more…)

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