Hierarchy of Safety Controls Hazards, physical conditions that cause injury, take many forms in the workplace. Often the hazard can be controlled in a number of different ways. However, the goal is to seek to best treatment technique that ideally eliminates the hazard or reduces it down to lowest possible level. The lowest possible level is where it would be extremely remote for the hazard to cause an injury. In the OSHA Standards and in safety education, controls of hazards usually fall into one of two categories: Administrative Controls and Engineering Controls. The Hierarchy of Safety controls incorporates those techniques in the pursuit of reducing the hazard to the lowest acceptable level. First priority to reduce hazards is to eliminate the hazard. Elimination of the hazard approaches seek to remove the hazard through changes in the process that creates the hazard. This is the best approach to prevent injuries because you have removed the injury causing hazard totally from the work environment. For example, a certain chemical requires the use of respirators to prevent illness. The application of engineering controls is to replace the chemical with a non- hazardous one to avoid the hazard or isolate the process to prevent employee exposure. The second priority is to physically reduce the hazard through the design and implementation of engineering controls. This can be accomplished with modifications to the work process, the plant or the materials being received. Some examples are to perform job design changes or install mechanical equipment, such as a conveyor. Engineering controls would be used to redesign the elements of the hazard. Engineering controls do not require human intervention to reduce or eliminate a hazard. For example, in a warehouse dry goods operation, employees repeatedly complain of headaches and nausea. With a little investigation it is determined that the Forklift fuel source is not appropriate for warehouse use as it is gas burning and gives off carbon monoxide. So, the Risk Manager purchases forklifts that burn clean fuel, such as propane and the exposure to CO2 is eliminated. Understand less effective controls could have been attempted such as increasing ventilation or requiring employees to wear respirators. Obviously, changing the equipment is the best most effective method as it eliminates the root source of injury cause. Another example would be in an plant with high noise exposure. An engineering control would be to enclose the machine or install noise absorption baffles in the machine area. The third priority is to apply safety technology to reduce the risk of injury. Administrative Controls are those policies, procedures, work rules and training put into place to prevent the hazard from causing injury. An example is the use of a grinder causes the hazard of flying particles with an injury source of eye injuries; the administrative control is to require employees when using the grinder to wear eye protection. That requires a certain behavior on the part of the exposed employee. For that reason Engineering controls are preferred to administrative controls. Hazards have a hierarchy of safety controls, that is, the first steps to be taken to eliminate the hazard should be performed first and followed down to the least preferred method. Examples of applying safety technology include safety training, instructions and warning signs. Fourth priority is to use Personal Protection Equipment. PPE is the use of such equipment as eye protection, fall protection, hard hats, gloves and other items, Sometimes this is the only safety control that is feasible. This is the last resort to hazard elimination. The reason it is last is because it requires safety education. Education requires comprehension and application of the message. That is, safety education, once delivered, requires employee behavior. The point of this article is to get the reader to think in terms of hazard control by trying to first eliminate the exposure. If elimination of the hazard is not feasible to apply, then other forms of hazard control should be introduced to achieve an acceptable level of risk. Chris Conti, CSP, CPCU owns RiskWise a loss control and injury management company. Chris can be reached at [email protected] or www.riskwise.biz or # (225) 413-7542. .