A recent news item from MAPI, the Manufacturers’ Alliance, reports on how some companies are responding to what it calls the “global epidemic of counterfeit products.”  It refers to a 2009 survey that showed something like 80% of people don’t see any problem buying a fake, and its own survey that showed nearly 40% of member executives believe counterfeiting a significant problem for their companies.  “Troublingly, members believe that one-third of their customers have knowingly bought a counterfeit version of their products and felt that the quality was ‘good enough.’ ”

The risk of buying a counterfeit may be small if you’re picking up a “designer” handbag or a pair of sunglasses.  But what if it’s a bogus software program that fries a computer network?  A drug that doesn’t work?  A critical component in an airliner?  One international organization estimates the annual cost of counterfeit products at $600 billion.  The human cost can be higher.

Think about PPE.  You purchase and wear PPE expecting it to do one thing – protect your eyes, ears, lungs, limbs or life against a hazard.  You may never need it, but when you do, there’s often no second chance.  Suppliers, users and regulators have agreed on standards of performance for all types of PPE.  Manufacturers design, build and test equipment to meet those standards.  You’re not going to buy a pair of safety glasses or a respirator from a street vendor, but what if you’re getting it from a Web site?  It’s critical to make sure what you’re buying is the real thing.  Know your suppliers.  Make sure the PPE you’re buying has been tested for compliance with all appropriate standards.   Remember what you’re buying it for, and don’t ever settle for “good enough.”

Anyone who attended the A+A show in Düsseldorf in October and the National Safety Council Congess and Expo in Philadelphia a few weeks later knows how different they are.  The show in Germany is a four-day spectacular, occupying multiple exhibit halls with exhibitors providing food, drink and entertainment in addition to products.  It has runway fashion shows with models in coveralls dancing to a techno beat.  It’s a business event, with exhibitors and visitors from all over the world – more than 60,000 of them.  It’s all about safety and health at work, and it’s held every two years at the same exhibit center. 

The NSC Congress & Expo is a conference with exhibits, a meeting whose main purpose is continuing education and training in all facets of safety – transportation, community, education, occupational.  It’s an annual event, and moves around the country.

To the exhibitors who were at both, including a lot of ISEA member companies, the contrast is stark.  At A+A, companies meet customers and potential customers, show their products, and make deals.  Everyone there is focused on occupational safety and health.  At the NSC show, they show their wares to some distributors and some end-users, but it’s a much smaller crowd, with varied interests.  There are times when the trade show floor seems empty of anyone but exhibitors.

Not surprisingly, these exhibitors are unhappy with the US trade show situation.  It’s not just the NSC – the American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Expo (AIHce) and the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) Safety Exposition are more focused on workplace safety and health, but they come in for their share of gripes as well.  Companies question the value of bringing their wares to three trade shows every year, not to mention the regional conferences and multitude of market segment shows that have some safety component.  They chafe at the lack of interest among attendees at these conferences, which are after all not held for the primary purpose of putting buyers and sellers together.

When the discontent rises to a level approaching outrage, exhibiting companies call for a better deal.  They feel their requests are reasonable: merge the three big US shows (NSC, ASSE, AIHce) into one big trade show and hold it every other year.  In other words, make it the equivalent of A+A.  They say they’d be willing to pay double what they’re paying now for booth space, and in fact they’d probably book more floor space in a consolidated show.  ISEA has conducted surveys, and organized a meeting with the executive heads of the three sponsoring organizations a few years ago.  To be fair, all of them have taken steps to improve their shows for exhibitors.  And these events are the primary market exposure for some companies.  But the fact remains that they are conferences, not trade shows.  There is no broad-based workplace safety and health trade show in the United States.  PPE companies, feeling they have to be there, are forced to send booths, products and people to multiple events every year, with diminishing returns.

So what do you think?  Is is time for a single workplace safety and health trade show in North America?  Would you attend?  Would ou exhibit?  What would be your expectations for such a show?  Share your thoughts here, and keep the conversation going.

On November 3, 2011, senior managers from OSHA met with industry stakeholders to discuss occupational hearing loss and strategies for balancing regulation with economic growth.  Deputy Assistant Secretary for OSHA Richard Fairfax emphasized the need for flexibility between programs that use engineering and administrative controls to achieve this goal. Hearing conservation programs, fit-testing, feasible engineering upgrades, implementation of new technologies, education, training, and outreach emerged as leading best practices favored by the stakeholder representatives.

Representatives from ISEA, Honeywell, and 3M, discussed emerging PPE technologies that provide cost-effective solutions for employers. In-ear dosimetry allows for real-time exposure monitoring under the hearing protector, which documents noise at the eardrum without relying on rating methods or estimates of protection. Innovation in intelligent communication technology enhances worker safety by blocking noise, while allowing voice and warning signals to be heard more naturally. Improved hearing protectors allow speech frequencies to be discerned with less distortion and helps combat worker isolation and overprotection in the workplace. These advances in technical function and ease of use will help employers monitor exposure and allow workers to maximize the noise reduction capabilities of their hearing protection devices.

In addition to technical advances in hearing protection devices, ISEA, 3M and Honeywell representatives also advocated for consistent training on the use and selection of hearing protectors, and new OSHA regulations setting the permissible exposure limit for hazardous noise at 85 dBA (it is currently 90 dBA) and lowering the exchange rate to 3 dBA from 5 dBA.

The exhibit floor of a trade show isn’t the best place to conduct a forum.  It’s crowded and noisy, and people are there for one-on-one conversatons, not presentations.  So it was a testament to the timeliness of the topics and quality of the presenters that users took part in the “PPE Solutions from ISEA Experts” forum at the National Safety Council Expo in Philadelphia. 

ISEA’s Marketing and Communications Committee organized this event to showcase the expertise of ISEA member companies in helping users deal with personal protection issues and concerns.  Keying off the “OSHA top ten” in safety violations, they chose fall protection, hearing protection and respiratory protection as subjects, adding PPE conformity assessment as a general topic.  Experts from the product groups were Marty Lorkowski of Scott Safety, Theresa Shulz of Honeywell/Howard Leight and Tom Wolner of Capital Safety, with MSA’s Eric Beck representing the Standards Policy and Planning Committee.

The presenters covered fall protection regulations and standards, expected changes to the EPA Noise Reduction Rating testing and labeling rules, how to plan and run an effective respiratory protection program, and ISEA’s progress on a conformity assessment standard.  There are links to all the presentations on ISEA’s Web site. 

According to Marketing & Communications Committee chairman Rusty Franklin of Sellstrom, the NSC was “thrilled” with the forum, and “definitely want to do it again next year.”  Educating and informing the user community is an important part of ISEA’s mission to protect the safety and health of workers worldwide.

ISEA is pleased to announce two new guides for personal fall protection for users, employers, and anyone involved in planning, designing, and implementing fall protection on the job.

The Personal Fall Protection Equipment Use and Selection Guide takes you step by step through the process of planning a fall protection program, describes the components of a personal fall arrest system, identifies typical components for various work scenarios and outlines steps for system planning.  It also includes guidelines for inspection, maintenance and cleaning; definitions of fall protection terminology, lists of applicable OSHA regulations and consensus standards, and more.

The guide is intended to supplement regulations and standards, as well as manufacturer’s instructions and training.  It won’t tell you everything you need to know, but it will provide the basic elements to help you understand what you need to know, and where to find it. 

The second document reflects the questions that fall protection equipment manufacturers are asked on a regular basis, dealing with components and systems, specific applications, and topics such as service life, suspension trauma, and ensuring protection for heavy workers.  Frequently Addressed Topics in Fall Protection is the first in a new series of “PPE Perspectives” from ISEA.

Both these documents were written by members of the ISEA Fall Protection Group, who supply the world’s finest fall protection equipment to workers around the globe.  they are available on the ISEA Web site in PDF form for reading online, downloading or printing.