wilhendrix wrote:
I'd like to ask if any of you have implemented a site specific PPE program or policy? If so, how it work out? Did you have any unexpected problems or issues? How was it received by your company or client? Did you end up jumping through any hoops to get it approved? And what, if anything did you do to make it easy or easier for people to use?
Thanks,
Yes. What you want to do though is two fold: simplify and make it more flexible. If you are following the tables, you must use the table-specified PPE which has minimum ATPV values. You can exceed these of course. So sticking with the tables, there is little practical difference between PPE 1 and PPE 2, and even less difference between PPE 3 and PPE 4. So simply get rid of the unnecessary categories reducing it to a 3 category system (0, 2, 4).
If however you used incident energy analysis then as per Code for several years now you can't use the table in Chapter 130 in the first place. You need to follow Annex H. This is where we can make the system more flexible and improve on the Chapter 130 table.
To start with, does your company already require FR clothing for fire reasons (working around molten materials or highly flammable ones)? If so, then 1.2 cal/cm^2 likely has little meaning. Start with the lowest "level" in your system as your company's minimum PPE. This would be the maximum cal/cm^2 before a face shield and balaclava are required. Depending on Codes and/or regulations this can be anywhere from 1.2 cal/cm^2 (some 70E editions) to 4 cal/cm^2 (other 70E editions) all the way to 8 cal/cm^2 (OSHA 1910.269 latest edition).
Second consider that the maximum ATPV value with single layer PPE and a face shield+balaclava is 12 cal/cm^2. Whatever your purchased single layer PPE may be, that would define a "middle" threshold. This likely to be something OTHER than 8 cal/cm^2 and the higher you can achieve, the higher the allowable PPE before getting into a clothing system that becomes a heat exhaustion hazard.
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Third, check with your vendor and/or Arcwear's web site to determine if there are allowable PPE layer combinations you can use or if you are changing PPE, adopt one. This reduces costs and makes it simpler to do certain things such as wearing a company supplied arc rated winter jacket or rain jacket over the top of an arc rated shirt to achieve a rating in the range of 15-35 cal/cm^2 without paying for the very expensive and special use "beekeeper suits".
Finally, consider keeping one or maybe two "beekeeper" suits somewhere in the neighborhood of 40-120 cal/cm^2. This should only be used for apecial cases and to cover the PPE 4 cases on the tables if you have to resort back to them.
Whatever you do in the past I've recommended using letters (A, B, C, D) for "categories" to avoid the prohibition against using the 70E table designations (H/RC) but this causes a problem with outside vendors. Outside contractors don't have their own system. So the easiest way to accommodate outside contractors is to simply use the incident energy on your labels. The second advantage is that when PPE gets changed, it doesn't require relabeling everything. So if in the future at some point you go from 8.6 ATPV shirts to 12 ATPV shirts, the labels won't need to change. Finally, round it off to one significant figure because IEEE 1584 isn't that accurate. There is no difference between "9.26" and "9" and only confuses things further except for "1.2 cal/cm^2".