Walking/Working Surfaces

Wayne Maynard is product director for workers' compensation at Liberty Mutual Insurance and a member of the committee revising the ANSI/ASSE A1264.1 Safety Requirements for Workplace Walking/Working Surfaces & Their Access; Workplace Floor, Wall & Roof Openings; Stairs & Guardrails Systems standard. "The scope of A1264.1 pretty much says it all," Maynard says. "It protects persons from dangers associated with falling from elevated walking and work surfaces and falling from elevated walking and work surfaces such as floor, roof or wall openings, platforms, runways, ramps, fixed stairs or roofs in normal, temporary and emergency conditions. That covers just about every industrial workplace out there."

Practical Application

OSH professionals use the standard to evaluate existing fall protection controls from elevated walking and work surfaces. According to Maynard, the best way to use the standard is to assess current risk of falls posed by elevated surfaces, determine whether current fall protection controls are sufficient to significantly reduce or eliminate the exposure and, if not, implement the controls described in the standard.

'The content of the standard is fairly wellaccepted," he explains. The bulk of the work of updating the standard involved crystallizing fundamental best practices, modernizing those points and making the standard more accessible for practitioners. Maynard says the new layout of the standard will feature increased specificity and a more logical layout flow.

'The revision that we're working on is quite ágnificant," he says. "The content is presented in a more logical, orderly fashion and provides more direct assistance to those who are looking for the elimination or reduction of elevation fall risk. I think overall it is going to be a much better standard than the previous version."

Addressing the Overlooked

Maynard says few standards address specialized workplace stairway design. He notes that while it is common practice to rely on OSHA standards for guidance, those standards are generally difficult and time-consuming to revise and promulgate. In contrast, ANSI standards are voluntary guidelines and represent the most current information on a topic, Maynard says. While there is an OSHA walking/working standard, A1264.1 represents the cutting edge of thought on the topic, Maynard says. It is also one of the few standards that addresses specialized workplace stairway design, particularly in industrial contexts.

Many standards on stairway design are relative to egress stairs such as the NFPA 101 Life Safety Code, the International Building Code, and other applicable building codes, regulations, standards or ordinances such as the Americans With Disabilities Act and ANSI-accessibility design standards. These standards are fairly consistent on stairway slope, riser and tread dimensions. They can vary on when a handrail is needed (one-, two- or three-step stairs), number of handrails and when an intermediate handrail is needed. Per Maynard, the only well-known industrial workplace stair design standards are OSHA 29 CFR 1910 Subpart D, 1910.24 Fixed Industrial Stairs, and ANSI A1264.1 section on fixed stairs for access. The latter includes spiral stairs, guardrail and handrail requirements, and intermediate handrail guidance.

"In an industrial workplace you would have stairway systems that might be designed to access a mezzanine, for example, or access some sort of elevated platform," Maynard says. "This is the most current information available on the topic. This is the most updated consensus from stakeholders."

The Value of Perspective

The committee tasked with revising the standard is "an outstanding cross section of users of this standard," Maynard says, noting that the committee includes safety professionals and a wide array of industry stakeholders. Having an expansive set of perspectives working on the standard is key to the final product being well rounded, Maynard says. "This standard, in my view, probably has more cross-sectional input into its content than others in the past; in that regard I think it is a great revision," he says.

Hotlinks

ADA Americans With Disabilities Act www.ada.gov

ANSI American National Standards Institutewww.ansi.org

ASSE American Society of Safety Engineerswww.asse.org

NFPA National Fire Protection Associationwww.nfpa.org

OSHA Occupational Safety and Health Administrationwww.osha.gov

Wayne Maynard, CSP, CPE, ALCM.is product director for workers' compensation at Liberty Mutual Insurance and a member of the committee revising the ANSI/ASSE A1264.1 standard, which addresses workplace walking/working surfaces and their access, as well as workplace floor, wall and roof openings and stairs and guardrails systems. Maynard is a proferssional memer of ASSE's Greater Boston Chapter.