Canadian Occupational Safety (COS) magazine is the premier workplace health and safety publication in Canada. We cover a wide range of topics ranging from office to heavy industry, and from general safety management to specific workplace hazards.
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Why Buying a Gas Detector Fleet is Only the Beginning Brought to you By By Candace Adrian you're plenty busy focusing on the things that matter to your business. Amid your daily tasks is the hefty responsibility of ensuring your people are kept safe from hazardous gases and that they go home at the end of each day. Buying your fleet of gas detectors can be easy, but then the challenges come. one challenge you might have is in the daily maintenance and ongoing servicing of your fleet. Most manufacturers recommend daily instrument bump testing and monthly calibration. With limited time and/or capacity, or merely a complex worksite, performing these tasks can be difficult if not impossible. More likely are these tasks to be overlooked in organizations where getting the job done is of a higher priority than safety. When an instrument is in need of repair, most users don't have the time or expertise to fix it. Some might choose to send the instrument to a third party for repair resulting in additional costs and also a period of time in which a team is without a given instrument. In the worst case, a worker goes into the field without an instrument for lack of a usable gas monitor. Next are the challenges often associated with recordkeeping. Most times, regardless of where you are in the world, there are critical safety records that – by law – must be maintained. Manual upkeep of the records is often time consuming and prone to error. Failure to supply a record when called upon to do so could mean fines for your organization. Finally is the lacking visibility into the field to know how workers are really using their instruments. Without this knowledge, you're not able to correct unsafe behaviors. What are some examples of unsafe behaviors? one example is a worker using his/her gas detector without having been bump tested prior to use. Another example might be a worker turning off an instrument that is in alarm. Worse, a worker could choose not to use any instrument at all. As surprising as it might seem, investigations of gas-related fatal incidents have revealed workers not using their gas detectors or the instruments are found with the victims having never been turned on. In addition to knowing how your instruments are or aren't being used, you might like to know what workers are being exposed to and at what levels. having this data could help your team to understand that the threat of being overcome by toxic gas levels in their environment is real. Without this data, your team might lack motivation to use gas monitors. how can all of these challenges be overcome? A growing trend has been outsourcing gas detection programs, sometimes referred to as "gas detection as a service." In order to be effective, there are two critical components that an outsourced gas detection program should include. First, a system must be available to automate time-consuming but critical instrument maintenance tasks such as bump testing and calibration. this automation enables your team to be more productive and focused on the things that matter most to your business. Second, your gas detection program should include a data management system that produces critical data about your program. For instance, the system should automatically alert you to problems occurring within your instruments such as a failed sensor and also to issues related to the usage of the instruments. If someone on your team uses an instrument without having first bump tested it, a report could be automatically generated and sent to those who need to be alerted. Most understand that gas detectors are easy to buy but hard to own. today, technologies and innovations in gas detection program management make it easier, and more cost-effective, to maintain a strong gas detection program that is capable of keeping your team safe every day. Candace Adrian is the Marketing Communications Specialist at Industrial Scientific Corporation (www.indsci.com). She can be reached at cadrian@indsci.com.