Dan Markiewicz MS, CIH, CSP, RMP

Markets are disrupted at a quicker pace than ever before. Welcome to the 2020s. Tesla is valued at more than Ford and GM combined. The combustion engine and its complementary industries have reached their peak and have nowhere to go but down. Jobs in heavy production are being eliminated by automation. The Coronavirus races across the globe.

The U.S. workforce is now composed of four generations: Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z. Age ranges for these generations in 2019 were: boomers (55-73); Gen X (39-54); Millennials (23-38); and Gen Z (6-22).

This article highlights six key misconceptions about machine safeguarding. ANSI / ISO 12100:2012 Safety of machinery – General principles for design – Risk assessment and risk reduction is the primary reference.

California’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, aka Proposition 65 (Prop 65) was revised August 30, 2018. The revised Prop 65 requires a warning label, example shown below, for any consumer product containing any of the more than 950 chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer or birth defects.

Back in 2015 I had a widow-maker heart attack. That near-death event focused attention on my heart health, particularly when I push to physical extremes during mountain backpacking. 

TLVs® and BEIs® are often recognized as “safe levels” for worker exposures to chemical substances and physical agents. Proper application of TLVs® and BEIs® are essential to today’s practice of industrial hygiene.

Glassdoor ranked the position “Safety Manager” among the “50 Best Jobs in America for 2019.”1 The #1 Best Job in America for the past four years, according to Glassdoor, is “Data Scientist.

Delegates at the International Labour Conference (ILC) overwhelmingly adopted (439 for, 7 against) on June 21, 2019, the Violence and Harassment Convention and Recommendation. The new convention views occupational safety and health (OSH) as a subset of overall work well-being.

Next to the real thing, virtual reality training is the best way to learn. VR training has been around for many years and in many forms, but generally was limited to people with deep pockets such as the military, NASA and the airline industry with use of flight simulators, for example.