Web Helps Managers Sift Through OSHA Rules

For years, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations that kept construction and industrial workers safe also kept managers tearing their collective hair out as they waded through hundreds of pages of dense bureaucratic prose, trying to decide how the labyrinth of rules applied to their job sites.

But that was before OSHA decided to take advantage of what the Web does best--disseminating information--by creating a handful of interactive software programs that turn construction workers into health and safety experts.

On paper, the programs sound esoteric and about as interesting as a box of nails--Cadmium Biological Monitoring Adviser, Lock Out/Tag Out Adviser, Asbestos Adviser and the Confined Spaces Adviser.

But think of them as number-crunching with words.

Because OSHA regulations have to cover any dangerous situation workers might find themselves in, they’re mind-numbingly complex. Not only that, but each time a question comes up, the agency releases a Letter of Interpretation or a Directive to the Field. There’s not just one book to consult, but a sheaf of clarifications to factor in.

All of which a manager must wade through to find out if a specific work site is--or even needs to be--in compliance.

Enter the expert system, an interactive software program that simulates the decision-making process of an expert in the field and is available for free on OSHA’s Web site, www.osha.gov

Say the owner of a brew pub has a 2,000-gallon tank on the premises. Someone’s got to clean it out before the next batch of beer gets made. He runs a check of it through the Confined Spaces Adviser, which asks him a series of questions:

“Can a worker enter bodily into the space? Do workers perform work in that space? Does it have physically restricted entry? Was it designed for continuous use?”

In effect, he’s just worked his way through a logic tree, without having to read 200 pages of regulations. And the answer that pops up is, yes, those tanks constitute a confined work space, and yes, they are covered by OSHA regulations, and here’s what he needs to know about them.

Which--and this is the point of all those words--could keep someone from dying.

OSHA’s regulations cover carbon dioxide, a harmless gas that builds up in the brewing process--harmless as long as you’re not in a confined space, that is.

“It’s heavier than air. You can walk into some place and suffocate because you’re walking into a vat of carbon dioxide. It’s not poisonous, but you can’t breathe it,” says Edward Stern of OSHA’s policy office in Washington, D.C.

OSHA’s expert systems are such a success that the White House has honored the agency with the prestigious National Performance Review Hammer award for making government work more efficiently.

The agency began developing the systems in 1994. The first, done in conjunction with Consad Research Corp. of Pittsburgh, was the Cadmium Biological Monitoring Adviser.

Although it sounds rare, cadmium--which can be poisonous in large concentrations--shows up in numerous industrial applications, including paint, batteries and steel.

“It’s even used by the Air Force and Boeing because they have cadmium in their rivets,” Stern said.

Next came the Asbestos Adviser, invaluable to building managers dealing with old asbestos insulation. Then confined spaces. The agency expects to add advisors on lead, fire safety and respirators in the coming year.

The expert advisors have been heartily embraced by the construction and manufacturing industries, where safety officers are making copies and sticking them on every computer they can, as well as distributing them to building managers.

“It’s sort of like having an assistant sitting alongside of you to answer your questions. If you call in a consultant, you better have a lot of money. Whereas when you use the expert system you know that this is the agency itself speaking,” says Darrell Mattheis, a consultant with ORC, an organization of industry health and safety advocates in Washington.

It’s also a million miles from the old system of handing out pamphlets on the job site, notes Richard Pfau, safety director for Donohoe Construction of Washington.

“This is MTV. This is the ‘90s way,” he said. “For the younger fellows, this is right up their alley. They’ll make good use of it and, for me as a safety professional, it means there’s less chance I’ll have to go to a door someday and say, ‘I’m sorry, are you the Widow Brown?’ ”