Have you every walked up on a hotwork job and asked who is the fire watch, only to have five welders not even look up and point to each other? It happens, but there is a simple way to correct this behavioral problem – High Visibility Vests.
Since I can remember, my safety programs have required safety personnel identified on safe work permits to wear a high visibility vest. For no particular reason, I have always used Blaze Orange for Fire Watches and Lime Green for CS Attendants. I have also begun to require personnel working within a crane’s radius, in construction areas where powered mobile equipment is in use, and in high traffic areas within warehouses and production facilities. NOTE: starting this year, SAFTENG.net LLC personnel will be required to wear a high visibility vest while working in the field, unless their work location is remote and no powered mobile equipment is within 500′ of their work area)
The purpose of this is so that the safety personnel identified on the work permit are readily identified by ALL personnel working in the area. When we train all site workers (including contractors) on these safe work practices, they are told of this requirement and they become a new set of audit eyes in the field. If anyone sees a hotwork or CS entry job taking place and they see no blaze orange vest standing within 35′ of the hotwork or a lime green vest at the entry portal, they have a responsibility to be investigating why! This practice also forces the job supervisor identified on the permit to ensure that someone is wearing the vest.
But I also want to point a potential serious flaw with this plan. If your facility has areas that require flame retardant clothing (FRC), then this FRC must be the outer most garment. This means that if your programs require these vests to be worn, these vest MUST BE FRC. Yes they make FRC High Visibility Vests; they are about five times the cost(~$40) of the basic mesh style vest (~$6). This FRC practice should not be viewed as a best practice, as wearing one of the cheaper mesh vest over your FRC could compromise the protection provided by your FRC, thus compromising the wearer’s safety in a very big way.