Environmental & Risk Management / Environmental Health & Safety / EH&S - Background Data

Defining Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Types

For specific jobs and tasks, your employees may need to be outfitted with personal protective equipment (PPE) to ensure safety. For example, a welder may require a hard hat, heavy-duty gloves, and a face shield. Some PPE may be required by law (such as OSHA in the US), while your site may require other PPE as a matter of good practice.

For US-based companies, a safety officer can review OSHA (Occupational Safe & Health Administration) PPE regulations for specific jobs and industries by consulting the following sites. Non-US companies can check similar regulations issued by their governing body.

Not only must a company provide employees with the required PPE, but they need to ensure that it is in good working order. Therefore, standard practice may call for automatically replacing PPE at specific intervals.

Once the types of PPE are defined, safety managers can associate them with specific employees and work categories. For example:

A particular position within the company (work category) might require that all employees in this category be issued a back brace for lifting heavy objects.
An employee has specific circumstances that require PPE. For example, an employee's work category does not dictate that back braces be issued, but a specific employee with a history of back problems receives a back brace.

To define a new PPE type:

In the Process Navigator, click EH&S the Background Data/Define Personal Protective Equipment Types task.
Previously defined PPE types are listed .
To add a new PPE category, click Add New and complete these fields:

PPE Type Code	The system will automatically assign a numeric value when you save the record.
Equipment Standard	If the PPE type is associated with a particular equipment standard (category of equipment), enter the standard here by choosing an existing value from the Equipment Standards table. For example, you may need to associate ear plugs with hydraulic drill.
Is Renewal Required?	If the PPE item has a limited life and must be replaced after a specific time period, set this to Yes. For example, OSHA may require that eye goggles be replaced every 12 months. Or, your site may have developed your own time frames for replacing items. Once you set this option to Yes, the system displays additional fields for defining the recurring pattern. For example, you can specify that goggles be replaced every year in July. For information on using the ARCHIBUS recurring schedule tool, see Defining a Recurring Schedule and Scheduling Routine (Concept). If this is a one-time event that typically does not need to be scheduled again in the future, set this option to No. For each requirement, you can individually set a date that the PPE event should occur. For example, if a PPE item is never replaced, set this option to No.
Date Recurrence Ends	If needed, enter the date by which you want the recurring pattern to end. Since the recurring schedule also specifies a time frame, you can leave this field empty.

Click Save at the top of the form to save your record.

Note: If the NotifyPpe parameter is set to YES with the EH&S Application Parameters task, the employee will be sent an email when a PPE Type delivery is scheduled.

Note: You may want to associate with this PPE Type a user manual or other related documents. To do so, add the document to the document library and complete the Related PPE Type field. For information, see Manage Document Library.