Specification Roulette:

An Easier Way to Select Emergency Equipment

By Casey Hayes

Have you ever been tasked with selecting a product from such a vast array of alternatives that it seemed incomprehensibe? How do you begin to evaluate the differences between so many products? The process can be daunting -- even more so if this task is outside your typical job responsibilities. Specifying emergency showers and eyewashes can often pose precisely that type of challenge.

To start, you must weigh your specific needs; consider potential hazards; and assess the possibility for contact-type injuries. Other factors include the number of employees (and others) at risk and environmental (e.g., weather/climate or process driven).

Then, you must factor in the assortment available products, each with its own features and benefits, construction material and design differences and application nuances. It may seem like an impenetrable forest of actual needs and useful (and not so useful) features. Not to mention the budget constraints you're probably working around!

If you work with emergency equipment every day you will soon become comfortable with selecting products from a group of personal favorites, based on successful applications. However, if you don't work with emergency showers and eyewashes regularly, you may spend significant time wading through products with subtle variations.

This article aims to help the infrequent specifier settle on the appropriate overall solution, leading to the ideal final product selection. Many safety professionals are relying on a process designed to narrow the field of products considered. The process, dubbed "Risk Rating" guides specifiers through a logical path that begins with a candid evaluation of the risks present in their operation, the number of people who could possibly require simultaneous emergency treatment and other environmental (weather and process) considerations. The goal is to select a general family, or category, of products that would meet their general needs. Once that decision is made, the specific configuration, construction material, installation and tempered water implications can be more easily ascertained. Importantly, this approach also logically leads to consideration of any special issues surrounding integrating the new piece of equipment into an already existing shower/eyewash system. Once this step-by-step process has been followed, the choice of an appropriate shower and/or eyewash is quite literally made!

Using the "Risk Rating" technique, the "families" of products considered include, portable and plumbed-in eyewashes, eye and face washes (with laboratory models categorized separately), drench showers and combination drench showers/eyewashes, as well as drench showers with eye and face washes. And, for special (mostly outdoor cold or hot climate) applications, the "Risk Rating" process can lead to a clear understanding that a plug-and-play Enclosed Emergency Environment (E3) is in order. These products package shower/eyewash (or eye/face wash) capabilities, with tempering and recirculation in an enclosed booth. All that's required is to provide power and water supply lines and it's ready to go!

"Risk Rating" is a unique way of navigating the array of products available, while also assuring that you are considering the current state-of-the-art. Like so many highly technical products, emergency response assets tend to change as regular advancements are made.

For more information on risk rating, visit www.hawsco.com/fu.

Casey Hayes is director of engineering at Haws Corporation, in Sparks, NV. He can be reached at (775) 353-8320 or via e-mail at casey@hawsco.com. Haws Corporation designs, manufactures and distributes drinking fountains and emergency equipment that are ranked number-one in quality by specifiers in both product categories.