Fall Protection Program
Definitions
- Operating Procedures Outline Sheet (OPOS):
- A set of operating procedures to be written by employers and used by employees assigned to window cleaning and maintenance operations in buildings greater than 36 feet in elevation, and without established and engineered window cleaning systems, fittings, equipment, and procedures.
- Positioning device system:
- A body harness system rigged to allow an employee to be supported on an elevated vertical surface such as a wall and work with both hands free while leaning.
- Personal fall arrest system:
- A system used to arrest an employee in a fall from a working level. It consists of an anchorage, connectors, and body harness and may include a lanyard, deceleration device, lifeline, or suitable combinations of these.
- Qualified Person, Attendant or Operator:
- A person designated by the employer who by reason of their training and experience has demonstrated their ability to safely perform their duties and, where required, is properly licensed in accordance with federal, state, or local laws and regulations.
- Restraint line:
- A device, which is attached between the employee and an anchorage to prevent the employee from walking or falling off an elevated surface.
- Roof:
- Exterior surface on the top of a building.
- Rope Access:
- The use of rope access equipment where ropes are used as the primary means of support, as a means of protection or positioning, and where an employee descends or ascends on a rope, or traverses along a rope.. “ Rope supported work shall be permitted only when other means of access are not feasible or would increase the risk of injury to the employee and/or the public. The requirements of this section (CCR, T8, 3270.1) include, but are not limited to, the inspection of dams and spillways, access to interior or exterior structural and architectural components of buildings, highway/bridge inspection and maintenance, and access to power plant penstocks.”
- Rope Access Equipment:
- Specialized equipment approved for use with rope access techniques to suspend, support, position or protect an employee.
- Rope grab (grabbing device):
- A deceleration device that travels on a lifeline and automatically, by friction, engages the lifeline and locks to arrest a fall.
- Scaffold:
- Any temporary elevated or suspended platform, and its supporting structures, used for supporting employees or materials or both.
- Self-retracting lifeline/lanyard:
- A deceleration device containing a drum-wound line which can be slowly extracted from, or retracted onto, the drum under minimal tension during normal movement and which, after onset of a fall, automatically locks the drum and arrests the fall (usually within two feet or less).
- Standard railing:
- A vertical barrier erected along exposed edges of a floor opening, wall opening, ramp, platform, or runway to prevent falls of persons.
- Snap hook:
- A connector consisting of a hook-shaped member with a normally closed keeper, or similar arrangement, which may be opened to permit the hook to receive an object and, when released automatically closes to retain the object. Only locking snap hooks are permitted at UCI.
- Toe board:
- A low protective barrier that prevents material and equipment from falling to lower levels and which protects personnel from falling.
- Tie-Off:
- A procedure of connecting directly or indirectly to an anchorage point.
- Unprotected sides and edges:
- Any side or edge (except at entrances to points of access) of a walking/working surface, e.g., floor, roof, ramp, or runway where there is no wall or guardrail system at least 42 inches high.
- Vertical Lifeline:
- A component consisting of a vertically hanging flexible line for connection to an anchor point at one end that serves as a means for connecting other components of a personal fall arrest system to the anchor point.
- Walking/working surface:
- Any surface, whether horizontal or vertical, on which an employee walks or works including, but not limited to floors, roofs, ramps, bridges and, runways.
- Work area:
- That portion of a walking/working surface where job duties are being performed.