A webinar and updated whitepaper aimed at helping companies to become compliant with new North American standards on the design, safe use and training of Mobile Elevating Work Platforms (MEWPs), formerly known as Aerial Work Platforms (AWPs) have been published by the International Powered Access Federation (IPAF).
IPAF hosted a free webinar on November 8 delivered by Tony Groat, IPAF’s North America Manager who chairs the A92.22 safe-use standard committee and is a member of the other two drafting committees. IPAF has also updated a whitepaper on the proposed ANSI standards that was originally published back in February 2017.
Groat says: “Many in the powered access industry are looking for the answer to an ongoing question as to just when the new ANSI A92 standards will be published. The answer is ‘hopefully soon, possibly in early January 2018’.
“The development of all standards must comply with ANSI guidelines and, while all three new standards have been approved by the A92 consensus body, there have been a few appeals to the process that must be addressed before they can be approved and published by ANSI.
“IPAF is here to help get a handle on what is likely to be in the new standards and has also drafted and now updated a special white paper outlining the key changes. IPAF can also help companies become compliant through training.”
With the standard approved internally by the A92 consensus body, the only action for the drafting subcommittees is to begin the ongoing review. That begins with addressing open comments that were received during public comment and that were deferred until the next review. These comments may be new issues or language that was not open for comment when the comments were originally received.
Groat adds: “The new suite of design, safe-use and training standards took many years to draft and a lot of changes were made throughout. As the industry implements these changes, we will expect feedback to consider for future drafts.”
Visit www.ipaf.com/resources/webinars to watch a recorded version of the webinar. To view and download the latest IPAF ANSI A92 white paper summarizing key changes, visit www.ipaf.com/publications/technical-guidance-notes.
