Midwest PMS Selects SafeRack For Upgraded Fall Protection

Permacable Horizontal Lifeline System fits the safety needs of feed-supplement manufacturer

SUMTER, SC, June 13, 2008—Whether chained to a desk or working on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, it is the right of every American worker to be protected from workplace hazards. To help ensure this right, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) maintains an exhaustive list of regulations and standards for monitoring workplace safety and health issues, while encouraging employers to establish safety and health programs and address any hazards that can potentially cause workplace injuries or illnesses. But when the subject is fall protection, things can get a little hazy, with the OSHA standard noting only that a manufacturing plant, for example, has to have a “safe” work environment.

Without a concrete definition of the word “safe” provided, that means plant operators often have to make their own assumptions about the steps necessary to make their facilities “safe” for their workers. Firestone, CO-based Midwest PMS, a manufacturer of liquid feed supplements for cattle and other livestock, decided three years ago that the best way to make its 11 facilities as safe as possible for the employees who are responsible for unloading the trucks and rail cars that contain the materials needed to manufacture the feed supplement was to upgrade its fall-protection systems.

With that goal in mind, Midwest PMS turned to SafeRack, LLC, the leading provider of stronger, safer and easier-to-handle truck and rail car loading-rack and fall-protection equipment for the petroleum, biofuel, specialized chemical, food/pharmaceutical, cement and other industries.

“Fall protection is always among the most frequently cited OSHA violations,” said Scott Laird, Safety Director for Midwest PMS. “We didn’t have a catastrophic injury that made us do this, it was just the right thing to do.”

What Midwest PMS did was purchase and install the Permacable Horizontal Lifeline System for use at all of its rail-car sidings. Permacable--which is manufactured by Sellstrom/RTC, Palatine, IL, but marketed and installed on-site by SafeRack, LLC—is a synthetic, lightweight cable that is strung between L- or T-shaped supports that can be spaced up to 200 feet apart (as compared to every 30 to 50 feet with traditional steel-cable lifelines). The system’s pass-through device allows workers to walk past intermediate supports without having to disconnect their lifeline. Despite its light weight, Permacable has a tensile strength of 16,000 pounds and is weather-, chemical- and corrosion-resistant. The cable is bright orange, but when it wears it turns a bright red, alerting the operator that it needs to be replaced.

“It’s a pretty simple process and it’s easy to install,” said Laird. “When you have to go on top of a car, you just put your harness on, hook onto the cable and go to the top. We had previously tried an off-brand for fall protection; it was cheaper, but the quality was not there. We’ve been lucky not to have anyone fall off a rail car, but one of these days it will happen and we’ll be glad we spent the money. It’s a heckuva lot cheaper than a lawsuit for an employee that gets hurt.”

For more information on the Permacable Horizontal Lifeline System, or any other SafeRack loading-rack or fall-protection solutions, contact Tom Semiklose, Sales Manager, at (866) 761-7225 or tsemiklose@saferack.com, or visit www.saferack.com.

SafeRack, LLC, is committed to providing stronger, safer and easier-to-handle truck and railcar loading-rack and fall-protection equipment. Headquartered in Sumter, SC, SafeRack has more than 200 years of combined experience in offering the food/pharmaceutical, specialized chemical, pulp and paper, building products, plastics, cement, mining, petroleum, biodiesel and ethanol industries high-quality equipment that has been customized for each customer’s unique loading applications. For more information, please visit www.saferack.com.