According to the PPE Use Regulation, personal protective equipment is used to protect employees from hazards to their health and safety by wearing or using it; this also includes appropriate additional equipment. Hazards can arise from substances and materials that employees come into direct or indirect contact with during their work, but work processes and spatial conditions at the workplace can also pose a hazard. PPE is designed to minimize or even completely eliminate residual hazards at the individual level. Personal protective equipment must be provided by the employer.

 

PPE and the STOP principle

The European Union’s Framework Directive 89/391/EEC on occupational safety and health is implemented in Germany by the Occupational Safety and Health Act. The risk assessment specified therein is intended to evaluate working conditions. This includes not only hazards from chemical, physical, and biological effects; instead, it also considers how work processes, work and manufacturing procedures, and their interaction result in potential hazards, as well as insufficient training and qualification of employees. The risk assessment must be carried out for each workplace and each activity.

The STOP principle can be derived from the EU Framework Directive and the respective national laws. It is also referred to as the STOP hierarchy, ranking, or sequence, as the relevance of the individual points determines the order in which they are implemented. This means that when selecting protective measures based on the previous risk assessment, a hierarchy or sequence must be observed. Personal protective equipment is the last point in this hierarchy. This means that PPE must be selected and used after the other three points of the STOP principle have been fully taken into account. All four points are as follows:

S stands for substitution,

T stands for technology,

O stands for organization, and

P stands for personal measures or person-related measures.

 

Substitution means that a hazard is replaced by something that does not pose a hazard or reduces the potential hazard. Technical measures serve to separate people from the hazard.

This can be done, for example, by means of physical barriers or devices that achieve this. Here, too, there is a ranking according to effectiveness. If, for example, a machine emits a gas that is harmful to health during operation, the first step should be to try to keep the system closed so that the gas cannot escape and remains separated from the machine operators. The next option, extracting the gas from the machine, would be less effective. The least effective measure would then be to ensure that the workplace is ventilated.

Organizational protective measures include, for example, machine maintenance schedules, working time regulations, and operating instructions.

Personal measures include various types of personal protective equipment and the provision of training for the workforce.

A combination of individual measures, including and in particular those from different hierarchies, is not only possible but often essential. For example, a technical measure can only provide lasting safety in conjunction with an organizational measure in the form of a maintenance plan.

 

Simplified example of the STOP principle:

A factory hall has a gallery at a height of three meters, which is used to store small parts that are rarely needed. Previously, the gallery could only be accessed via a ladder. The risk assessment revealed that the risk of falling from the ladder was very high, which is why the following measures were taken:

• The ladder is replaced by a permanently installed staircase. (Substitution)
• A high railing including a handrail is installed on the staircase to prevent people from falling. (Technical measure)
• The operating instructions stipulate that the stairs may only be used if one hand remains on the handrail and that only one person may use the stairs at a time. (Organization)
• The warehouse staff will be instructed on how to use the stairs when something is needed from the gallery. In addition, the stairs may only be used when non-slip safety shoes and non-slip rubber gloves are worn to prevent slipping off the stairs. (Personal measures through instruction and PPE)

 

What does PPE protect against and what does PPE protect against?

Personal protective equipment protects individual parts of the body from injury and also protects against comprehensive hazards such as suffocation, drowning, or falls and falls from a height. This results in various areas of protection, such as: respiratory protection, head protection, eye protection, hearing protection, foot protection, puncture protection, skin protection, and protective clothing in general. Personal emergency signaling systems, consisting of portable personal emergency signaling devices connected to a personal emergency signal receiving center, are also considered personal protective equipment.

 

Common PPE in intralogistics

Even in warehouses and intralogistics in general, not all risks can be prevented or sufficiently minimized through substitution, technology, and organization, which is why appropriate PPE must be worn. In general, however, work processes must be safe, which depends on the specific work environment and the substances and materials present there. For example, PPE is different for oily working conditions than for damp ones. The following PPE is generally used in intralogistics areas:

• Head protection (this includes all types of protective helmets that provide effective protection against falling objects and head injuries in the event of falls)
• Eye protection (visors on protective helmets and goggles that prevent the eyes from coming into contact with solid particles or chemical substances; but ultraviolet radiation, aerosols, and gases are also hazards that should be avoided)
• Hearing protection (earplugs and other equipment that reduce personal noise levels)
• Hand protection (safety gloves that provide sufficient grip in oily, dry, or damp conditions and protect against crushing, chemical burns, cuts, or punctures)
• Foot protection (protection against falling objects and stepping on sharp objects. In addition, it also reduces foot fatigue and prevents foot disorders caused by prolonged standing or walking)
• Protective clothing (special clothing that protects against chemical burns, burns, cuts, stings, and other harmful effects; but also clothing that primarily serves to improve visibility, such as brightly colored or highly reflective vests)

 

Important criteria for the use of PPE

• Personal protective equipment must be provided by the employer in a functional condition at the place of use.
• The PPE selected on the basis of the risk assessment must be worn during the relevant activity or at the relevant workplace.
• PPE must be state of the art, i.e., it must not be outdated, and it must have CE marking. This ensures that the risk during the activity is minimized to a low residual risk. This includes not only the technical properties of the PPE, such as the cut resistance of safety gloves, but also other criteria such as ergonomic aspects (accuracy of fit, fit, weight, manageability).
• PPE may only be used for as long as it remains functional and therefore protective.
• A sufficient number of personal protective equipment must be available.
• Depending on the respective PPE, it must also be maintained. Accordingly, this is carried out by the users themselves or by external specialist companies.
• PPE must be subjected to a visual and functional inspection by the users before each use to detect any obvious defects.

 

Summary

In a warehouse and in intralogistics in general, many hazards in everyday work can be avoided or minimized, primarily through the use of personal protective equipment (PPE). Based on a risk assessment, PPE must be provided by the employer and worn by the employee. It protects users from a single risk or several different risks that endanger their health and safety. PPE is the final measure to be implemented at a personal or individual level in a series of measures known as the STOP principle.

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