Public review is open for proposed A92 suite of standards

The proposed standards, BSR/SAIA A92.22 Safe Use of Mobile Elevating Work Platforms (MEWPs) and BSR/SAIA A92.24 Training Requirements for the Use, Operation, Inspection Testing and Maintenance of Mobile Elevating Work Platforms (MEWPs) are now open for public review. This is the second public review period, due to significant changes following the first public review.

These have been under review and development for a number of years in both the U.S. and Canada, and this process is now approaching its final stages in early 2017.

In Canada, the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) is in the final review and editing stage of new standards for design, safe use and training. The new standards will actually adopt the relevant ISO standards, with some deviations. This is based on the significant amount of language and content that will remain from the international ISO standards but will be modified (deviations) to meet the needs of the Canadian market. The deviations will be entered after each section where a modification is made. It is anticipated that these standards will be published by April 2017.

In the U.S., the ANSI A92 standards are also in the final stages prior to publication. The second review will be seeking comment on the language that has changed from the first review. These standards are also anticipated for publication by end of the first quarter of 2017. Once the standards are published, there will be a 12-month grace period following publication to allow the industry to become compliant with the new standards.

Tony Groat, IPAF North America Manager and member of the subcommittees formulating the new US standards, commented, “As ever, IPAF is closely involved in the development and implementation of rigorous industry standards and the wide-scale adoption of harmonised language across country standards whenever possible; we would invite our members to make their comments on the draft revisions at this time.

“Members should focus solely on the language that has been changed following the initial public comment process; general comments on language of the standards that were not changed following the first public comment review will likely be taken into account during the drafting and revision of future versions of the standards."

To access the Standards Action Report, visit ANSI's website at www.ansi.org.