At a Learning Lab session Monday on the Expo floor, Wesley Wheeler, Director of Safety, National Electrical Contractors Association, discussed the new regulations surrounding NFPA 70E and employers’ and contractors’ responsibilities.
He explained the hierarchy of control in dealing with electrical hazards. In an inverted pyramid diagram, he showed PPE is the least effective, and elimination (physically removing the hazard) is the most effective. Substitution, replacing the hazard, and engineering controls, isolating people from the hazard, are the second and third most effective with administrative controls (changing the way people work) only one step above PPE.