Not your typical tool, but a cool tool nonetheless…
The Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) has updated a pair of safety manuals following its longstanding mission to provide up-to-date and industry-consensus safety materials that encourage safe equipment operation.
AEM is the North America-based international trade group representing off-road equipment manufacturers and suppliers with more than 1,000 companies and more than 200 product lines in the agriculture and construction-related industry sectors worldwide. The equipment manufacturing industry in the US supports 2.8 million jobs and contributes roughly $288 billion to the economy every year.
The recent updates to AEM’s Aerial Platform Safety Manual—now entitled the Mobile Elevating Work Platform Safety Manual, and the Mobile Crane Safety Manual offer user-friendly and easily accessible content on safe practices to use when operating and maintaining machinery.
“We appreciate our member companies and their product safety experts for their efforts in developing, reviewing, and approving these updates, ensuring they truly represent best practices for safe equipment operation,” said Becca Basten, the AEM Safety Materials Manager.
AEM’s safety materials are consensus documents that are developed, reviewed, and approved by committees empaneled by AEM, and they represent best practices for the industry. The safety materials include more than 55 unique manual titles, and they extend to additional collateral such as videos, brochures, decals, and training kits.
In many cases, the manual is often assigned a part number in a manufacturer’s production process to ensure it is included with other safety literature when the equipment is sold into the market.
“This integration with the manufacturing process helps AEM member companies by reinforcing their already existing risk management programs,” added Basten.
Manuals are put up for review every five years. Sometimes, a title’s scheduled review is skipped if no updates are requested by members at AEM product group meetings. Other times, reviews can take longer than expected.
When its first safety manual was published in 1969, AEM (then known as CIMA) established a foundation for a safety materials program that has grown exponentially over the 50 years that followed.
The intent at that time was for the association to provide end users with a safety manual that complemented its members' OEMs' publications and that represented the industry's best practices for equipment safety. It was an auspicious idea: To provide consensus-based safety documents that were developed, reviewed, and approved by association members who, although they competed in the marketplace, would work together to publish best practices for operating equipment safely.
“AEM has many points of engagement with its members, from trade shows to statistics and advocacy,” Basten explained. “We can say the same for the safety materials program, a service area in which approximately nine out of 10 AEM members who manufacture large off-road equipment make use of safety materials developed by the association and their peers.”
AEM shipped 1.2 million units worth of safety materials to its members and the general public last year. While North America was the biggest destination for those materials, AEM shipped its materials to Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Italy, and Germany as well.
AEM supports safety awareness year-round by offering an extensive array of safety products, including safety manuals and videos, with major equipment types covering aerial, agriculture, compact/portable, earthmoving, forestry, lifting, road paving, and utility excavation applications.
Click HERE to see the complete line of AEM safety materials, or contact AEM’s Becca Basten via email at rbasten@aem.org.