Engineering Mandates Stipulated in OSHA Regulations

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards relate to the safety of the construction site, the implementation of safe work practices, and the safety of temporary structures, such as fall protection, ladders, scaffolding, and excavations, all of which are typically part of the constructor's responsibility on a project. The engineer's scope of work, namely the design of the permanent structure, is not directly addressed in the OSHA standards. Nonetheless, engineers are required to be involved, as stipulated in some regulations. This paper describes a study involving the identification of those OSHA regulations that address the role of the engineer in ensuring a safe construction project. OSHA regulations that incorporate reference to engineers and those that could be fulfilled through design modifications were found through an electronic search of the OSHA regulations. This search identified those provisions that require the involvement of a licensed professional engineer. These provisions were then categorized to understand where an engineer's input is specifically required. As part of the review of the OSHA regulations, each provision was also examined from the viewpoint of how the design of the permanent structure could be modified to eliminate specific hazards and thereby avoid the need to address certain safety measures on-site. A list of design modifications was then created by which an engineer could assist the constructor in maintaining a safe construction site. If such recommendations were to be followed, construction safety truly would have its beginning in the design phase.