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HIFI Background: The Hazard Information Foundation Incorporated (HIFI), located in Sierra Vista, Arizona was established to identify and publicize engineering improvements that can control hazardous conditions. HIFI is a tax free organization that brings a new look to safety by informing management, leadership, and the public of design modifications or accessories that can effectively make machines, systems and services safer. By reducing the time lag between these engineering developments and the time for universal use, countless lives can be saved and economic losses avoided. There is a need to unravel the enigma: Why are safety planning and design done only AFTER everything else has been tried? HIFI has an Advisory Council of Engineers who have the experience and expertise to uncover the mystery of why hazardous conditions or circumstances occur and knowledge of available technology that could prevent injury or damage. Engineering will allow a new era of safety which is both a humanitarian and an economic choice which surpasses the syndrome of blind compliance with voluminous minimal consensus standards which fail to focus on hazard prevention by design.
What
is HIFI?
The Hazard Information Foundation, Inc. is a not for profit service organization created to fill a growing need to publicize engineering advances that can overcome inherent product and on-site hazards that seem to cast a cloud over every new technology. HIFI is a shield of knowledge that protects people from injury or death from indifference, ignorance, misinformation, and negligence that often accompanies new machines, equipment, facilities, and processes. System
safety engineering that has been proven successful in aerospace technology is
the key to elimination of hazards in construction, mining, and other high-loss
trades, services, and utilities. The economic advantages to an engineering
approach to safety generally provide for an overwhelming opportunity to reduce
costs of injury, damage, and lost production. Other advantages include avoidance
of recurring training and supervisional oversight to ensure for continual behavioral
modification of the employee, worker, or user to avoid
preventable hazardous condition, as hazards have been designed out. An advocate of inherently safe design with a think-tank method that brings together engineers and litigators who have been mutually involved in research of failure modes and product defects that have resulted in injuries that maim, kill, and cause other monumental damage, HIFI’s principal focus is to conduct research studies that include:
These
studies illustrate the profit that can be achieved through the utilization of
safety engineering and promote the prevention of injuries via design
improvements and/or the use of safety appliances.
Our growing resource base puts us in a prime position to network safety professionals with individuals or entities who are concerned about hazard identification and safety engineering alternatives.
Projects and Outreach Our wealth of documented information also gives us the means to research and write studies on public health and safety. Past outreach programs include the initiative "Hazard Analysis of Unintentional Raising of a Pneumatic Mast of an Electronic News Gathering Van into Powerlines", presented to the California Department of Industrial Relations Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board in 2001. Current programs include the research report "Safety Interventions to Control Hazards Related to Powerline Contacts by Mobile Cranes and Other Boomed Equipment" presented at the OSHA Negotiated Rulemaking Committee Meeting in May 2004 and currently for sale for $150.00. Unique "think tank"
style workshops are a vital part of our function. These
workshops
work to identify, examine, and propose options to reduce injury, death, and
damage from hazards. They provide a forum of experts knowledgeable in safety
engineering and system safety to develop new and creative design measures or
features to eliminate hazards.
For more information on outreach programs visit our Services page. Or contact us to learn even more!
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