AEM - Association of Equipment Manufacturers

10/31/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 10/31/2024 08:15

AEM Announces Updates to its Aerial Devices and Portable Pumps Safety Manuals

AEM is pleased to announce a pair of recent safety manual updates in accordance withits longstanding mission to provide up-to-date and industry-consensus safety materialsthat encourage safe equipment operation. 

The recent updates to AEM's Aerial DevicesSafety Manualand Portable PumpsSafety Manualoffer user-friendly and easily accessible content on safe practices to use when operatingand 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 AEM Safety Materials Program Manager Becca Basten. 

AEM's safety materials are consensus documents that are developed, reviewed,and approved by committees empaneled by AEM, and they representbest practices for the industry. The safety materials include more than 55 unique manual titles, and they extend to additionalcollateral such as videos, brochures, decalsand 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 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. 

AEM recently unveiled a free online safety toolkitdesigned to support safety awareness, education, and training for off-highway equipment used in the construction, agriculture, mining, utility, and forestry sectors. View the AEM Safety Toolkit here.

When its first safety manual was published in 1969, AEM (then known as CIMA) establisheda 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 representedthe 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 showstomarket share statisticsand advocacy," said Basten. "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 unitsworth of safety materials to its members and the publiclast year. While North America was the biggest destination for those materials, AEM shipped its materials into Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Italyand Germany as well. 

For More Information 

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 tosee the complete line of AEM safety materials, visit safetymaterials.org, or contact AEM's Becca Basten at [email protected]. 

For more AEM news and updates, subscribe to the AEM Industry Advisor.