Feb 25 2009
The award-winning Interactive Guide to Working Safely with Beryllium and Beryllium-containing Materials is now available on the Brush Wellman Inc. website.
Brush Wellman, the world’s largest producer of beryllium and beryllium-containing materials, introduced the Interactive Guide in January 2008 to further advance the safe use of beryllium materials in the workplace. The guide was developed by Brush Wellman and Axcept Media, LLC and has previously been available only in disk form. As a CD, the guide has won numerous national and regional awards for its effective, interactive and engaging approach to promoting safety precautions to customers, vendors and employees.
For more than 50 years, Brush Wellman has led efforts to understand and prevent occupational exposures to beryllium. The Interactive Guide is based on the company’s beryllium Worker Protection Model (WPM) which was developed as the result of extensive research and decades of real occupational experiences. The WPM, which has shown dramatic results protecting Brush Wellman employees hired since the Model’s adoption, provides a roadmap to control workplace beryllium exposure in other workplaces.
“We are extremely proud of the excellent results produced by our work – results dedicated to the safety and health of beryllium workers everywhere,” said David C. Deubner, MD, Vice President, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Brush Wellman Inc. “We believe that workers throughout the industry are well served by the acquired knowledge and innovative training tools that have been disseminated through the Interactive Guide.”
The online guide blends high definition Flash digital video, tabbed navigation tools, text references, hyperlinks, and printable information to present the latest information on safe handling of beryllium in a brief, approachable and easy-to-understand manner, giving the user control over timing, pace and content selection. Based on user selections from dozens of work roles, material types, and operational variables, the guide can generate a customized, printable action plan to assist in the safe handling of beryllium and beryllium-containing materials.
“Given the WPM’s effectiveness in advancing occupational health, we looked to the Interactive Guide to provide a method of communicating the WPM as dramatic and effective as the safety model itself,” said Deubner.
The Interactive Guide recently earned two first place Diamond Awards from the East Central District of the Public Relations Society of America, which is composed of 15 PRSA chapters in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, western Pennsylvania and West Virginia, as well as a Davey Award for best interactive multimedia from a small firm from the International Academy of the Visual Arts.
In July, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and Brush Wellman were recognized for “highly collaborative” work on a “rapid research-to-practice approach” to protecting beryllium workers. They were jointly awarded the National Occupational Research Agenda 2008 Partnering Award for Worker Health and Safety. The Interactive Guide also won a Gold “Horizon Interactive” Award (2008) from Horizon Interactive, LLC, and a 2008 Silver Omni Interactive Award, presented by Media Corporation, Inc.
Beryllium is a strategic material two-thirds the weight of aluminum yet stiffer than steel. Its unique physical and mechanical properties offer unrivaled end-use performance benefits throughout the electronics, aerospace, energy, defense and homeland security, medical and other industries.