Revised ANSI A92 standards approved

The ANSI Board of Standards Review (BSR) has approved the revised ANSI A92 Standards. The mobile elevating work platform (MEWP) standards will go into effect on June 1.

The BSR concluded the following:

1. The amended A92 standards no longer require written permission of the manufacturer with respect to modifications of a MEWP. According to paragraph 5, page 2 of the SAIA Response, the standards’ use of the term “should” is intended to convey discretion such that implementers are not required to seek approval of the manufacturer with respect to MEWP modifications in Section 6.2.2 Modifications, but it is recommended that they in fact do so.

2. There is no requirement that a separate MOR be developed and that, as an alternative, “definitions and requirements” from the standard could be instead contained in the manufacturer’s manual.

3. Regarding the standards’ requirement that “[a] document containing definitions and requirements mandated in applicable A92 Standards for the following entities…” or the equivalent, the doctrine of “fair use” protects an implementer’s use of equivalent definitions and requirements and that a reasonable attempt to avoid a direct copy of the standards will not be challenged by SAIA under its copyrights.

4. The ASC A92 has approved the formation of a Sub-Group to specifically review all A92 standards for other potential commercial terms violations. The ASC A92 leadership has committed that when the new Sub-Group has completed its work, it will process any resulting changes as an addendum to existing revisions, as opposed to waiting for a full five-year revision cycle.

Originally approved in November 2018, the standards faced two appeals in May 2019, which caused setbacks.Tutus Solutions and the American Rental Association (ARA) appealed separate parts of the standards, with the ARA opposing the Manual of Responsibilities (MoR) portion and Tutus Solutions opposing that additions to a mobile elevating work platform (MEWP) could not be made without the manufacturer’s permission. The effective date was then pushed to December 2019. There was a further delay until March 1, 2020.

The ANSI A92 standards include the A92.20 design, A92.22 safe use and A92.24 training standards.The BSR’s full decision can be read here.