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OSHA eTools and Electronic Products for Compliance Assistance > OSHA Confined Spaces Advisor 1.1
 
OSHA Software Expert Systems
OSHA Confined Spaces Advisor 1.1
December, 1997

OSHA's Confined Spaces Advisor is software. It gives users interactive expert help to apply OSHA's Permit Required Confined Spaces Standard (29 CFR 1910.146). Version 1.1 refines and replaces Version 1.0 of March 1997. You can use this Advisor online, or download it and run it in the Windows environment. OSHA also has e-PRCS, interactive, compliance assistance software to help you prepare a written permit-required confined space program.

Once installed, the Confined Spaces Advisor software will interview the user about a work space to determine whether and how it is subject to the Permit Required Confined Spaces Standard. It will tell you what aspects of the standard apply to you, based on your answers. The system has:
  • pop-up (hypertext) definitions of keywords and phrases
  • sets of frequently asked questions (FAQs) and official interpretation letters
  • a reformatted and very readable copy of the regulations, and other help
The software is distributed from the OSHA Web site as a single archive file, CSA.ZIP. This is a large file (2.1 mb) because it is a Windows program. It will take about 10 minutes to download with a 28,800 baud modem. We suggest that you copy this file into a TEMPORARY subdirectory named C:\TEMPCSA.

Download the OSHA Confined Spaces Advisor After copying the program distribution file to C:\TEMPCSA, do the following:
  1. Use Windows File Manager to browse to C:\TEMPCSA, select CSA.ZIP, and double click to extract the file CSA.EXE from it and place it in the same directory. (Note: you must have an archive program which will decompress the ZIP archive. If you do not have a decompression program installed on your computer, there are several free or low cost programs which may be downloaded from the Internet.)
  2. Then double click on CSA.EXE to install the software on your computer.
  3. Once you have installed the Confined Spaces Advisor, you may safely delete the file CSA.ZIP. CSA.EXE may also be deleted, but it is recommended that it be kept so that you may reinstall the advisor, if necessary. 
The Confined Spaces Advisor program will then be available on your computer by selecting Start/Programs/OSHASOFT/Confined Spaces Expert Advisor/Confined Spaces Expert Advisor.

OSHA invited the public to download, test, and comment on this tool during its development. We received many comments from people who reviewed the CONFINED SPACES ADVISOR in its public test version (previously called the Permit Spaces Advisor), and we used those comments to make a better tool for the public.
The Confined Spaces Advisor was developed as a joint effort of OSHA staff: Don Kalstrom, Wendell Glasier, Sherman Williamson, Thomas Mockler and Edward Stern, and OSHA attorneys Steve Jones and Noah Connell. It was programmed by Ronald Bird of DynCorp with the assistance of Sigrid Cleland and Alan Bernstein of CONSAD Research Corporation.
 
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