Integrating Safety Standards into Water Park Operations
Photo by Jeremiah Lawrence, Unsplash
(eap) As part of an online seminar on “Integrating Safety Standards in Water Park Operation” organized by the European Waterpark Association (EWA), Franceen Gonzales, Chief Experience Officer at Canadian waterslide manufacturer WhiteWater West and expert in the field of international norms and standards, presented important aspects for the safe operation of waterslides and attractions to the participants.
Starting with an active safety culture – the optimum is a proactive and generative culture characterized by clear leadership and values as well as continuous improvements to it – through a safety life cycle of attractions (keywords: technical planning and analysis, commissioning, regular maintenance work) to a comparison of international standards... Gonzales gave the participating pool operators a comprehensive overview of the safety-related aspects that should be focused on when planning and operating water attractions.
Depending on the world region and country, the ASTM, EN or ISO standards catalogs serve as binding regulations for the technical characteristics that a certain type of attraction must meet in order to ensure the greatest possible safety. There are also countries with different standards and specifications. If an attraction cannot be assigned to a specific product type defined in the standards (often the case if it is an innovative new product), a comprehensive risk assessment is carried out first. The aim of the international manufacturing industry and the US standardization organization ASTM International is to harmonize the catalogs of standards in order to optimize the planning, production and maintenance processes of attractions. This would make safety standards clearer and more reliable for operators. ■
