Why Nets, When You Already Inspect and Maintain?
A reasonable question from any safety professional evaluating a new engineering control is: if inspection and maintenance regimes are already in place, why add a net?
The answer lies in the hierarchy of controls, a framework that ranks risk-reduction measures by reliability, not by cost or convenience. At the top sit elimination (for instance, redesigning a worksite so the fixture isn't overhead at all) and substitution (for example, switching to lighter LED fixtures). Both remove the hazard or reduce its severity at the source, and both rank above engineering controls in principle.
In practice, though, elimination and substitution aren't always available. Redesigning a facility or swapping out fixtures across a site can mean extended downtime, retrofit costs, or structural changes that aren't feasible within an existing layout or budget cycle. When higher-order options are impractical or insufficient, safety professionals will then have to consider other layers of controls.
That's where engineering controls come in. Engineering controls physically change how the hazard is controlled. Safety securing nets contain a falling fixture or component at source, while barrier systems prevent dropped objects from passing through exposed openings. Unlike administrative controls, these measures are less dependent on a human action being performed correctly every time.
How Nets work
Are Dropsafe Nets a secondary retention solution?
The terminology depends on the standard or guidance being used. The term “Secondary retention” is also used more broadly within the industry for an additional means of preventing equipment from falling if its primary fixing fails.
Dropsafe follows the terminology used by DROPS in its Reliable Securing guidance. DROPS makes a more specific distinction: Secondary Retention secures the primary fixing itself, for example with locking wire, locking washers or split pins. Safety Securing restrains the item if the primary fixing fails, using devices such as nets, slings, wires or chains.
Under this definition, Dropsafe Nets are a safety securing solution. They enclose the fixture and secure it back to the supporting structure so that the fixture, or its components, are restrained if the primary fixing fails.
This type of solution may therefore also be described as a secondary retention net in other industry terminology, but Dropsafe uses safety securing to align with DROPS guidance.
As an engineering control, a dropped object net is designed to contain the detachment of a fixture or a component of that fixture (a lens, a lamp, a small part) if it separates from its mounting. It is not a substitute for rigging safety, and it is not structural support. A net doesn't make a poorly secured fixture safe; it provides a containment layer if something goes wrong despite correct securing. A common alternative engineering control is a sling. The two address overlapping but functionally distinct failure modes. Both a sling and a net are safety securing solutions: each restrains the fixture back to the supporting structure if the primary fixing fails.
The key difference is enclosure. A sling restrains the fixture if the primary fixing fails, but it isn't designed to contain smaller components that detach from an otherwise-secure fixture. A net encloses the fixture, so alongside restraining the fixture itself, it also contains components that falls from within that enclosure.
