Safety numb

Are any of you as sick of safety sh** as I am. What a money maker for others than me.

Well, yes. But I think that's what part of makes engineering a profession as opposed to just an occupation - reponsibility to the public and your workers to keep them safe from harm. That said, the limits set upon me as an engineer to do my own electrical work sometimes drive me nuts, and I do think that you can't make everything idiot proof, especially uncommon tasks. Some processes are just mindless arse-covering and don't contribute to safety. A plant I worked at recently has a system of multiple lock-outs and paperwork on a piece of machinery that makes an absolute misery out of testing and commissioning. Still, there's a balance somewhere. It's to the credit of most western societies that they take such good care of their people (this is by no means universal), but it is irritating sometimes when you can't take even a minor risk, despite the reward, because of an entrenched belief safety rules are inviolable commands.
 
Yeah, I'm all for natural selection. Nature has a way of weeding out the week and stupid. Some of the useless safety procedures just allows for some people to hang around longer and in some cases even allows them to multiply. I truely believe that the over emphasis on some of the most minute of safety factors is actually contributing to the world over population.

Arc Flash being one. I have heard of several arc flashes. What I have also found out is that these were all caused by inexperience and negligence on the part of the electrician.

I do believe in lockout/tagout however cause you never know who is going to come along and try to run the equipment and from what location they will try to run it from.

Estops are necessary, but I believe they are being over used and over complicated. Safety analysis are not being done properly on these mostly due to it being corporate safety people who are doing the analysis. They usually have no idea what they are doing, they just played the buddy game long enough that they got put into a nice cushy position. Instead of taking their job seriously and doing a proper analysis the just go for the highes safety rating and say that is what they need. This covers their behind and creates a lot of extra steps when the estop is made. I also have equipment (invertors) that blow due to a poorly thought out estop system.

Again Natural Selection works, we need to let some of it happen!!!!!

Let the flaming begin. This should wake some people up.
 
Nope. Not a problem. In fact, I fully endorse it for several reasons:

#1 - Businesses need to stay in business. When my business stays in business, I keep my job - a win-win situation, I like to think. The laws of natural selection are not allowed these days and the lawyers are happy to put you and your employer out of business if you ignore this. I say "suck it up" and embrace the change unless you like being unemployed and/or jailed.

#2 - I am becoming a specialist in the safety arena and my job is even more secure because of it. The rules and implementation are actually pretty simple so why not follow them? As for troubleshooting and configuring, I say "suck it up". The moment you become versed in it, the more employers will want you around, too.

#3 - It really DOES make things safer. With each phase of double-redundancy and control reliability you add, the less likely it is for someone to get hurt, maybe even me. I want to go home at night with all my fingers and toes, so I kinda like that. And the dangers really do exist, too. Arc-flash is a good example. If you see it happen once, you learn to appreciate how bad it is. If we can design to avoid it or wear the appropriate PPE to prevent getting hurt, again I say "suck it up" and do so - unless you don't mind leaving a finger or your eye-sight behind.

We are professionals and this is part of our profession. Accept it and move on.

Steve
 
Smoke,

Yes, it drive me nuts to.

BUT consider this, say you have 3 kids and they want to work at the same plant your at.

And lets also say that you cut a couple of corners on a job saying that will never happen or that's a one in a million chance of happening.

My oldest is 13, so lets say that in 5 years he come to work at that plant, on the very machine you cut corners on 5 years earlier.

Two weeks later he gets hurt or killed due to that one in a million chance and during the course of the investigation, it comes out you cut corners and caused the accident.
Now you find out.
What's worse, your wife / family finds out.

Safety is for the birds huh?

Something to think about.
making a mistake is one thing, but to ignore safety can come back to haunt you.

I get reminded almost every week by my kids that they want to work with me.

regards,
james
 
I'm not talking about the safety issues we all face when designing, or installing a piece of equipment. Even arc flash is not an issue if the panel was designed properly using good fuses/breakers, proper wiring sizing and proper grounding etc.. These panels that were designed properly usually fall into a category 0 or 1 which is usually what a good electrician wears any way.

What gets agravating is to see a machine that has been sitting there running for 5+ years with no accidents, then all of a sudden someone walks by and turns a machine on while someone is bent over and out of the line of sight. Then a mirror has to be added so this blind spot can be seen, light curtains have to installed so if someone goes into this area "part" of the machine can't run. This area is accessed every 45 seconds, therefore the poorly planned estop system is killing the power on the machine every 45 seconds. What do you think the safety manager that said we needed a SIL 3 estop system for this machine knew about inverter charging.

It is not the idea of safety that gets aggrevating, its the things done in the name of safety that are aggrevating. YES, we as engineers, and technicians are all safety experts, and I do design my control systems around safety and common sense. I don't want to go home tonight thinking that anything I designed, built or programmed hurt me or anyone else, but you can't always protect people from themselves.
 
"..Even arc flash is not an issue if the panel was designed properly using good fuses/breakers, proper wiring sizing and proper grounding etc.. These panels that were designed properly usually fall into a category 0 or 1.."
I'm thinking you might want to go back and study the code some more...

Steve
 
I dont mind well thought out well planned safety. What i despise is a knee jerk reaction to something that has happened. When a manager throws it onto a technician and says make it so no-one can get hurt again, kind of thing.I am not sure you can make a machine idiot proof, eventually people have to be responsible for their own actions. Dont get me wrong, there should of course be safeties in place and guarding but making it impossible for a person to harm themselves is just crazy to me.
 
Kwires,

while i am in maintenance, i also design control system here as well. I always do my best to make machinery as safe as possible. But i'm human, and make mistakes, just like everyone else.

One of the things i've learned to do is discuss the process with others and dig into the what if type of questions.
Engineering also has a big part in the process as well. by working as a team, we come up with a lot of what if solutions.

I also know that we also have to live with the machinery that comes in. our team involving engineering, maintenance, and safety evaluates each piece of equipment and discusses the what if's. we then respons accordingly.

regards,
james
 
Kwires,

I also know that we also have to live with the machinery that comes in. our team involving engineering, maintenance, and safety evaluates each piece of equipment and discusses the what if's. we then respons accordingly.

regards,
james

That is a great idea!! I am going to strongly suggest we do something similar in the future. I greatly prefer the well thought out pro-active approach over the knee jerk re-active process we have in place now.
Thanks
 
Can't beat the good old risk assessment performed by a third party with no conflict of interest. This would certainly take the heat off any oversights and maybe throw up some issues that were no considered.

I always try to look at all eventualities but having a thorough risk assessment to plan the safety side is a must for me personally and saves any argument from managers who may think you've gone too far or not enough has been considered. If you've got an H&S person get them involved.
 
Last edited:

Similar Topics

Loving AB right now... We have an Allen-Bradley 2094-EN02D-M01 Kinetix 6500 servo drive that once had safe-speed monitoring which was eliminated...
Replies
2
Views
88
Is there anything I Should take into account while updating the firmware on a safety processor? I have a 1756-L61S running version 17 and need...
Replies
0
Views
70
Hey guys, the scenario is: I have already completed the drawing package for my system utilizing an A-B 440R-N23126 (Minotaur) safety relay. SoS...
Replies
0
Views
102
I have an application where I want to use a safety relay in combination with a flame detector as the sensing element. The flame detector has relay...
Replies
23
Views
940
Back
Top Bottom