The secondary sticker is basically saying there is no safe way to work live, regardless of shock protection, because the arcflash incident energy is too high.
I meant
there is no working condition where you could be safe while working on the primary side and NOT exposed to the secondary side.
It sounds like you all don’t have task specific job safety plans? I’m not blaming you, it’s a systemic problem at the management level. Elec is basically the only team that does this well tbh and I think it’s because the supervisor does not fuck around and will not take a management no for an answer. It helps that we are unionized.
We have plans for routine work come out with work orders for PMs and we will do them for correctives as correctives come up and keep them on file.
Let’s say we get a new equipment. We require the arc flash study before it’s delivered. We make sure it matches up with our expectations and then it will be used to create PMs. Like you said, there is no reason to work on this live so no PMs or correctives would have the team working on it live and they would all include switching orders and how to verify it has been deenergized. Anyone opening a panel without all that is getting sacked, and we make sure they know it.
I should also be clear this isn’t my plant and we don’t label like this. It’s not a great label but I can see why someone did it (to show it was calculated for both sides) we especially if they are some fresh out of school engineer 😅
No formal training, just good at finding the guy who likes to yap and following him around so I can learn all I can.
It sounds like you all don’t have task specific job safety plans?
Depends where I’ve worked, what the task is, and how it’s structured.
Data center? Yes, we had quadruple redundancy. Boring job.
Auto plant? PMs, yes. Reactive? Sometimes, but if the line was down, we weren’t getting them printed out. The maintenance training program was incredible though, trained the troubleshooting process, even the dumbest could have written a work plan for any piece of equipment. All equipment had PPE requirements and showed LO locations and procedures. For reactionary work, work plan was quick chat with everyone involved, then follow SOP for de-energization, verify de-energization. The work was done up front similar to how you’ve described, but on every team. Nothing got missed.
100 year old steel mill? PMs and only sometimes. Fun place to work, but that job was almost 100% fire fighting. Safety culture didn’t exist, especially when private equity took over lol. Early on had an untrained maintenance guy in street clothes operate a tripped breaker rated over 90 cal, he did not look to see what caused trip. That was when I was able to create a glove and training program lol. But that plant is the biggest reason why I’m against double labels. That plant hasn’t filled my position, and when I left, very little of it got delegated. The arc flash stickers are probably the last line of defense, I don’t think the drawings have been looked at since I left. That’s common in a lot of plants I visit at my new job, unfortunately.
I’ve had arguments with arc flash study providers over it - unfortunately this isn’t necessarily a dumb new engineer - these are well seasoned vets. And double labels in a book, or on a drawing makes sense. But when you look at plants that do less than bare minimum safety, it highlights how important those stickers are. The well trained facilities with good safety culture will have drawings to get information that’s missed on the removed label (primary side incident energy). But safety culture can go to shit overnight, turnover, etc. Sticking with 1 label per enclosure ensures that the safety you provide on those stickers will outlast your program.
Labeling requirements per NFPA70E are nominal voltage, arc flash boundary, incident energy or PPE category*, and minimum PPE requirements. I believe that minimum PPE requirements should be carried through entire enclosure, and adding that to the book would close the transformer debate. But I think its been unaddressed for too long that they should be adding a note specifically calling out transformers and DPs.
*this requirement is why you’ll see a PPE level listed instead of a PPE category if the incident energy is precisely calculated
I think we are agreeing.
When I said
I meant
It sounds like you all don’t have task specific job safety plans? I’m not blaming you, it’s a systemic problem at the management level. Elec is basically the only team that does this well tbh and I think it’s because the supervisor does not fuck around and will not take a management no for an answer. It helps that we are unionized.
We have plans for routine work come out with work orders for PMs and we will do them for correctives as correctives come up and keep them on file.
Let’s say we get a new equipment. We require the arc flash study before it’s delivered. We make sure it matches up with our expectations and then it will be used to create PMs. Like you said, there is no reason to work on this live so no PMs or correctives would have the team working on it live and they would all include switching orders and how to verify it has been deenergized. Anyone opening a panel without all that is getting sacked, and we make sure they know it.
I should also be clear this isn’t my plant and we don’t label like this. It’s not a great label but I can see why someone did it (to show it was calculated for both sides) we especially if they are some fresh out of school engineer 😅
No formal training, just good at finding the guy who likes to yap and following him around so I can learn all I can.
Depends where I’ve worked, what the task is, and how it’s structured.
Data center? Yes, we had quadruple redundancy. Boring job.
Auto plant? PMs, yes. Reactive? Sometimes, but if the line was down, we weren’t getting them printed out. The maintenance training program was incredible though, trained the troubleshooting process, even the dumbest could have written a work plan for any piece of equipment. All equipment had PPE requirements and showed LO locations and procedures. For reactionary work, work plan was quick chat with everyone involved, then follow SOP for de-energization, verify de-energization. The work was done up front similar to how you’ve described, but on every team. Nothing got missed.
100 year old steel mill? PMs and only sometimes. Fun place to work, but that job was almost 100% fire fighting. Safety culture didn’t exist, especially when private equity took over lol. Early on had an untrained maintenance guy in street clothes operate a tripped breaker rated over 90 cal, he did not look to see what caused trip. That was when I was able to create a glove and training program lol. But that plant is the biggest reason why I’m against double labels. That plant hasn’t filled my position, and when I left, very little of it got delegated. The arc flash stickers are probably the last line of defense, I don’t think the drawings have been looked at since I left. That’s common in a lot of plants I visit at my new job, unfortunately.
I’ve had arguments with arc flash study providers over it - unfortunately this isn’t necessarily a dumb new engineer - these are well seasoned vets. And double labels in a book, or on a drawing makes sense. But when you look at plants that do less than bare minimum safety, it highlights how important those stickers are. The well trained facilities with good safety culture will have drawings to get information that’s missed on the removed label (primary side incident energy). But safety culture can go to shit overnight, turnover, etc. Sticking with 1 label per enclosure ensures that the safety you provide on those stickers will outlast your program.
Labeling requirements per NFPA70E are nominal voltage, arc flash boundary, incident energy or PPE category*, and minimum PPE requirements. I believe that minimum PPE requirements should be carried through entire enclosure, and adding that to the book would close the transformer debate. But I think its been unaddressed for too long that they should be adding a note specifically calling out transformers and DPs.
*this requirement is why you’ll see a PPE level listed instead of a PPE category if the incident energy is precisely calculated