Contingency Planning For Eyewash / Safety Showers

When a facility has corrosives onsite, it is required that drenching facilities be readily available. These drenching facilities could include an eyewash, eye/face wash, shower or combination eye/face wash shower depending on the amount of possible exposure to the chemical by the employee. This requirement is found in the OSHA Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 1910.151(c).

If you have plumbed eyewash / safety shower(EWSS) installed they must be tested weekly to verify that they work properly.

What do you do if you find an EWSS that does not work? Do you stop all activities that involve chemical handling in that area? For a manufacturing plant, hospital or commercial laboratory that could very expensive.

What happens if the water supply to multiple EWSS's is unexpectedly shutdown?

It is important to do some contingency planning so you are not caught off guard if you lose some or all of your eyewash safety showers. Here are some things to consider when doing this planning:

• Communication needs to be part of any effective plan. Make it part of your procedures to notify the occupants of affected area if their eyewash safety showers are out of service. Emails, overhead announcements and posting signs may play parts in your communication plan.
• It is helpful to maintain a fleet of spare, portable eyewashes safety showers. The number you keep on hand depends on the size of the facility. Portable eyewashes need to be maintained too. Be careful when lending these out for construction projects, as they do not always show back up.
• Clearly mark that the out of service eyewash safety shower is out of service. Use yellow caution tape to block access to it. If you can not place a portable unit at the same location, be sure to have a sign at the location directing people to the nearest working eyewash safety shower.

It is common to do contingency planning for critical cooling systems, electrical power or plant water supply. This same level of planning and analysis should be applied to the safety systems thaat protect our employees.

Review our early posts a detailing the FieldDataPro solution can be used to set up a very effective safety inspection program. It is especially useful when trying to manage weekly testing of eyewashes that are distributed across a large campus or facility.
http://fielddatapro.blogspot.com/2011/06/it-has-been-our-experience-that-much-of.html

Read a Good Article About Operator Rounds

Written by Sam McNair at Life Cycle Engineering. Follow the link below:

http://www.lce.com/Improving_Operator_Care_Checklist_Fundamentals_416-item.html

Discusses really looking at the data you are asking your operators to record during their rounds. Operator rounds are an integral part of maintaining a reliable plant, but if you are asking your employees to spend a great deal of time recording data that no one ever looks at or uses they will grow frustrated.

During an implementation of our handheld data collection solution, we at FieldDataPro encourage our clients to review each Point of Interest they are asking their employees to record and ask them:

1. Why is this piece of data useful?
2. How will this data be used?

If they can not answer these questions we ask them to reconsider including it in the operator rounds. To read a case study of how FieldDataPro solution helped improve Operator Rounds at a manufacturing plant follow the link below:

http://www.fielddatapro.com/case_studies/Operator_2.pdf

Pressure Gauge Accuracy - Quick Gauge Accuracy Check

Before I start troubleshooting with gauges I check to see if the gauges that are installed  have been calibrated within the last year. I look for a sticker on the back of the gauge with a calibration date on it. If the plant does not calibrate its gauges of the particular gauge is out of calibration I do a quick accuracy check of the gauge. To do this I carry with me two adjustable wrenches, a couple of small (2") but high quality gauges to use as test gauges, and whatever PPE is appropriate for the environment you are working in and fluid you are working with.

Quick Gauge Accuracy Check

1. Record the pressure shown on the gauge.
2. Isolate the gauge by closing the valve the gauge is installed on.
3. Remove the gauge from the valve by putting one wrench on the valve (to keep it from spinning) and one wrench on the gauge.
4. Slowly remove the gauge, taking care to ensure that the isolation valve is holding and pressurized fluid will not be released.
5. Once removed, verify the gauge that you removed does not have a zero shift.
6. Install a test gauge in the same location as the gauge you just removed. Verify that the pressure read is the same as the pressure recorded in step 1.
7. If the gauge being tested does not have a zero shift and read similar to the gauge reading of the test gauge then I consider the gauge accurate enough for troubleshooting.

If the gauge is found to be accurate I will use it for troubleshooting. If not I replace the gauge if I have a new one handy or continue my troubleshooting using my test gauges and put in  arequest to have the bad gauge replaced. If you must leave the bad gauge in place it is good to mark it as being inaccurate so that others know not to trust its readings.

The most common gauge error found is a zero shift. A gauge has a Zero Shift when it does not return to zero when all pressure is removed from it. This is caused by pressure overload, impact, or frequent pressure surges.

Another common gauge error is not attributed to the gauge, but to the piping the gauge is installed on. Often times the nipple, fittings or valve that that gauge is installed on get plugged up. The pressure shown on the gauge is the pressure on the gauge when the piping became plugged

Zero Shift - Pressure Gauges

For pressure gauges, the most common indicating error that develops over time is a zero shift.  Zero shift can be due to a variety of causes.  Some merely cause a constant deviation which can be eliminated by resetting the pointer to  zero and then comparing the reading  with that of the reference gauge at full scale.  If the difference in readings is, in the user's judgment, within the required tolerance, re-calibration can be  completed by adjusting the pointer of the gauge under test to full scale and double checking that the pointer comes to rest within the zero band when the gauge is depressurized.

If there is a significant difference in readings, the span of the gauge under test has to be adjusted.  This is done by changing the leverage of the sector tail.  If the reading of the gauge under test is too high, the link nut assembly on the sector tail has to be moved away from the segment arbor.  If the reading is too low, it must be moved towards the segment arbor.  Note that this should be done in very small steps and repeated until the reading is satisfactory.  Make sure the pointer returns to zero.  Otherwise, re-set the zero and repeat the procedure.  In most cases, the link nut assembly can be moved (levered) without loosening the link screw.  Only rarely does the tension of the link screw have to eased very slightly.  When adjustment at full scale is completed, check the reading at mid-scale.  If it does not coincide with that of the reference gauge, loosen the dial screws slightly and tilt the dial until the pointer is at mid-scale.