Continuous operational processes at an industrial plant are typically shut down 5 percent or less per year, yet most major accidents occur during non-routine (start-up, shutdown or online maintenance) operations. Why? The situation at a plant during a shutdown is completely different from a normal day. Processes are stopped, equipment is emptied and opened, and the amount of people and moving vehicles, including trucks and forklifts, at the site is higher than normal.
Decades of experience with plant turnarounds prompted one chemical manufacturing and processing plant in Louisiana, well known for its focus on safety, to seek out the best solution to continuously monitor LEL (lower explosive limit) levels at one of the plant's most dynamic areas during shutdown: the entry, exit and pathways of construction vehicles.
Challenge: During the shutdown, hundreds of vehicles, including vans, trucks, forklifts, welding trucks and contractor vehicles, entered and left the site daily. Based on the amount of traffic during the shutdown, the hazardous zone around the plant was clearly marked and barricaded with a yellow gate. The area surrounding every vehicle as it entered the gate and traveled to its destination required continuous LEL monitoring. The turnaround manager at the plant trusted the company's safety provider to determine the best monitoring option for this situation. A common solution is the use of a fire watch safety attendant equipped with a portable LEL detector. The attendant accompanies every vehicle as it moves through the possibly hazardous alleyways from entry through the gate and then back again. Due to the size of the project and number of vehicles involved, the fire watch attendant option would be time-consuming and costly.
Solution: The company's safety provider team offered a unique solution: deploying area monitors for continuous monitoring. Already having field-tested Industrial Scientific's Radius® BZ1 Area Monitor with LENS⢠Wireless for a previous client, the safety provider was confident this monitor was the right option. "Honestly, what immediately drove us to choose the Radius was the battery life. We knew that we would be able to let every monitor run for seven or eight days instead of having to send out 10 people per shift per day to change out batteries, as was the case with another manufacturer's instruments that we used in the past," said the safety provider. "With 146 monitors running at once for the approximately 60-day duration of the project, we also eliminated the need to bump test the instrument every day." As long as each monitor was continuously running for the duration of seven or eight days, it was only required to be bump-tested after that time period.
Results: "If we would have worked with fire watch attendants versus the Radius monitors for this project, it would have cost the customer at least double and required more work permits," said the safety provider. After completion of the project, the customer submitted a positive quality notice to the safety provider and commented on how well the instruments performed. Since then, the chemical manufacturer has deemed Radius BZ1 its area monitor of choice.
For more information about using the Radius BZ1 Area Monitor with a seven- day run-time on your next project, visit www.indsci.com/turnarounds.