Resolving Safety Issues with Arc Flash and Lockout/Tagout Services at a Leading Medical Technology Company

Overview

A world-leading medical technology company that specializes in orthopedics, medical and surgical, neurotechnology, and spine needed help with resolving the safety issues occurring at their production facilities. While the medical technology company initially reached out to SEAM Group for an oil testing evaluation, it was during early discussions that they also stated their need for Arc Flash Hazard Analysis and Lockout/Tagout (LOTO) services. SEAM Group plans on delivering Arc Flash and LOTO services to 50+ locations over the next three years, enabling safety improvement and optimal operational performance.

Situation

With over 40,000 employees worldwide, this multibillion-dollar medical technology company was experiencing safety issues regularly at its production facilities. They realized that having ongoing safety issues would only escalate their risk for work incidents and injuries short-term and would cause significant revenue loss long-term.

The company initially connected with SEAM Group requesting transformer testing and evaluation, but during early discussions, members of their safety leadership team also stated their need for Arc Flash and LOTO services. With SEAM Group’s expertise and assistance, these procedures will help improve safety and operational performance at their facilities.

Solution

SEAM Group captured the company’s needs during discussions and offered complete Arc Flash and LOTO services to 40 of their locations. Arc Flash services include:

• Providing an on-site electrical systems equipment assessment
• Uncovering potential correctable issues within the electrical distribution system
• Determining available short circuit current and interrupting time of each device
• Calculating the largest incident energy at the specified working distance
• Conducting a Protective Device Coordination Study
• Offering recommendations of reducing incident energy
• Determining the required personal protective equipment (PPE) level
• Documenting the results and generate labels to be placed on the equipment

Lockout/Tagout services include:

• Conducting energy control procedures (ECP) for affixing appropriate
  lockout devices and/or tagout devices to energy isolation devices
  • PHASE I – Process review and data collection
  • PHASE II – Energy control procedure (ECP) development
  • PHASE III – Final review and delivery
• Training workers on hazards or hazardous energy and lockout tagout
  procedures, policies, and equipment
• Conducting periodic system audits (at least annually). Audits are used to verify that ECPs are accurate and that employees can demonstrate proper energy isolation of equipment to perform servicing and maintenance.

Results

Arc Flash and LOTO services are currently in progress; however, SEAM Group has already received positive feedback for how they do business. The client company appreciated the transparent communication and
responsiveness during the proposals process. Additionally, they were pleased with the initial audit SEAM Group conducted prior to starting work and, as a result, built the trust needed from their leadership team to
move forward with the project. reduced time to execute PM’s.

The company also appreciated SEAM Group’s partnership and approach to doing business. The optimization process may not have had such outstanding results if SEAM Group’s team did not have the skillset that understands life sciences assets nor have the expert reliability engineering resources to guide and deliver the process.

While work completed in the third quarter of 2020, there are conversations for expanding reliability services to the company’s global community