According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), working on or around electricity leads to some 4700 non-fatal injuries each year in the United States alone. Electrical accidents or unintended contact with energized systems is also blamed for an average of one death per day, every day, in the workplace. Electrical workplace hazards, in fact, occupy three of the top 10 spots in OSHA's list of top workplace violations in 2010. Lockout/tagout violations led the pack with more than 3000 violations cited, but electrical wiring methods and general electrical code violations were cited nearly as often. In an effort to address urgent safety and health problems faced by Americans in the workplace, OSHA recently implemented a new program in June 2010 that increases civil penalty amounts for violators (EC&M June 2011). TEGG Services identifies these dangerous situations/code violations for you and takes the liability away so you can take steps to fix them BEFORE OSHA "helps" you spend more money than the repair would have cost.
A TEGG inspection conducted in July at a large pharmaceutical manufacturing company uncovered 21 non-heat related concerns and 6 heat related concerns (1 alert, 1 severe and 4 CRITICAL). During the 2 weeks the TEGG Technicians were on site, the company's insurance agent happened to be there for a day and shadowed the TEGG Technicians for a while. His comments were, "This is great stuff. Everyone should be doing this level of inspection. It looks like you guys really know what you are doing.". In addition to identifying critical unplanned and imminent electrical failures, TEGG has now positioned the customer to negotiate better insurance rates, as well as set the stage for conducting an arc flash hazard analysis and become OSHA/NFPA-70E compliant. Click the attachment to see the report page of one of the critical infrared anomalies that was immediately repaired.
Critical MCC IR Find.pdf (215.00 kb)
NFPA-70E, the standard for electrical safety in the workplace that OSHA uses to site violations of this industry standard has the 2012 revision coming out shortly. There are several changes that DIRECTLY affect how you need to be prepared to avoid OSHA violations and fines. One new addition [Section 110.6(D)(1)(f)(New)] reads "The employer shall determine through regular supervision and through inspections conducted on AT LEAST AN ANNUAL BASIS that each employee is complying with the safety-related work practices required by this standard.". Do you have your documentation in order? TEGG Services will help keep you out of the OSHA crosshairs. Click the attachment below to see a sample view of the web based inspection report TEGGPro.
TEGG Failure is not an option.pdf (793.08 kb)