Does anyone know of a video or brochure for training non-electrical people on opening a cubicle and resetting tripped overload units when the reset is not assessable from outside the unit?
I have been assigned the task of coming up with a procedure and I don't really feel comfortable with non-qualified persons opening cubicles on 480 volt systems.
thanks
ldelee

Trust your feelings on this one. If the original equipment design has the overloads inaccessable to unqualified persons there is a darn good reason for it. How would you feel if some unqualified person you supplied a proceedure to got hurt or killed?

480 volt power is extremely dangerous to work live when you don't know what you're doing. And you know that anyone not qualified has never heard of lockout/tagout! I get a lot of requests to change breakers/transformers or reset breakers in the 480 volt class in the cinemas I service. My response? Call your electrician. They have the experience and proper PPE to do the job safely.

Sounds like you're in an industrial/commercial setting. What about your plant/facility electrician? That should fall under their job description.

Personal injury, liability issues abound with your request. If it was your boss who came up with this idea, they need to rethink it. If he's trying to save money on either manpower or lost-process time, he needs to find another way.

And welcome to ECN! You'll find a lot of great people here, with lots of valuable and sage advice.

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[This message has been edited by mxslick (edited 08-31-2005).]

Woe to the supervisor (or "qualified individual") who lets an untrained person try to flip the breaker back to ON without switching it OFF first, especially in the presence of a dead short...

[This message has been edited by DougW (edited 08-31-2005).]

Actually there is an OSHA rule that says a tripped breaker cannot be reset by anyone until the cause of the trip is located and repaired. There is an exception that permits resetting if you know that the trip was caused by an overload condition.
Don

Why dont you train the employees to be "qualified" for the task you describe?

Are you guys saying that only electrcians can open electrcial enclosures in the workplace?

Qualified does not mean electrician...

danc:

To answer your questions:

1)Training someone to handle this task would require a lot of time and assumes that said individual is capable of remembering and comprehending the necessary proceedures even though they may not have done the task in many weeks/months. And in a production-based environment, said person's focus would not be on logical troubleshooting and safety, but getting the machine running as fast as possible. This would create the increased risk of fire, electric shock, machine damage and serious injury. In my current line of work (cinema repairs) all projectionist/managers are warned not to reset any breakers on equipment until it can be checked out. Those who have ignored this have suffered the consequences of damaged equipment, total facility outage and loss of job. Finally, some people simply cannot be trained for the task. (Film projectors are very easy to operate, but so many people can't do it.) Would you want the responsibility for the injury or death of a trainee who couldn't hack it?

2)I think OSHA would weigh into the second question. It can be stated as only qualified individuals should be opening electrical enclosures in a workplace. Machine panels which would be opened for the routine operation and cleaning/operator inspection, sure, as long as it's deenergized and locked out. Breaker panels, disconnects, transformers, etc. no way. That's why there are electricians. And in the 480 volt class, only a Darwin Award candidate would be nosing around in an enclosure if he's not qualified.

3)True, very true. But would you want a "qualified" plumber to change out a service panel? Or, in my case, I'm qualified to work on cinema projectors and sound systems, and have worked as an electrician as well. Am I qualified to work on the main switchgear in a cinema? Absolutely not. The closest I get is changing a bad breaker in a sub panel serving projection equipment, and only when I can work safely. (That means shutting down the subpanel. And I lockout/tagout.)

The scenario ldlee is asking about is too frought with hazards and would leave his company open to major liability.

Good answers.

1) There is certainly a cost associated with training. I think we can all recognize that, however the benefit of having trained individuals to do this task may outweigh those costs. I donno?

2) I dont agree with the statement about OSHA having a problem with this. Show me where OSHA references "electrician" anywhere it its regs. It talks about persons "qualified" to do the job. An electrician would most likely be qualified for this, however that certification would not be necessary.

3)I meant: Qualified Electircal Worker does not equal Electrician. Both the OSHA & NFPA reference "qualified" personnel by providing performance based training requirments. These requirements can be met without obtaining any professional certifications (although professional credentials would obviously be preferred). Your knowlege of electrical systems, safety regulations relevant to working on or near electrical components, and your intimate knowlege of cinema projectors makes you qualified to service them.

There are dozens of pieces of equipment in my shop. Some maintenance tasks require my guys to remove guards that may enclose electrcial components amoung other mechanical components. Sometimes my guys will need to access these areas for work, and LOTO may not be feasible. They are not electrcians, but they have been trained to do the work safely and know what equipemtn is required.

Our insurance company requires licensed electrcians for certain activities, but not OSHA.

If done correctly, i dont see major liabilty in this. Although anyone can sue anyone for anything these days.

Look forward to a response...

I'm with mxslick on this one.
Any Industrial Electrician reading this would be cringing like never before.
Overloads aren't installed for the sheer fun of it.
Having all and sundry have access to taking the dead-front's off of panel, would only have the effect of sooner or later someone is going to cop it.
I have to also agree with Don, closing a CB onto a decent short-circuit can result in a huge explosion.
This statement alone speaks volumes!.

guys,
thanks for all of the input.
I think that i will follow the advice of the majority and go with my initial gut feeling on this.
Since i do not feel comfortable being the one to decide who is "qualified" and who is not, I have contacted an MSHA inspector to come in and assist / advise on this.
By the way, I work for an industry connected with and located on a minning sight so we come under MSHA rule in stead of OSHA.
I am sure that a lot of the same rules/procedures apply for either.
Thanks again for the input and for the welcome. I have already found tons of useful info here.
lld

Trumpy, exactly which part of mxslick post you agree with?

It is not necessarily too expensive to train employees to perform certain electrcial tasks, this is a case by case judgement. I dont think OSHA would have a problem with a non-electrcian performing this task as OSHA does not require an electrician. Done correctly, there is no unusual liability (dont confuse liability w/ risk) here other than that which exists when performing any hazardous industrial operation.

If I were to provide mxslick's response to corporate, I'd better be ready to support it

I agree there is an element of risk associated with the job. In that respect, I also agree with mxslick's post. And I also agree that not just anyone should be poking into panels/boxes, thats not what i was implying.

I know there are alot of electrcians on this board, but come on...cant feed ldelee bad info on regs/risk. There must be some OSHA/risk experts out there that can weigh in...?

ldelee posted that he works in the mining industry, so I think we can safely presume that we're dealing with mining equipment.

So on one hand, it's an industry where lost production can be extremely costly, it may be impractical to get a plant electrician to a dead machine somewhere in a vast series of tunnels (or on a large above-ground site.) Let's also presume that anyone operating mining equipment would tend to be very skilled and highly trained, so we're not talking some teenager whose vocabulary is based on "Y'all want fries with that?" So the machine or process shuts down. What to do?

Again, a lot rides on the abilites and technical background of the machine operator. He may be the best bucket loader (is there such a thing?) operator in the world, but he can't even plug in a table lamp without getting bit. (There are many people like that, too.) So let's have him open up a control panel with 480 volts and start poking around to try to find the tripped overload. What do you think will happen? Even if the person is well-versed in electrical safety and has a fair bit of knowledge, it's still not a good idea. Why?

Consider likely working conditions: hot, humid, lots of hazardous dust, possible fumes, moving machinery which may start unexpectedly, rain if above ground, etc.
Add to that a possibly tired, po'd worker who just wants to get done and go home. Even the best workers can be tired or frustrated.

I stand by my position and would argue it to the death with any company CEO. There has to be a point where safety comes before money!

And to paraphrase someting I've said in this forum in regards to the NEC:

"Just because OSHA doesn't prohibit it doesn't make it safe - or right."

One thing that jumps out at me here is that the voltages that many of us work with the most, which are low (less than 600V) are not the most common in mine situations. Due to the vast areas that mines cover 14.6kV and higher are common. When the High Voltage is run through the same spaces that people work in surely some of the rules that we play by are different.

Direct from: http://www.msha.gov/Alerts/ElectricalSafetyBulletin10072004.pdf .

Just food for thought. Seems to me that MSHA, like OSHA, is serious about proper PPE and safety precautions (as they should be). And along the same vein (haha, mine pun) of mxslick's last line, let's go above any beyond what is required. Everyone's life is worth it.

{Message edited to change coding on link}

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 11-16-2005).]

Yeah as an ex mines bitch i know downtime costs....

u know what costs more.... waiting for the mines inspectors to show up, having the mines coroner on site and trying to get replacement bits from germany coz some bright spark figured they could "hold" the breaker in till the machine cleared the jam.

If it can be reset, only if there is no exposed live wiring, then allow one or maybe two resets a shift before you must call a tradesman, log all resets and note them in the handovers and to maintenance personnel.

I agree with the majority, if you need tools to get to it then it ain't user servicable, and around here (oz) qualified in electrical tends to mean licenced AND competent, and one licence doesn't cover all.

Spock

Spock,
I couldn't have said that any better myself, but try and tell folks that and have it sink in!.

Spock and Trumpy:

Thank you both for weighing in and keeping this thread alive!

The "no-tools" statement says it all. Although it is a big problem in my biz, with know-nothings getting into things they shouldn't, on the other hand it does generate more repair work for me!

Spock, would you like to add to the discussion here:
https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/Forum16/HTML/000239.html

I need to chime in here as I deal with OSHA on a daily basis. There are many situations in which OSHA (or MSHA) states "...only qualified persons..." may perform such and such task. Very few cases do they demand a "certified" or "licensed" individual. This is simply because they leave it up to the employer to determine what it means to be "qualified".

It is usually left to facility management (whatever form that takes where you are) to make this determination. There is a reason for this...those that install, own, upgrade, operate or otherwise use equipment are in the best position to decide what "qualified" means.

There are instances when electricians are necessary and extremely valuable. There are other instances when only a limited amount on training is necessary to "qualify" an individual to perform certain tasks. Part of being "qualified" involves that person recognizing when the task demands someone with more training...again, to be "qualified" means to understand how far they can go.

Likewise, do not assume that an operator is unfamiliar with LOTO. In fact, if the machine LOTO'd is in their area, they BETTER be at least familiar with what it means...even if they're not "qualified" to perform the LOTO.

In our facilities, because of the requirement for operators to perform so many maintenance and adjustment tasks on our equipment, all of them are more than qualified to perform LOTO. At the least, they understand it's function and that they are not to tamper with LOTO'd machines.

You need to decide if your workers are qualified or if they can be trained properly to perform ANY task. It's part of any good Job Hazard Analysis (JHA).

Just MHO...

If you let them reset the overload and it trips again you can almost Guarantee that some genious will think, "Hey if I turn it up it probably won,t trip again". Next shift same happens , next shift motor etc burns and then it hits the fan, then you can never find said genius. Theres always a fiddler lurking or someone with just enough training to be dangerous. If its inside a panel there is a good reason for it. It like authourised access only, If you have to ask if your authorised "your not".

The vast majority of the time when an overload trips, there is a reason for it. I hate getting work orders stating the overload keeps tripping. If they had called for an electrician in the 1st place, the problem could have been taken care of 2 or 3 days before they damaged a piece of equipment and caused even more down time.

Also, in the Great State of Michigan, it is against the law to do electrical work without being properly licensed by the State.