OHS Learnings from Conveyor Modifications

Tuesday, 24 November 2009 01:40

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Beware of Being Ambushed

Safety Notes from the Project Engineers Diary

The Preamble

I got caught, no excuses, “The Buck Stops Here”, with me, I wear it.
I get the pat on th

e back when it goes to plan (.....”what do you mean you want some recognition for doing your job, you get your recognition every pay day”..... to quote my manager) and the kick up the rear when it doesn't.
I have been around for quite a few years, I have worked in different industries and I have experienced different ways of doing things, I thought that I had taken a lot of learnings on board and believe that Safety is my number one priority. However, I always remember a quote from a guy I met years ago, Always liable to be something coming out of left field

Always liable to be something coming out of left field

he had been around for a long time as well, he said ….“you might think that you have seen and experienced it all in your sphere of work and nothing will surprise you, but there is always something new which can come from “left field”, which you have never seen before and Murphy's law tells you that it has the potential to stuff you up big time” (my words, his were slightly more descriptive).
Following on from this job I have taken a whole new set of learnings on board and will make sure that I apply them religiously to every future project. Let me tell you that I got away with it this time. But that was more down to good fortune, not good management.
The specific detail is not important, but the lessons are.
My story is free, I encourage you to learn from my mistakes

The Job

It was one of those challenging projects were nothing was ever going to be easy.
In simple terms it was a modification to a section of continuous production line for a food product. The whole line from start to finish is about 300 metres. I was modifying a section with fixed conveyors plus process plant which was about 30 metres in length. Without going into detail, I had a Sunday, 24 hour window to pull out a section of conveyor and modify a second section.
Normally this would have been a simple job, but in this case I was also in the process of progressively building a tilt panel room around the conveyor and hence severely restricting the access.
The conveyor section was not earmarked to be reused and the chances of selling it were remote, but it was much cleaner from a GMP perspective and (in theory) quicker to remove it in one section.
If we got into real trouble, the fall back was to attack it with an oxy torch, cut it up and remove it in smaller sections. But this was not the preferred option.
I had given the whole conveyor job (and there was a lot more work, this was only a small part of a much larger contract) to one company, on the basis that they did it all, ie remove existing, modify existing as required and supply new as required. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

The Reasons for the Incident

As always, there was a lot happening in many other areas of the project and I took my eye off the ball. I thought that the conveyor modification was one job I didn't have to get too involved with. I was dealing with a credible, experienced company who had done a lot of previous work in the plant. What could go wrong ?
Let me tell you what went wrong.

The Events

I had requested a SWMS (Safe Work Method Statement), but the document was very generic and not tailored to the job.
I have previously always used specialist lift companies for this type of work and had good experiences, so I was not unduly concerned at the lack of specific detail in the SWMS.
The contracting company was based interstate and the supervisor who was responsible for the job was flying in the night before.
He had seen the job some weeks before, but in the meantime I had been progressively erecting a building around the conveyors and so restricting his access.
I had been sending emails and pictures to show what had changed, but he travels a lot to other jobs and was not accessing his emails.
I believe that he underestimated the complexity and difficulty of what was involved.
Because I was very busy and involved in other aspects of the project I took the view that the contractors were professionals who knew their job.
They sourced labour from a local labour hire company. I soon found out that the quality of the labour was not good enough for this job.
Because of the confined work area and food plant requirement the lift was to be done with forklifts, jib attachments, slings etc which were being hired for the day. Lifting jib attachment

The plant and lifting gear was scheduled to be supplied to the site the day before and the supplier verified that the gear had been delivered to site. This was never confirmed by personnel on site and as this is a large site, deliveries often go to other areas of the site, so this was not identified as a problem at the time. Unfortunately, due to a mix up, the forklifts and lifting gear were sent to another site, interstate, where the supervisor had previously been working.

On the Day

So, its 6.00 am Sunday morning of a long weekend, the labour is on site and we have 24 hours to do the job.
The forklifts and lifting gear can not be located on site. Following numerous phone calls the story unfolds that it was delivered to the wrong site and there is no other suitable gear available from this company.
I didn't know this at first because the contractor was frantically ringing around the industry trying to find alternatives. Remember Sunday morning, long weekend.

Eventually gear did arrive on site Eventually some gear was located which could be delivered to site, soon. It was not the same specification, but the contractor assured me that he could work with this equipment to do the job. Again I took him at his word and agreed to proceed with the work . The timing still looked OK.

The first part of the work seemed to go fairly well , so I had no reason to be concerned, but as the work got more involved, it became increasingly clear that there was not a "well thought out" plan of action.
There was a sense of – we will try this and maybe it will work, if not we can try something else and maybe that might work and the maybe's where just not working.
As the hours started to add up there was a lot of scratching of heads and a lot of maybe's. I did not have a good feeling. It was clear that the lifting gear and plans (or lack of) were just wrong, the forklifts where undersized, the lifting gear was underspecification and the people doing the work were not up to the job.
At this point I should have stopped the job and reverted to plan B – cut it up.
But I did not want to hit the panic button and decided to let the "professionals" do their job.
As the work continued, it became increasingly obvious that we were getting into very dangerous territory.
But we had started, we were part of the way through and the job had to be completed so that production could start at the specified time. It would be much quicker and cleaner to take out the conveyor section in one piece, rather than to start cutting it up now. I allowed the job to continue.
Time was critical and I always had one eye on the clock.
The fall back position was still there, to cut up the conveyors with oxy and take them out in smaller manageable lumps, but this would take more time and the equation was narrowing.

The critical point came when the crew tried to remove the largest section of conveyor. There was a forklift at either end of the conveyor section, which was still bolted together and the plan was for the load to be taken by the forklifts, when the bolts where removed from the side plates.
The forklifts and slings were in place and it all looked good, with only the last bolts needing to be released from the joiner plates on the sides.
When the last bolt was removed and the full load taken by the forklifts, the rear wheels of the forklift at the heaviest end began to lift, very, very slowly. The rear of the forklift started to come up off the ground. The driver shouted for help and a couple of contractors quickly leapt onto the back of the forklift to provide a bit more counter balance and it was enough to prevent any more tipping.
I would add that during the previous work, there was an extremely high safety awareness and at no time was any one ever put into a dangerous situation.
It was then a case of containing the situation and managing it.
With 2 men on the back of the forklift it was stable – temporarily. The rest of the crew pulled in a stack of pallets and were able to positioned the stack under the conveyor so that the load could be lowered. The conveyor section was resting on the stack of pallets and the immediate danger was eliminated. There was a collective sigh of relief.

At this point I made the decision to abandon the plan to remove the conveyor section in one piece. We would cut up the conveyor section and remove it in smaller, more manageable chunks in a safe and controlled manner. With quick thumb nail calculations it was estimated that we could still complete the job on time. I made the decision that if in fact it did run over time, then So Be It – Safety was the Number One Priority.
The whole focus of the job was now re aligned, the stress was taken out of the job. The crew worked with renewed confidence and vigor. The work was completed in a safe and controlled way and still within the time constraint . Production was able to re started on time.

The Learnings

If the job can not be done safely, it can not be done. Full stop end of story

Don't get hijacked by the clock when safety is involved.

Don't allow yourself to be ambushed, ..... plan, plan, plan

You may not be popular if the job runs over time – But you will have a lot bigger problem to contend with if there is an accident

Trust no one – not even yourself – verify and double check

Demand a full and detailed WMS (Work Method Statement) from the contractors doing the work with integrated check lists, check the WMS in detail. The WMS is in addition to the SWMS and should also include supply of hire equipment and the quality of labour -

For the next phase of the work with these contractors, they produced a WMS in detail. Every step of the WMS was critiqued e.g. A step may have been to “Use a forklift and jib for lifting” - I wanted to know the lift points, the weight of the section, where it would be lifted from, the load rating of the forklift. The load rating is at a specified distance from the mast and it decreases as the lift point moves out. Verify that the lift and distance complies, will slings or chains be used?, provide details plus details of the lifting jib and compliance, what will be the support detail, what is the order of removing support bolts etc, etc. complete with check lists.
This may seem extreme, but when it came to the next stage of the work, everyone knew exactly what was going to happen, how and when and the work went like clockwork.
I have used similar WMS's for all other works with great success. Whilst some contractors initially may be reluctant to go to the level of detail, most recognise the benefits when it comes to actually doing the work.
So what about the contractors who won't produce a WMS to the required level of detail -- well they don't do work for me.

Last Updated on Sunday, 06 December 2009 08:27