Trying to determine whether or not your equipment is safe and compliant is challenging, especially when you don't have in-house personnel or expertise. Today’s blog will review a successful turnkey application where a pharmaceutical client handed off their entire mechanical room safety issues to MPSA and became safe and compliant. Here's the play-by-play of what happened...
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Getting the Call | Firsy Day on the Job | Facility Risk Assessment | Timeline | Getting the Job Done | MPSA Value Add | Summary | Resources
Getting the Call
The story begins in late 2019 when an EHS manager at a major pharmaceutical client in the Northeast reached out to MPSA to inquire about mechanical room safety soultions. The EHS manager had issues filtering assets due to a lack of experience and personnel. They knew about MPSA, the team with decades of experience, and felt confident in them handling a large and complex job.
Because they didn't need guarding for just a few pieces of machinery—they needed an entire facility equipment review of thousands of assets to help identify areas needing improvement.
Day One
When MPSA arrived, the client requested a gigantic spreadsheet of action items to review internally. They wanted to decide whether they could solve their machine safety problems themselves or hire external contractors to facilitate the necessary changes. But immediately, MPSA’s experts noticed the company had been using an outdated internal machine assessment sheet, missing three of the five most important features.
So, in addition to providing their spreadsheet, MPSA helped the client update their risk assessment documentation and developed a new assessment form for each piece of equipment.
Facility Risk Assessment
The critical difference between MPSA and any other risk assessment provider is MPSA didn’t just tell the client something was wrong and then walk away. Instead, MPSA provided a recommendation report for their mechanical and electrical side of the equipment, the required solutions to reach compliance, and a budgetary number to help scope the value. Doing this gave the client a tool to look at, determine their highest priority items, and determine the type of budget required. As a result, the client hired MPSA for their turnkey mechanical room safety solutions.
Throughout the facility risk assessment, MPSA filtered over 2,700 assets and worked to identify which ones did and didn't have hazards. They also developed an assessment form for each piece of equipment that did.
Finding Machine Safety Gaps
While filtering, MPSA’s experts noticed gaps in the client’s machine safety efforts. In this case, MPSA uncovered improper coupling between motors going into gearboxes, and the client had improper sheet metal guards, which still allowed workers to reach the hazard.
As a result, when their couplings spun, the maintenance team could be exposed to a hazard, leading to a near miss, severe injury, or possibly death.
MPSA knew they would need to close off all of these guards and found a solution they have worked with for other major manufacturers, Orange Peel.
Timeline
MPSA broke up the project into three prioritized segments to implement machine safety upgrades: the client's machine shop, pump guarding, and exhaust fan guarding. Completing the facility risk assessments and facility guard installations for one of the client’s facilities took over six months due to the timing of the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, the job was completed while keeping everyone safe.
Getting the Job Done
In the end, MPSA provided complete machine safety solutions for over 60 pumps, fans and fume hoods, and added 75 machine shop equipment LOTO procedures.
MPSA continues to work with the client and plans to work on a second facility in 2023.
MPSA Value-Add
Not only did MPSA bring the client's entire facility into compliance, but MPSA’s experts provided critical project management support, allowing them to hand off the project entirely to MPSA.
This project handoff saved the manufacturing company from receiving dozens of shipments on their receiving dock and allowed the client to focus on production rather than peacekeeping between the different EH&S members, on-site contractors, and so on.
In addition, the MPSA experts utilized their decades of experience with:
- corporate safety requirements
- industry-recognized safety standards
- technical problem-solving
- mechanical and controls engineering
- customer service
- project management
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Thinking about a facility risk assessment? MPSA offers more!
Learn More about our Risk Assessment offerings here.
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Summary
Mechanical room safety solutions providers, like MPSA, allow clients without the expertise or personnel to ensure your equipment is safe and compliant. Today’s blog is just one example of a successful turnkey application where a significant manufacturer handed off their mechanical room safety issues entirely to MPSA and became safe and compliant without the necessary experience or personnel.
Resources
- MPSA Website
- MPSA Risk Assessment Options
- Machine Guarding Capabilities
- Turnkey Soultions
- Standards and Regulations
- Meet our Experts!
- Customer testimonials
