This video highlights the efforts of an employer, in collaboration with the Manufacturing Advisory Group,
to reduce the risk of kinetic energy by implementing innovative controls that go beyond regulatory requirements.
The Quesnel sawmill will operate 16 hours a day.
It's a three-line mill,
eight dry kilns here,
we have four debarkers,
we're probably the largest operating facility in British Columbia.
A mill is a dangerous place.
There are some pretty nasty situations that we can deal with,
potential hazards we can't even see, we don't know what'll happen.
We're very proud of our safety systems and our training,
the things that we do with our employees.
We train and train and train, but we still seem to have incidents.
Going into the machines we have to be very aware of what is going on.
If there is an upset condition, what the potential hazards are.
The hydraulic pressures, the air pressures,
the suspended loads or the entrapped energy in something that's jammed up or bound up.
It's hidden in a lot of circumstances like that.
It's not obvious you've locked the machine out, you've shut everything down,
but there's still a hazard there that you're not necessarily aware of.
The danger with kinetic energy is that you have a rotating mass,
whether it's a saw or a chipper head or a disc that's still turning,
and it takes a while for them to come to a complete stop.
In this facility in November of 2017 we had an amputation.
My first inspection here was where I was
responding to a serious incident to a worker due to kinetic energy.
We have these amazing lockout policies,
we have all the procedures, all the signage, we're supervising our workers,
but we've missed the step of addressing kinetic energy
because it's different than electrical energy, it needs different controls.
That's really when the seed was planted here about safeguarding and kinetic energy
and making sure that heads and saws are stopped
before people do a production or a maintenance activity.
MAG was originally our head safety resource
and we actually got a grant for the initial assessment of our canter.
West Fraser approached MAG, shared the incident with the MAG members,
and MAG saw it as an opportunity to try to help West Fraser and to get some learnings for the industry as a whole.
So MAG said yep we'll give part of our budget over to that initiative and West Fraser will lead it.
We had some ideas, we had some thoughts,
we brought in two different consultants, we talked to suppliers.
This is what the perimeter guarding needs to look like.
This is where we need to put gates for direct access
for maintenance purposes or production purposes.
What kind of controls did we need at each one of those gates to control entry?
It is a process to work through.
With this project, what West Fraser did is they took their traditional lockout procedures,
and traditional forms of safeguarding,
and added another element to them.
The real sort of fundamental change is the addition of the electronic safeguard
that's monitoring the primary breakdown line, the canter,
and so that's the sort of fundamental difference.
It's not zero energy - it's when it senses zero movement
is when it will unlock the gate and allow a worker to enter.
We did our number one canter as a pilot project.
It's been a bit of a challenge.
We hoped to have it going sooner than we had, but we got it operational at September of 2018.
For the most part, the system is all behind the scenes.
Besides the gates and the guards, you don't see anything - it's all in the electrical equipment.
We monitor all the EMF feedback on all the motors for rotation
and then if there's still rotating energy there,
even though the motor has come to a stop,
we use proxes (proximity switches) to monitor the cutting head to make sure
that it's come to a complete stop before we allow entry.
This new system won't let you make those mistakes.
You can't improperly lock out.
If you improperly lock out, you can't perform your maintenance.
It's like having somebody watching over you so that if you do miss something,
it's a reminder. You've missed a step or there's still a hazard in there.
It won't let you take a calculated risk.
Humans make errors and this system is catching it.
I think the employees have really embraced this whole thing.
There's, I think, a great sense that, you know, we've taken steps to make it that much safer.
When that gate opens, they feel a sense of comfort that they're
going into something that's really at zero energy.
Having this new safeguarding system makes me feel safer, absolutely.
If I'm going into that piece of equipment, that this process has worked.
I've seen a change in the workers.
They have a lot of pride in their areas, and where they work, and what they do,
and what they've accomplished because it is a pretty big hurdle.
This initiative, even though it came from some really unfortunate circumstances,
it's a great example of industry coming together
and working together to solve an important problem.
As a manager, I don't want people to be injured.
I think this was an opportunity for us to show everybody that this can be done.
We can't be afraid to make these changes because they're good for everybody.
For more information on controlling hazardous energy in your workplace, visit worksafebc.com/lockout