Why electrical safety audit is crucial for industries in pandemic times is a question with an obvious answer. Yet many of us seem to take it lightly. Imagine a blackout in hospitals or water plants during this time where human contact is ruled out. How do you tackle this situation? Who is going to take up the responsibility of tending to a hazardous accident?
At the onset of COVID-19, businesses have had to resort to quick thinking in the face of uncertainty. They’ve had to adopt alternative ways of delivering services or products to their customers. While some businesses unfortunately no longer see the light of day, there are still those that have reached the shore through creative means. So, their next step is to sustain their business in these uncertain times.
It’s been a tough journey for businesses since the pandemic. It’s not going to get any easier but a check on human lives affected by electrical hazards can be controlled. Taking safety measures to ensure that your organization is hazard-proof is truly a responsibility that should not be shirked off in any manner. Furthermore, following standard safety protocol as per government regulations will keep your organization and your employees safe and away from any fatalities.
In all of this chaos of survival, electrical safety audits can prove to be a preventive measure in the face of adversity.
Electrical safety audits help plug loopholes
These audits, down the years, have most often been carried out for the sake of following rules and regulations. Basically, the reluctant nature of organizations to comply with electrical safety rules has also led them to ignore the warning signs of future hazards. Reasons are cost, ignorance, and neglecting the importance of a safe working environment. During the pandemic, however, this process has gained its much-needed value. Therefore, why an electrical safety audit is crucial for industries in pandemic times will soon be revealed.
Auditing involves inspection, testing, and verification of electrical installations in organizations across industries. It is important for all types of companies to take this into account, be it medium or large-scale industries – mining, paper, shipbuilding, plastics, and chemicals. Healthcare and construction facilities top the list.
Implementation of the safety measures must comply with government standards and regulations. As we all know, a protocol must be in place.
Electrical Safety Audits help identify:
- Non-compliant practices in the organization
- Electrical hazards including accidents like short-circuiting induced fire
- Risk-prone or vulnerable areas in electrical systems and installations
Your responsibility as an employer
As an employer, you need to ensure that parts like cables and flexible leads are visually checked, maintained, and replaced when necessary. These parts are prone to damage over daily use in sockets, plugs, and other connections. You will have to be educated about the right and wrong ways to use electrical accessories. This is so that you can monitor the way your employees or workforce handle the equipment.
Just a few pointers to help you catch up
- Use appropriate cable connectors to join lengths of cables together. Disallow the practice of using taped joints.
- Only allow a professional to do electrical installations, maintain and check regularly.
- Socket Outlets have a chance of being overloaded by the use of adaptors. From time to time, ensure that this doesn’t happen. Seek professional consulting to understand how to avoid this.
- Electrically powered equipment provided should not be faulty or create any disruption in its flow of operation.
- Electrical equipment that is fixed should have emergency switch-off buttons in order to cut off the power during sudden mishaps.
- Portable equipment that is double insulated should have the live and neutral connected accurately to the plug by a professional electrician unless the plug is of a molded type.
How often is an electrical safety audit done?
An audit should be done every 3 years but this depends on three factors. These factors should help you identify the frequency of getting an electrical safety audit done.
- Is your organization just recently up and running?
- Experienced any electrical incidents lately?
- Are your employees complying with safety rules?
It is not advisable to exceed a 3-year interval for auditing purposes. Yet we’ve all read in the news about accidental hazards. So, it’s clear as to how many are actually following and implying electrical safety regulations. Now, during the pandemic, we need to up the frequency of audits in order to ensure maximum safety.
These regulations have been introduced for reasons such as preventive measures for accidents and so that lives can be saved. It’s interesting to note how we are ready to wear masks for impending dangers while the same readiness is not shown for long-term safety. It is important to spread the realization and awareness of electrical safety audits so that lives are saved in numerous instances.
You need to, therefore, audit the electrical safety program of your organization to ensure that you are following the right codes and regulations. To get this done, you need to hire a 3rd party professional auditor.
An inspection would include the following
- Identifying overload of any electrical circuits or equipment
- Checking for potential electric shock risks and fire hazards
- Identifying electrical work that may be functionally defective
- Highlighting the undersupply of any earthing or bonding
How can an electrical safety audit save lives?
If you implement preventive measures and ensure that your employees are following them strictly, you are saving lives. You are saving the lives of the people visiting your organization and your employees as well.
As mentioned earlier, if a hospital or other life-saving structural confines do not have water or electricity, you can imagine the chaos that will follow. It is a problem that can be avoided. Similarly, if a safety audit is done on a regular basis, unknown fire accidents at a factory or a plant during the night when everyone’s asleep can be avoided. This is why electrical safety audit is crucial for industries in pandemic times because getting professional these days is not going to be easy. Delays will be experienced along with extensive damage to the organization under electrical harm.
According to studies, audits can enhance electrical safety compliance by 40%, thus, reducing fatal accidents at work and saving lives. This makes it all the more important to understand why electrical safety audit is crucial for industries in pandemic times.
Where businesses are struggling to maintain a balanced workflow and revenue, mishaps and accidents as such cannot be afforded. Therefore, controlling risks like reducing voltages and ensuring correctly-fitted fuses are of utmost importance.
How much does it cost to conduct an audit?
There are several electrical safety audit personnel available and they start from Rs 5 per square feet. Costs vary depending on the area to be covered. Their services include ELF and EMF audits through magnetic shielding technology. They cover risk levels like generic human exposure, area dimensioning, device immunity, ESG risks, surge voltages, and occupational exposures, amongst others. They provide a comprehensive report analysis.
Develop safe work practices and conditions
As an employer, it is your responsibility to maintain a program of safe work policies and procedures. This is to prevent the likelihood of experiencing a shock or creating an arc flash. For instance, key procedures like using energized work permits, and assessing arc flash risks and pre-job shocks should be integrated into your program.
Generic safety procedures to help your workers could be as follows:
- Determine all the routes of electrical power supplied to the electrical equipment in operation.
- Open the disconnecting device.
- If the device seems to be energized or has any residue of energy, make sure to release stored energy.
- Test for absence of voltage.
- In case of high voltage, apply temporary protective grounds.
These procedures mentioned are simply a small part of the program you should have in place. Please seek necessary assistance to develop a customized electrical safety program for your organization.
We hope you’ve now gathered enough insight as to why electrical safety audit is crucial for industries in pandemic times. If in normal times, a company has to take safety measures of such length then the current times would surely demand a more stringent and frequent safety stand protocol approach. After all, in the event of a hazard, there is bound to be a delay where electrical health professionals can take charge and ensure safety. Also, remember that during these pandemic days, organizations will experience a shortage of staff. So, monitoring electrical appliances becomes even more of a crucial matter.
Electrical safety audits are, therefore, a much-needed necessity for today and for an uncertain future. For businesses here and everywhere, it would be truly wise to take heed.
