Webcast: Implementing Prevention through Design (PtD) on the Factory Floor

The industrial workplace is constantly evolving, with new innovation and automation being integrated into the plant environment, posing new challenges for employees. Electrical safety management, as well as its practice in the workplace, is being impacted every day by these new innovations. A contributing factor to this is the incorporation of safety features and technology into the electrical infrastructure of facilities, which is leading manufacturers to deploy PtD principles into their control and power distribution equipment.

While continuously improving the approach to electrical safety is essential for design engineers, it is just as critical for plant personnel. Today, the current definition of electrical safety “technology” largely varies in the industry, straddling traditional and new methods for evaluating electrical safety. In a recent CFE Media research report, 68% of respondents cited personal protective equipment (PPE) as their leading preference for electrical safety, followed by lockout/Tagout (LOTO) identified by 61% of respondents. Job safety analysis ranked third at 55%, with embedded safety controls named as a preference by just 36% of respondents. These statistics represent that adopting new technology and better approaches to electrical safety is challenging but critical for improving safety in the workplace.

This webcast will follow an example of new safety technology – Absence of Voltage Tester (AVT) – employing PtD principles and focus on its various methods of deployment in an electrical enclosure.  Attendees will learn how using AVTs will leverage the hierarchy of controls methodology by mitigating potential hazards present when verifying the absence of voltage. Attendees will observe that deploying AVTs is a safer method of maintaining and servicing several different electrical enclosure environments, allowing the plant manager or safety manager to effectively implement PtD from the drawing board to the plant floor.

Learning objectives:

• Understand how electrical safety technology pursues a direction that influences design so that it minimizes workplace hazards (PtD).
• Gain insight into how AVTs are an example of implementing engineering controls as related to the hierarchy of controls methodology.
• Outline examples of AVT deployments which contribute to efforts of continuous improvement of workplace safety programs and examine the several methods that can be used to deploy AVTs in an electrical enclosure.
• Learn how a facility saw the need for new safety technology in their environment and share best practices from their deployment experience.

Presented By:
Zachary Ganster, Product Manager for Prevention through Design (PtD), Panduit
Martin Kronz, Business Development Director, OEM Infrastructure, Panduit

Moderated By:
Bob Vavra, Content Manager & Moderator, Plant Engineering

#AVT