Designing Critical Electrical Infrastructure at the Intersection of Safety and Reliability

IMC-2020 Presentation 45:38 Minutes

by Lanny Floyd, University of Alabama

Electrical technologies are integral to manufacturing processes and business operations. Complex electrical systems enable energy distribution, measurement and control functions, and communications critical to business operations and safety of assets and people. Business and commerce are completely dependent on electrical technologies. Any unscheduled disruption of electrical energy, control or communications systems can have immediate and costly disruption to operations.

This dependence provides the basis for establishing reliability expectations for electrical equipment and systems impacting business operations. However, the equipment and the necessary reliability for equipment critical to electrical safety are different than that for operations uptime. Organizations that use operation uptime as the focus for electrical reliability may unintentionally overlook equipment reliability critical to electrical safety. The low hanging fruit for electrical equipment to include in asset management includes motors, oil insulated transformers and switchgear. Inspection and analysis technologies applicable to this equipment are well developed and with proven results for reducing maintenance costs and increasing uptime.

This presentation explores opportunities in the synergy of electrical asset management and occupational electrical safety. Methods are discussed to apply and optimize the application of the Uptime Elements and other proven reliability management systems and tools to help assure performance of assets critical to electrical safety. In conducting an analysis of existing maintenance strategies, an organization can develop a better understanding for how to manage its electrical safety program more closely coupled with its asset management program and will likely find opportunities to derive benefits across a broad set of business performance parameters that depend on defect free operation of electrical energy control and communications systems critical to operations. By recognizing these limitations and engaging experts in a multi-disciplined collaborative process, organizations may discover hidden synergies and optimization opportunities.