SAFETY, HEALTH & the ENVIRONMENT, with respect to the compressed air user.
The following is a reprint of an article written by Ken Fitzsimmonds MSc. Dip Eng. FSOE. FIPlantE., published during June 1999 in the 'Plant Engineer', the UK Journal of the Institution of Plant Engineers.
I am aware that many Companies have not been fully conscious of their duties towards SHE compliance. The purpose of this article is to illustrate the traps, pitfalls and penalties facing manufacturers, suppliers, designers, installers and customers within the UK compressed air industry. For those companies and individuals that fell short of their SHE obligations - and were caught, a warning or small fine was the typical result.
For the period 1997/1998, the average H&SE fine in the Magistrates Court for breaches of the HSWA Section 2 - 6, was found to be £6223.00. Half of these fines were less than £5000 and 2/3rds of these fines were below £10,000, despite the fact that the maximum fines could have been £20,000.
The situation was much the same in the County Courts, with an average fine per offence of just £17,768 for the same period. However, this is likely to be very much different for 1999.
The situation in the British Courts changed dramatically on 6th November 1998, with a judgement in the Appeals Court for case number 97/8101/Y3, Regina - v - F. Howe & Son (Engineers) Ltd. Generally the Court of Appeal concluded that 'Fines for Health & Safety Offences are too low'.
The Appeal Court Judge Stated.....
- A fine must be large enough to bring home to those who manage a company, and their shareholders, the need for a safe environment for workers and the public;
- While a fine should not generally be so large as to imperil the earnings of employees or create a risk of bankruptcy, there may be cases where an offence is so serious that the defendant ought not to be in business;
- Generally where death is the consequence of a criminal act it is regarded as an aggravating feature of the offence. The penalty should reflect public disquiet at the unnecessary loss of life;
- That magistrates should always think carefully before accepting jurisdiction in health and safety at work cases, where it is arguable that the appropriate fine may be greater than they have the power to impose, or where death or serious injury has resulted from the offence;
- The standard of care imposed by the legislation is the same regardless of company size.
In legal terms this has set a precedent. Now a Magistrate has to consider whether to accept jurisdiction for any H&SE case, or to refer it to a Crown Court.
The Crown Court now will require to see a Defendants Company Accounts to determine the size of any fine to be imposed. Indeed, a fine can now be large enough to bankrupt the Company and its Directors.
Two cases have already incurred record fines this year, both involved Balfour Beatty and neither case involved loss of life.
The first was imposed on 15th February 1999 due to the wrong choice of a tunnelling system. This could have had disastrous consequences and penalties of £ 1.7m were imposed to 'send a clear message to clients, designers, consultants, contractors etc.'
The second was imposed on 22nd March 1999 due to the derailment of a train whilst maintenance was being carried out on the track. The repair team was 'not properly monitored or supervised' .....'therefore the sentence must send out a clear warning'. A fine of £ 0.5m was imposed.
Although the fines can now be punitive, this is not the first time that a company has been taken to task by the H&SE, even though nobody had been hurt or injured.
In 1993, the case Regina - v - Trustees of the Science Museum went to the Court of Appeal. A prosecution was brought about by the H&SE because the Museum had failed to maintain its air conditioning system to a high enough standard. The Judge reasoned that lack of maintenance had exposed the public to unknown risks and the Trustees were fined. Parallels can be drawn to all sorts of mechanical & electrical equipment, including the lack of routine maintenance for air compressors.
Manufacturers, suppliers, designers, installers and users of compressed air plant & equipment need to be aware of their ever-changing duties. The following list is not exhaustive, many of the regulations are directly enforceable by the H&SE, others are enforceable through the EPA, via HMIP and the NRA. Even running a business at a loss is no longer a simple matter.
* Building Regulations 1991
* Chemicals (Hazard Information & Packaging for Supply) Regulations.
* Clean Air Act 1993
* COMAH Regs 1994.
* Construction (Design & Management) Regulations 1994.
* Construction (Head Regulations) 1989.
* Control of asbestos at Work Regulations 1987.
* Control of Pollution Act 1974.
* COSHH 1988.
* Electricity Supply Regulations 1989.
* Electricity at Work Regulations 1989.
* Environmental Protection Act 1990.
* Environmental Protection (Controls on Injurious Substances) Regulations 1992.
* Fire Precautions Act 1971.
* Fire Precautions (Workplace) Regulations 1997.
* Health & Safety at Work Act 1974.
* Health & Safety Display Screen Regulations 1992.
* Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations 1992.
* Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992.
* Noise at Work Regulations 1989 (HSE)
* Occupational Exposure Limits (EH40).
* Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992.
* Pressure Systems Directive 1997.
* Prevention & Control of Legionellosis (ACP).
* Provision & Use of Work Equipment Regulations (Revised) 1998.
* RIDDOR
* Safety of Pressurised Systems & Transportable Gas Containers Regulations 1989.
* Simple Pressure Vessels (Safety) Regulations 1991.
* Water Resources Acts 1991.
* Wildlife & Countryside Acts 1981.
* Workplace (Health Safety & Welfare) Regulations 1992
The manufacturer and user of compressed air plant & equipment have specific duties that may differ in practicality, but in general they have been imposed to protect the operator, the public and the environment.
For example, the law no longer considers physical safe guards in themselves as adequate and this has resulted in a variety of new regulations.
The Health & Safety at Work Act, Section 6 was revised because of the introduction of the Consumer Protection Act 1987. The revision of the Act states that 'It shall be the duty of any person who designs/supplies ... any article for use at work to ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, that the article is so designed ... that it will be safe without risk at all times when being set, used, cleaned or maintained by a person at work.'
In addition, The Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 1992, is another piece of legislation specifically aimed towards designers, manufacturers and suppliers of machinery. One of the design requirements is 'to eliminate risk or reduce risk by seeking to design inherently safe machinery'.
The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1992 (revised 1998) not only places a duty of care upon the designers and manufacturers, but it also is aimed towards the user and employer. The employer must 'ensure that the operator has received adequate health & safety training to safely operate the machinery'.
With compressed air plant & equipment, the employer and the purchaser of the equipment are usually one in the same. This means that the employer (purchaser) must seek expert advice to ensure that 'the equipment has been designed and constructed in compliance with any essential requirements'.
PUWER 1998 places the responsibility for ensuring that equipment is 'suitable' for its purpose, squarely with the employer (purchaser). 'Suitable' is also defined in the Act as anything 'in any respect which is reasonably foreseeable'. Quite an onerous task for the purchaser.
Now we turn towards the definition of 'The Designer'.
A designer is anyone that designs (plan, purpose or intention*) a new product. By encouraging or recommending that two separate components are connected together, you have designed a new product and this concept may have huge ramifications. (*OED).
Consider the routine connection of a lubricated air compressor to a heat reactivated air dryer. Neither item has necessarily been designed to meet a specific 'explosion zone', but is the resulting assembly safe or lawful?
Certainly the answer is clear if the 'system designer' has selected a 7-barg air dryer to operate in conjunction with a 13-barg air compressor. But what about the other less obvious intricacies within the new design?
We know that given time, the inlet layers of a desiccant dryer will always become oil saturated when a desiccant dryer is used in conjunction with any type of compressor and regardless of the level of filtration. An oil-free compressor will suck in any hydrocarbons that are floating around in the atmosphere and the desiccant will adsorb these as well, - oil-free compressor or not. However, the time interval between desiccant saturation for lubricated and oil-free compressors will be vastly different.
The ignition source may be either from the compressor, or from the heat source built into the dryer.
BS-EN-1127-1:1998 - Explosive Atmospheres - Explosion Prevention & Protection provides a possible interpretation with respect to the combined use of lubricated air compressors and heat reactivated desiccant dryers.
Regardless of the local 'Zone', this combination of plant results in an assembly that has the possibility of producing an explosive mixture in its own right. Oil carryover from a lubricated compressor is 'part of its normal operation', the oil cannot be completely removed by filtration and the desiccant bed will adsorb most of the remaining vapour.
Nevertheless, an explosive mixture is not likely to occur in 'normal operation'. On this basis the new assembly must be classified as Zone 2. (See table 6.3.2 within the Standard).
On the other hand, once a desiccant bed has become oil saturated, then an explosive mixture 'shall continuously subsist inside for long periods or frequently'. On this basis the oil saturated assembly shall be classified as Zone 0. (Also see table 6.3.2).
This British Standard is very specific. The same Guidance Note within the text clearly states that 'In general these conditions, (meaning Zone 0) when they occur, arise inside containers, pipes and vessels etc'. This removes the common misconception that the standard only deals with free atmospheres, it clearly covers the atmospheres created inside pipes & vessels.
The Classification Guides (See 6.4) are intended for components or machines designed to operate in a specific Zone. Our new design is unusual because neither the dryer nor the compressor have been designed or constructed for Zone 2, Zone 1 or Zone 0 use.
It is the system designer that has created a new assembly and therefore the system designer carries a duty in law to ensure that the new assembly (and its components) comply with the requirements of BS-EN-1127-1:1998. Manufacturers for this type of plant & equipment may put up an equally strong counter-argument. Unfortunately the test for this particular illustration must ultimately be made by the H&SE in the Courts.
Turning to more mundane issues, under the HSWA Section 6 Revised, any manufacturer/supplier of equipment, (compressors or otherwise) has an implicit duty to provide Safe Working Procedures so that safe operation, cleaning and maintenance of equipment can be carried out. This must logically include all activities that the manufacturer/supplier may reasonably expect to be carried out during installation, cleaning and maintenance of the equipment.
To enable such procedures to be compiled, the Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 1992, requires the designer of the equipment to carry out a Risk Assessment and this must be held by the manufacturer or importer in a Technical File. For repairs involving lifting, the assessment must take account of the Manual Handling Operation Regulations 1992 and the resulting procedures must specify controls to reduce risk of injury to an acceptable level.
So now we have come full circle. The depth of H&SE legislation is awesome. It affects all manufacturers, suppliers, designers, installers, repairers and users of just about anything.
However, compressed air systems are unique. If you make paper bags, you can probably buy a paper bag making machine. If you print cardboard boxes, you can similarly buy a cardboard box printing machine.
When you buy a compressed air system, the probability is that nobody else in the world will have one exactly the same as yours. Each system is a compilation of unique bits an pieces that will be put together to form a 'unique assembly'.
Each system has to be designed by someone, and each system designer carries the responsibility for ensuring that the unique assembly is not only safe, but that the final product complies with all of the applicable legislation. However, it is the Purchaser that appoints the designer and therefore the Purchaser cannot escape overall responsibility.