Safety Question

[Moondoggie]

Our Health and Safety committee has demanded us to give full and
unrestricted access to our main electrical room that has most of the
circuit breakers, alarm system panels, phone lines and master power
switch (600volts). Their reasoning for this is that employees need to
be able to access this room fast incase of an electrocution or
electrical fire. Some of the management feel that unrestricted access
to this room could also be a safety issue. We would like to know if
anyone has any information on this that could help us.

Thanks

[Safetyone]

Unrestricted access to the area is a safety and security issue.

Without knowing anything about your operations it is difficult to
determine which approach is more appropriate.

In the event of an electrical emergency, the person entering the room
may do more damage than assistance. Will that person know which
breakers to throw? Will throwing ALL the breakers or the wrong
breakers create dangerous situations (loss of lighting, loss of
alarms, loss of critical machinery, etc) within the plant, perhaps
increasing the possibility of serious injury?

Allowing untrained individuals to access and manipulate breakers can
be more serious than the situation they are attempting to mitigate. I
would suggest that only authorized, trained individuals have access to
this area, and that enough of these individuals be available in every
shift, that finding one of them will not be a problem. This does take
some planning, but it is a middle ground between no access and
unlimited access.