CASE STUDY
Driving Shareholder Value by Reducing Risk
Customer: Eaton
Market sector: Energy Management and
Equipment Manufacturing
Solution: Proxxi Voltage
Core client challenges: Electrical hazards during testing of newly manufactured equipment
Electrical Safety Incidents in Industrial Manufacturing
Eaton’s rigorous testing requirements presents an electrical hazard
Eaton is a multinational power management company with 86,000 employees and over $23B in revenue. They manufacture products and supply energy services to a wide range of sectors, including utilities, aerospace, mining and oil & gas.
Eaton’s unit that manufactures electrical power systems and components requires extensive testing to assure quality and reliability.
Testing these systems requires temporary energization which creates an electrical hazard. While the testing team follows best-in-class safety procedures, the EHS team for Eaton Testing find that they are unable to control a key risk in any work environment: human error.
The Eaton Production team performs several different types of tests during production, and depending on the size of the equipment the testing is either done in a test bay or on a test table. While there are safeguards in place to protect workers, the repeated process of energizing and de-energizing equipment introduces opportunities for human error with potentially catastrophic results.
These are production environments which are subject to the same safety challenges as many industrial environments face - repetitive work which can cause worker fatigue and subsequent error.
“During testing the workers must review all the connections then energize the newly built system (which should be grounded & shielded) and check for faults. One significant concern is that a mistake will result in the ground being misplaced, or a 480v source will be connected to a ground and energize the entire piece of equipment - resulting in injury or death.”
Eric Woody, Director of Electrical Test Safety at Eaton
Reducing electrical risk across a range of voltages and products
Proxxi Voltage customization and training ensures success
To address this risk, Eaton sought solutions to radically reduce the risk of electrical contact injury. They looked at a range of solutions including sensor technology to reduce the likelihood of worker contact with energized equipment. They identified a series of use cases and potential applications where sensor technology could be employed.
Eaton produces electrical systems for their customers where each component must be tested extensively prior to deployment. This work includes interacting with a variety of different types of equipment, in a range of voltages. Some of this equipment includes:
Low Voltage
This typically includes small control panels. This type of testing accounts for 90% of their use cases.
Medium Voltage
Adjustable speed drives used to control the torque and speed of AC motors. Medium-voltage control equipment starts and stops electrical loads Medium-voltage-control equipment includes a variety of starters and adjustable frequency drives that range from 2,300 to 13,800 volts. The motor loads can be as low as 50 horsepower, with the upper limit of approximately 8,000 horsepower, depending
on voltage.
Motor Control Center Testing/ETO
A motor control center (MCC) is a type of electrical switchboard, which contains one or more motor starter sections.
During the trial period, the Proxxi customer success and training team worked with Eaton to create a custom setting to better match one of their environments. Because Eaton’s LVA testing has an ambient level of electric field that is above the base initial alert for Proxxi Voltage, the team found that they were getting false positive alerts. The Proxxi team adjusted the lowest setting’s initial alert to trigger at a higher density of electric fields, reducing the number of false positives while ensuring the team still received the high alert when they needed it.
The MCC ETO Cell team found that the standard Proxxi Voltage settings worked perfectly in their environment, so no adjustment or calibration was required.
Meeting Achieving 2030 Sustainability Goals - Worker Health & Safety
Reducing injuries with Proxxi Voltage
As part of their 2030 Sustainability Goals, Eaton aims for a significant improvement in safety. To reduce the total recordable case rate to 0.25, the Eaton EHS team found a means of providing awareness to workers when an energization error occurs. Proxxi Voltage notifies the worker in real time, prior to any contact with the energized gear. The data monitoring provided by Proxxi’s software enables Eaton to continuously improve their safety practices to hit the sustainability and safety targets promised to all stakeholders.
Based on these results of extensive evaluation in their equipment test environments, Eaton has decided to deploy Proxxi Voltage to all of their Qualified Electrical Workers (QEWs) in their Production, Testing and Maintenance facilities. Eaton’s Electrical Test Safety team also feels that there is scope for wider use within Eaton, and expect to conduct more trials in the coming months.
“Proxxi Voltage's effectiveness at reducing incidents and identifying 'near miss' events has resulted in adoption of the wristband sensor to all of our qualified electrical workers at our production sites”
Luis Baez, Manager of Electrical Test Safety, Eaton