The First Facility Management Blog

Shaw Industries will certify more than 50 manufacturing facilities under a new environmental management system by year end 2006. The Shaw Environmental Management System (SES) is based on the requirements contained in the ISO 14001:2004 with provisions that are relevant and applicable to the company’s organization.

The Shaw Environmental Management System reflects the company’s commitment to regulatory compliance, the prevention of pollution, and the continual improvement of its environmental management practices. Through its environmental policy, it establishes a means of measuring environmental performance in relation to environmental objectives and targets set forth in the Shaw Environmental Management System process.

“The Shaw Environmental Management System includes an environmental policy with elements that are required by the international ISO14000 standard, as well as those expressing our cradle to cradle vision for the future,” says Steve Bradfield, director of environmental affairs at Shaw Industries. “It allows us to express our aspirations in a format that reflects the full spectrum of Shaw’s commitment to environmental stewardship with the full support of senior management.”

Shaw Environmental Management System certification will be maintained and audited jointly with the ISO 9001:2000 which is based on the Shaw Quality System. Corporate Quality Engineering and Risk Management will together perform system audits that assess conformance to the Shaw Environmental Management System. Based on the certification audits and periodic surveillance audits, a facility will gain and maintain certification to the Shaw Environmental Management System.

Increasing evidence reveals that local market factors are decisive in determining how much traction green buildings truly have. As in other parts of the real estate industry where construction and space absorption rates vary from market-to-market and change over time, there’s a wide variance in the understanding and acceptance of green buildings throughout the U.S.

For TFM’s coverage of this topic, see “The State of Sustainability” from the archives.

This assessment comes from Corporate Realty, Design & Management Institute, which was based on a survey conducted of registrants prior to its popular educational seminar series, Turning Green into Gold™. These seminars were presented in 17 markets across the U.S. during 2005. Architects, engineers, designers, facilities managers, building owners, developers, and contractors attended these seminars to learn how to design, build and operate high performance and sustainable buildings.

Overall, 35% of those responding said “green building issues are well understood, and are a corporate objective.” However, there’s a wide disparity between markets. Los Angeles was at the top of the list at 56% while the Chicago suburbs ranked at the bottom at 5%. It’s significant to note that the 20-mile drive from the Chicago suburbs to downtown reveals a different attitude as 41% said green issues were well understood and a corporate objective.

How do the individual markets rank? Seattle at 53% is a close second to Los Angeles, followed by Washington DC (48%), Phoenix (46%), Boston (44%), Charlotte (43%), Chicago Downtown (41%), and Denver (38%). The remaining nine cities came in at 25% or less.

Over the past three years, there has been an upswing in the response to the benchmark question: How well are green building issues understood by your organization? This year, 35% said that “green building issues are well understood and are a corporate objective” which compares to 11% in 2002 when the Institute conducted the research project Measuring the Success of Green.

While the progress is encouraging,” says Alan Whitson, RPA, lead presenter in the Turning Green into Gold programs and president of Corporate Realty, Design & Management Institute. “It’s clear more education about the advantages high performance and sustainable buildings is needed, and in some markets it’s looks like a lot more education will be needed.”

“Somewhat,” is still most frequent answer to the benchmark question; at least 30% of respondents in every market responded “somewhat” with the national average sitting at 46%. This compares to 49% in the 2002 survey. Seven out of the 17 markets were above 50% on “somewhat.”

A market about to reach the tipping point is San Diego, which has some of the highest energy costs in the nation. One-quarter of seminar attendees in San Diego said green building issues were well understood and a corporate objective. A third of the attendees said “green building issues were well understood, but not a corporate objective.” Another third answered “somewhat.” Only 7% said “not at all”.

A sign of how much progress has been made is those answering “not at all” dropped to 5% among 2005 seminar attendees compared to 14% from the 2002 survey. Half the markets surveyed in 2005 were at 5% or lower in the “not at all” category. The Chicago suburbs were the highest at 11%.

Ranking by “Green building issues are well understood and are a corporate objective.” Charlotte and Minneapolis tied for sixth place. Raleigh, Philadelphia, Columbus, and Atlanta tied for 11th. The survey encompasses only markets where the Turning Green into Gold™ seminar was held in 2005.

The Roof Coatings Manufacturers Association [RCMA] 2006 Annual Conference & EXPO – “Energizing Our Vision” – will be held January 14-17, 2006, at the Sanibel Harbour Resort and Spa, Ft. Myers, Florida. The 2006 event marks the 24th anniversary of the organization of the RCMA, formed in 1982.

This year’s theme, “Energizing Our Vision”, centers on current, pending and future issues related to the rapidly increasing world of the energy specific roofing industry. In addition, attendees will be provided the opportunity to discuss with industry leaders and fellow roof coatings manufacturers and suppliers those trends and changes that will impact their business and company’s continued success for the future.

“The RCMA Annual Conference is a great mix of educational and social opportunities. Sanibel Harbour Resort & Spa is the ideal venue to come learn, share and network in a relaxed environment,” notes RCMA President Van Ripps, President, Palmer Asphalt, Bayonne, NJ. Ripps continues “This is one roofing conference that no industry professional should miss.”

“This year’s panel of speakers is the strongest in recent memory. As organizers have stated, we have seven keynoters, not just one in 2006,” according to the Annual Conference Chair Joseph Mellott, Vice President, Technology, Momentum Technologies, Inc., Uniontown, OH.

In addition to the specific sessions on energy efficient roof coatings, plant health & safety and crisis - issues communication, other timely issues and in-depth information will be presented in committee meetings and sessions devoted to updates in government and regulatory affairs; technical issues and codes; and business strategies and communications.

For additional information regarding the Association or RCMA’s 2006 Annual Conference, and/or for registration details, contact the RCMA by calling 202-207-0919.

We work in challenging times. In 1992, a United Nations report called job stress “the 20th century epidemic.” Six years later, in 1998, the World Health Organization declared job stress “a world-wide epidemic.” And a 2005 survey by the Families and Work Institute found that one in three Americans is chronically overworked. Of course, you don’t need any voice of authority to point out the stressful realities of the 21st century work world. You live it every day! No, what you need is some guidance on how to cope with it all.

Karen Leland and Keith Bailey, the founders of Sterling Consulting Group, have spent the past 20 years surveying some 20,000 executives, managers, and staff from companies all over the world on a variety of core business issues. In the process, they discovered some significant trends that reveal the nature of stress and the specific skills that help people succeed in spite of it.

“When people talk about workplace stress, they’re usually referring to three things: change, pressure, and conflict, occurring either individually or all at once,” says Leland. “We discovered that the people who thrive in the face of stress-whether they’re from Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, Asia, or the United States-possess three essential abilities. We believe these three abilities are at the heart of satisfaction and success at work.”

What are those three abilities? Leland lists them below:
Ability #1: Smart people are central players. The changes you experience at work, both big and small, can dramatically affect your point of view, mood, and energy level. New circumstances bring new challenges, yet no matter how joyous or upsetting they may be, you have the option to choose how you think about and respond to the changes you face. Smart people know that dealing with external change is an internal game that requires clarity of feelings, the ability to reflect, and
self-determination. They also know that internal change requires a purpose greater than itself and an ability to keep going when the going gets rough.

Ability #2: Smart people create tomorrow today. Creating goals-both personal and professional-setting priorities, and developing habits of action empower you to manage the pressures of your workload and help make today’s aspirations tomorrow’s reality. Have you noticed, however, that it’s hard to create something new, different, and exciting for the future when your focus and energy today are so diluted? By tying up loose ends and removing the distracting tangles they create,
you free up your energy.

Ability #3: Smart people dance with fire. Knowing how to communicate and develop relationships with others is an essential skill that helps you make things happen. It’s tempting to think that your work life would be a lot easier if it weren’t for all those people-colleagues, bosses, customers-who are so demanding, unreasonable, and frustrating. Smart people know that to prosper at work they must be skilled at reaching out and connecting even with those they have conflicts with.
Dealing with conflict isn’t a mystery; it’s a dance with specific steps that help create harmony and understanding-if you know how to read and respond to your partner’s tempo!

“Remember that prospering in the face of change, pressure, and conflict doesn’t mean walking around wearing an artificial smile of denial,” Leland and Bailey write in their introduction to Watercooler Wisdom, a book that examines how smart people prosper in the face of conflict. “To prosper, in our book, means to do well and grow-even when prevailing circumstances seem to conspire to your downfall. Ultimately, when we look inward to ourselves for solutions rather than endlessly wait for the circumstances to change, we all become smart people.”

WATERCOOLER WISDOM: How Smart People Prosper in the Face of Conflict, Pressure and Change (New Harbinger Publications, 2006, ISBN: 1-57224-436-4, $14.95) will be available in bookstores nationwide, from major online booksellers, and from www.newharbinger.com.

This Web Exclusive was prepared by Shawn J. Mahoney, Marketing Product Manager, Ingersoll-Rand Security Technologies, Carmel, IN.

High-rise commercial building fires are sparking rising concerns over what building owners can do to make stairwells safer for emergency egress without compromising security. In 1980, a fire at the MGM hotel in Las Vegas claimed 84 lives. More recently, four people died of smoke inhalation in a stairwell during a building fire in New York. On October 17, 2003, stairwell smoke claimed the lives of six people when fire broke out in the 35-story Cook County Administration Building in downtown Chicago.

For TFM’s coverage of this topic, see “Protecting People and Property” from the archives.

The Chicago fire was typical, with locked stairwell doors that prevented people from re-entering building floors when they encountered heavy smoke in a stairwell. A final report from an investigative panel found that if the building had had sprinklers or stairwell doors that automatically unlocked in a fire, none of the deaths would have occurred.

In high-rise offices, it is a common practice to lock stairwell doors to prevent criminals from entering offices, committing theft and leaving via the stairwells. Sometimes doors are locked only at the end of a business day, but in more buildings today, doors are always locked above the first floor to discourage the use of stairwells as a shortcut and protect against the possibility of criminals lurking in these areas.

One of the earliest approaches, which focused on stairwell security, was to lock all doors to prevent re-access from the stairwell side. Signs were posted that all doors were locked until the ground level. Although this maintains security and works well in theory, stairwells can fill with smoke or create a chimney-like draft when doors are left open during a fire, often with fatal results.

In many localities, codes or ordinances were changed to require that doors be left unlocked at intervals, such as on every fifth floor. While this helped provide a safe emergency escape, it also compromised security.

Some systems make it possible for a person in authority to open the locks on all floors from a central location, although this requires a specific action that may not be possible or practical in all emergencies. Systems now are available that automatically release the locks on stairwell doors of all floors when a fire alarm is sounded, eliminating the human component.

One such solution is an electrified breakaway lever trim recently introduced by Von Duprin as the E996L and also available as a retrofit kit for existing 996L Breakaway lever trim. It incorporates a 24VDC solenoid that can be energized from a distant controller. When the fire alarm system is activated, it acts as an on-off switch for the electrified lever and turns the power of. This unlocks the lever so a person can rotate it and retract the latch bolt, allowing the door to be opened. As an added benefit, the lever is a “breakaway” design that operates normally when unlocked but yields if more than 35 pounds of torque pressure is applied when it is locked. This prevents vandalism or forced entry by breaking the latch, and the lever is easily re-set.

The electrified lever trim on the stairwell (pull) side of the door is paired with a standard mechanical exit device such as the Von Duprin 98 or 99 series on the push side to allow safe egress at all times. When the stairwell doors are locked, anyone entering the stairwell will not be able to re-enter the building areas and generally will have to exit at ground level. For security reasons, the ground level doors typically open to the outside. However, when the fire alarm system is activated, a person can re-enter at any level because the levers all will unlock automatically.

Essentially, it is a fail-safe mode, although the product also can be set up to fail secure where allowed. This might be the preferred option in non-stairwell locations, such as the back door of a jewelry story, where a power interruption would otherwise leave the door unlocked.

This type of system has other applications as well. For instance, a receptionist who is monitoring a stairwell door or other entrance equipped with an electrified lever trim could have a pushbutton on the desk that would shut off power to the lever and allow someone to enter if recognized. Any kind of credential-based switch, such as a keypad, card reader or biometric device also could be mounted near the pull side of the door to allow authorized individuals to enter the locked door. Because it also is available with a mechanical lock cylinder, the lever can be opened with a key, an option often used by support staff such as security or janitorial
people.

In response to the potential for continued high-rise stairwell catastrophes, fire and life safety codes have been changed to tighten regulations governing what can be done with stairwell doors. National codes specify general standards on how structures can be built, with state, county and local codes addressing specific concerns, often with a wide variety of requirements and interpretations. The final decision rests with the authority having jurisdiction (AHJ), so a product that has some flexibility in how it can be configured, applied and controlled stands a good chance of being able to meet the requirements of a specific application.

High rise fires cause an estimated 60 civilian deaths, 930 injuries and $252 million in property loss each year, according to a U.S. Fire Administration report. Of these, only about 25% of high rise dollar loss is incurred in residential properties, even though the majority of high rise fires occur in residential structures. Clearly, the potential for damage, injury and death in high rise commercial structures is serious. Applying stairwell door controls that provide an effective combination of life safety and security solutions is one step that can be taken to help minimize these risks.

To enhance emergency response to sudden cardiac arrest victims and help reduce customer liability risk, Defibtech today introduced DefibtechMD - a comprehensive AED management and medical oversight program for the deployment of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in public facilities, workplaces, schools, medical and dental offices, police and fire/EMS organizations, and commercial buildings.

For TFM’s coverage of this issue, see “Not Just Another Day At The Office.”

DefibtechMD complements the value of a lifesaving AED with all of the services associated with any successful AED initiative, including medical direction, Web-based tracking, recommended maintenance, and AED/CPR training. “DefibtechMD is a full-service approach to AED program management,” says Defibtech CEO Dr. Glenn W. Laub, who is also the chairman of cardiac surgery and director of the Heart Hospital at St. Francis Medical Center in Trenton, NJ. “It offers a system to help ensure that AEDs and trained personnel are ready to respond when an emergency strikes, and that AED programs comply with all regulations,” he concludes.

DefibtechMD was developed in response to a market need for a turnkey approach that enhances emergency readiness and helps reduce the risk of customer liability, says Defibtech Vice President David Fritzsche, who is also director of DefibtechMD. He said one way the program improves readiness is through “closed-loop” data tracking, which links all AED program participants and serves as an automated system of checks and balances. This Web-enabled system keeps all
program stakeholders up-to-date on AED status, maintenance, and personnel training and holds them accountable to each other by issuing electronic reminders, alerts, and delinquency reports.

“What’s more, DefibtechMD allows Defibtech distributors to serve as a ‘one-stop-shop’ solution provider to their customers. The system is customized with the distributor’s logo and re-order contact information so that customers always know who to contact when it is time to order AED equipment and supplies,” he says.

As AEDs become more commonplace, they are increasingly seen by communities as a required standard of care, Fritzsche continues. There have been high profile news stories and lawsuits against organizations when AEDs were not available in an emergency, when staff did not properly use AEDs due to a lack of training, and when AEDs did not function due to improper maintenance. “Readiness results in quick response, which saves lives,” he says. “Not having a full-service AED
program has all too often resulted in death and potential liability.”

This past October, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority settled a wrongful-death lawsuit against it and Amtrak for $3.9 million, according to a report in the Boston Globe. A $25 million lawsuit was filed by a widow of a prominent scientist who died after suffering cardiac arrest on a commuter train. She claimed a delay of more than 20 minutes in bringing a defibrillator to his aid caused his death. According to the report, the claimant and her lawyers decided to settle because the MBTA improved its emergency plans, including placing defibrillators in subway stations, some commuter rail stations, and vehicles. The MTBA has deployed more than 60 Defibtech defibrillators throughout its system.

Diligent employers and public facility managers consider AED deployment an important aspect of a comprehensive health and safety program, especially because sudden cardiac arrest causes 13% of workplace fatalities, according to OSHA. A study of public-access defibrillation published by the New England Journal of Medicine in 2004 concluded that training persons in early defibrillation within a structured response system can increase the number of sudden cardiac arrest survivors. OSHA, the American Safety and Health Institute, the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, the American Heart Association, the American Red Cross, and the National Safety Council all endorse AEDs in workplaces and public areas.

AEDs revive victims of sudden cardiac arrest caused by ventricular fibrillation. National health experts estimate that SCA kills over 400,000 people in the United States each year. Studies show that if victims are defibrillated within three minutes more than 70% survive. If defibrillation is delayed for more than 10 minutes, less than 5% survive, making immediate access to AEDs vital.

For more information, call DefibtechMD at (877) 378-9772.

The New York City Department of Buildings recently issued its Reference Standard RS 6-1 and RS 6-1A in relation to photoluminescent exit path markings. By June 30, 2006, all Type E commercial hi-rise buildings of eight or more stories must comply with rigorous specifications concerning installation of photoluminescent markings to aid in evacuation in the event of failure of both the power and back-up power to lighting and illuminated exit signs, as per Local Law 26 of 2004 in order to maintain their Certificate of Occupancy.

Randall Weis, president of RD Weis Companies, a full-service flooring contractor scrutinized the new standards and then studied the market in order to evaluate which product line would satisfy, and even exceed, these standards. The outcome? RD Weis now offers a safety egress system.

The line consists of a newly developed phosphorescent pigment based on Strontium Oxide Aluminate chemistry. In contrast to the conventional phosphorescent pigments based on Zinc Sulfide, RD Weis’ products have an afterglow period of 10 times these conventional ones. In addition, their initial afterglow brightness is up to 10 times that of other photoluminescent pigments.

These qualities, coupled with the product’s durability, slip resistance, resilience to high foot traffic, ability to withstand outdoor weather conditions and moisture resistance, produce a solution that fully satisfies Reference Standard RS 6-1 and AC169. Every step, landing, corridor, ramp, change of direction and doorway can be highlighted and easily identified. The result: acceleration of egress speed; minimization of the chance of panic; and assurance of getting occupants out of the building safely.

For more information on this product, call (212) 431-4675.

(Friday Funny…just a little early for everyone who will be off tomorrow)

Since many facility managers have engineering backgrounds, I thought I’d send along this link to a very extravagant holiday light show. As this Snopes article explains, the gentleman who set this up (an electrical engineer), has since been forced to discontinue his light show after it caused severe traffic problems leading to an accident in his neighborhood. Bah, humbug!

Still, at least we can all enjoy it on the Web!

UNICCO Service Company announced an expansion to its UNICCO GreenClean program. Following a year of active new account startups and customer conversions to green cleaning and services, UNICCO is launching a new GreenClean operations kit and a newly designed Web site for customers, prospects, and the industry. Further delivering on its “Guaranteed Clean. Certifiably Green” mission, the company is also launching the UNICCO GreenClean Compliant certification program for qualified customers.

For TFM’s coverage of this topic, see “Life Cycle Management” from the archives.

“At UNICCO, we are well down the road on environmental practices,” says George Lohnes, UNICCO vice president. “We are moving into our second phase, building on our track record and demonstrated results. We believe that the green operations toolkit is the first in the industry to provide this level of comprehensive green cleaning guidance. This operational tool, coupled with the vast resources that we have gathered to address environmental consciousness, makes UNICCO the undisputed leader among building service contractors.”

UNICCO has developed a standard operating procedures tool box which is a comprehensive operations and communications green cleaning resource. The kit includes:
· A newly developed operations procedure manual with detailed procedures for approved green cleaning techniques
· A catalog of certified and approved green cleaning products along with data sheets
· A listing of approved equipment with data sheets
· Reporting forms for activities reporting, equipment maintenance and program certification
· Multilingual posters for break areas, mixing stations, and other work areas
· A video overview of UNICCO’s services and GreenClean program
· The LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System guidelines

In addition, UNICCO has revamped its online eProcurement system to place Green Seal certified and environmentally preferable chemicals and equipment as default selections so operations people can easily order approved green products.

The company is also relaunching its Greencleaning.com Web site. Greencleaning.com is a one-stop resource for information on UNICCO’s environmental practices and partners. It includes information on Green Seal and LEED programs, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Ashkin Group and other resources, as well as news and information on environmental topics from industry publications.

The new GreenClean Compliant program extends UNICCO’s initiatives to its customers. In order to qualify, UNICCO cleaning and facilities services managers must submit specific reports and records that detail their green cleaning programs. This information is reviewed by an evaluation committee and, if qualified, the GreenClean Compliant designation is granted to the site. In order to uphold the program’s high standards, GreenClean Compliant sites must continue to requalify in order to maintain the status.

Aging or unchecked grounding raises the risk of data/equipment loss, process anomalies, plant shutdown, and more. The Smart Ground Testing method can minimize these risks while overcoming traditional grounding test flaws. The following article discusses this method and how it can help facility managers address potential problems.

By Del Williams

Thirty years ago, Hank Aaron was still playing baseball, the first programmable pocket calculator became available, and the word “Internet” appeared for the first time in print. Unless your plant still uses the identical technology it did 30, 20, even 10 years ago (when Google didn’t yet exist), then trusting your plant’s operation to a grounding system installed decades ago—or testing it with a technology developed 80 years ago—isn’t perhaps the wisest choice.

What you don’t know about your industrial plant’s grounding could not only hurt you, resulting in loss of life, but can cost you lost data and equipment as well as slowing processes or halted production. No industrial facility manager would consider violating fire code for fear of the consequences. Yet in too many plants, the foundation for all things electric—the grounding system—is allowed to go out of spec due to aging, corrosion, facility, and soil changes, as well as infrequent/inadequate grounding test evaluation. But out of sight does not mean out of danger when it comes to grounding.

“Failing to properly evaluate and fix grounding problems can not only result in unnecessary lightning and transient damage, but also data/equipment loss, process anomalies, plant shutdown, as well as increased fire and personnel risk,” explains Joe Lanzoni, a manager with Boulder, CO-based Lightning Eliminators & Consultants, Inc. (LEC), a firm specializing in electrical grounding, surge suppression, and lightning protection. “Particularly susceptible to these disruptions are plants with sensitive computer, communication, and process control equipment, requiring low grounding impedance from one to 10 ohms to work properly.”

Proper grounding is the first line of defense against the $1 billion spent annually on damage around the globe due to lightning and 60% of system outages due to lightning on the East Coast alone. Power surge protection equipment also depends on good grounding to defend against power surges and spikes as well as diverting lightning discharges of up to 400,000 amps to ground. Many U.S. industrial grounding systems are in poor repair and the limitations of traditional grounding system testing are hindering efforts to resolve the problem.

Fortunately, there are technologies being designed to keep up with technical advances in the manufacturing and process control industries. Improved ground system testing methods, such as Smart Ground Testing, are now offered by consulting firms such as LEC, which has over 30 years of engineering experience originating in NASA and the U.S. space programs. Any facility experiencing equipment, process, or production anomalies could benefit from a grounding evaluation to determine if it is a possible source of the problem. In fact, any facility without a recent grounding evaluation could benefit, especially those involved in manufacturing, process control, or with sensitive electronic equipment or data centers.

Industrial Grounding Systems Deteriorating
In many cases, the grounding rods in U.S. industrial plants have exceeded their usable lifespan of 30 years, because they haven’t been properly tested or maintained since installation decades earlier (some pre-date World War II). Out of sight unless dug up, the grounding rods and connectors of these buried grounding grids typically suffer corrosion and undetected electrical discontinuities—causing dangerous faults, processing errors, or shutdowns. The problem is especially pronounced in the low resistivity soils near coasts and waterways, which accelerate corrosion.

“Existing grounding capacity is often compromised when contractors dig up or sever grounding wires when burying pipe or telecom cables,” says Lanzoni. “Plant changes and expansions just aggravate the problem when grounding isn’t tested and upgraded to meet facility or equipment demands.”

These grounding problems often continue for years, causing electrical problems, equipment failure, and even risking personnel electrocution from ground faults that are not safely conducted into the earth through the grounding system.

Until recently, even when facility managers tried to resolve grounding problems, the drawbacks of traditional ground system testing have stood in the way.

The Limitations of Traditional Ground System Testing
Clamp-on ground resistance testers, although convenient, should be limited to testing power distribution poles and residential grounds. Their primary weakness is that their accuracy suffers—to the point of displaying nothing or a meaningless number—if resistance is low or a ground loop is present. The grounding electrode being tested must also be parallel with a large number of other electrodes, which is not always practical.

Three-point Fall-of-Potential (FOP) ground resistance testing, which has been used for over 80 years without much advancement, also has significant limitations. Using the FOP test, the grounding system being tested must be disconnected from the equipment being grounded, de-energized, and isolated; however, this can be impossible to do in an operating industrial facility where output and processes must be maintained. Because FOP testing doesn’t detect grounding discontinuities, the actual grounding rods and connectors to be examined must be physically dug up. Given how expensive and time-consuming this is, checking for grounding discontinuities simply isn’t done on a routine basis.

Another drawback of FOP ground testing is that the recommended distance between the grounding grid and current test probe can be excessive—more than five times the diagonal distance of the grounding grid. In a large industrial plant, such as a refinery, this can require extending the current probe several miles onto neighboring property or roadways, an impractical or perhaps impossible task.

The FOP test, which has difficulty measuring low resistance grounds, also has no assurance of accuracy.

“Because of the distance between test probes, weak injected signal strength, and background noise, the FOP test has a poor signal to noise ratio,” explains Dr. Sakis Meliopoulos, an IEEE Fellow and Field Award Winner, and professor of electrical engineering at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, GA. “Accuracy suffers when trying to measure low voltage on long leads between test probes, with interference from potentially stronger sources—such as stray current or electromagnetic interference/EMI from nearby power circuits.”

Another Way: Smart Ground Testing
Unsatisfied with the limitations of FOP and clamp-on ground test methods for industrial use, Dr. Meliopoulos developed a new type of ground multimeter with sponsorship from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). Output from the Smart Ground Multimeter feeds into EPRI-approved advanced software.

Unlike the FOP and clamp-on methods, the Smart Ground Testing equipment has been designed to operate on energized substations and industrial grounds, minimizing downtime and protecting production capacity. This can be done even when real estate is limited or the surrounding area saturated with roads or buildings because the leads between test probes are relatively short—twice the length of the grounding system, instead of the FOP method’s five to 10 times the distance.

For greater accuracy in discovering the root cause of industrial grounding problems and for safer, improved plant production, Smart Ground Testing combines several testing functions not available in previous FOP and clamp-on methods. Because of the increased test accuracy, grounding grid continuity can be verified and diagnosed without the expensive, time-consuming digging up of grounding rods and connectors that other approaches may require.

“Not only does the software reduce interference by compensating for stray current, background noise and EMI, but also it is capable of injecting a signal that is many hundreds of times greater than other equipment,” explains Dr. Meliopoulos. “Together, this dramatically improves the signal to noise ratio for more accurate grounding measurement.”

While FOP ground tests typically employ a test signal with a frequency indicating transient response at less than 420 Hertz, Smart Ground Testing, for instance, raises this up to 2,500 Hertz. And where low impedance locations require higher currents for confident results, the best FOP ground tests do so with just 0.05 amps, compared to Smart Ground Testing’s up to 100 amps.

“To give facility managers the statistical validity they need to verify or upgrade grounding status, Smart Ground Testing also generates thousands of test data points, compared to FOP’s typical hundred or less,” adds Lanzoni.

To generate these added data points, each of Smart Ground Testing’s six voltage probes makes 10 computer-controlled current injections in contrast to an FOP probe’s single current injection—a 60:1 difference.

“The added data and higher signal-to-noise ratio of Smart Ground Testing provide quantified confidence test levels that FOP and clamp-on tests have never been able to make,” says Lanzoni. “The result is unprecedented ground test accuracy and analysis. This allows facility managers to either verify their plant meets safe grounding specs or take corrective action to protect plant safety and production.”

The Future: Preserving Production, Preventing Peril
Facility managers who have stayed on top of important technology developments to keep up production over the years, won’t want to let aging grounding or inadequate ground testing blindside them now. Simply put, the eventual data/equipment loss, process errors, or stopped production attributable to worsening grounding problems is preventable if appropriate action is taken.

“Now is the time to look into advanced technology like Smart Ground Testing if your plant’s grounding has never been accurately tested; has sensitive equipment or an aging grounding system; experiences process errors; is located in a lightning prone area; or you want to remove a potentially serious source of production problems before disaster strikes,” says Lanzoni.

“My engineering colleagues working in western Africa told me how great the LEC equipment was, but the real proof for me was when we finally got it installed,” said R. F. Heinschel, Telecommunications Supervisor for Chevron in Papua New Guinea. “We have not sustained any telecommunications equipment damage for those sites that have the LEC equipment installed. The equipment has proved its value far beyond its initial cost.”

Williams is a technical writer based in Torrance, CA.