Holland Energy Park, Owned and operated by Holland Board of Public Works {RM]
145-MW, gas-fired, SGT-800-powered 2 × 1 combined-cycle cogeneration plant located in Holland, Mich
Plant manager: Mike Radakovitz
LOTO command post
Challenge. Develop a consolidated area for everything related to lockout/tagout (LOTO), arc flash, confined space, and safety, to facilitate safe work practices and to further mitigate the potential for errors (photos). The development of this command post started with the construction of the Holland Energy Park.
Solution. The LOTO room was designed and developed with the mindset of having one location for employees to muster, coordinate, and plan safety events. The LOTO process is owned by the operations department, and having the LOTO room connected to the control room, greatly aids in the lockout/tagout process.
The room is equipped with a computer with a wall-mounted display screen to review drawings and procedures; create and print out forms; a confined-space monitor charging and calibrating station; arc-flash suits; chemical suits; and all essential tools, lockboxes, and devices to safely perform LOTOs.
Results. Establishing a central area to store, manage, and facilitate all safety items, and incorporate excellent housekeeping skills to manage the equipment, resulted in increased employee safety and involvement in the plant’s continuous-improvement effort. It also improved operational efficiency by reducing the time needed to implement LOTOs.
Having multiple reliable resources readily available to implement correctly and safely apply them in a timely manner has established a foundation of trust and commitment to safety. This drove more employees to actively look for improvement areas. Post-outage reviews, near-miss reporting, and evaluation of routine activities began to improve and continues to provide areas of improvement.
Project participants:
Mark Richey, operations supervisor
Carl Thorwall, production engineer
