Production line installation and testing

[Roy Littlewood]

Morning all,

We are looking at qualification requirements for inspection and testing to BS EN 60204, all of our work is past the main isolator of a machine, this is not a stand alone machine it is a full production lines covering 1 to 2 football pitches, dependant on the customers sites, generally when the line is installed they power it up and off we go, no testing or anything

This needs to change as we are leaving ourselves open if anyone has an accident, so the company has now purchased the equipment for testing and we are putting together a plan and a the first part of the plan is qualification requirements, there is myself and two others that will be doing the testing, I hold an ECS Gold card as an Installation Electrician and I am JIB Approved, the other two are ECS Gold card as Maintenance Electricians all have current 7671 18th edition.

I will be the lead electrician as I have the most experience on testing but what further qualification would we need, if any, to be compliant with HSE, Electricity at Work Act etc, as all the sites are commercial and we are not installing the mains cabling to the machines, do we need to get any accreditation from the likes of NICEIC etc.

Our parent company who makes the machines is ISO 9001 but we are not, the company does not have a testing procedure for site installed machines that we can find.

1. Do we need NICEIC or similar accreditation?
2. Do we have the required Electrical qualifications?
3. Do we require any specific Test and Inspection qualifications

Any thoughts or advice

 

[Avo Mk8]

My personal view for what it's worth:
As you know, you need to be able to demonstrate you and the team are competent to do the work.
That means having documentary evidence that you have been on relevant training courses - eg attendance certificates etc.

The obvious question, given you are installing and verifying a system to BS 60204, is do you have evidence of training on 60204 (or maybe even some documentation regarding self-learning relevant parts of the standard).
or arrange for the team to attend one of many courses available (just a random example) Understanding EN 60204-1 | Machinery Safety Training | CMS - https://www.cobotsmachinerysafety.co.uk/safety-training-understanding-en60204-1

1. I don't feel NICEIC certification is necessary.
2. see above. I think you should all be sufficiently experienced that it's about 'Continuing Professional Development' (and records of that) rather than initial qualifications.
3. If you prepare a commissioning procedure, and 'train' the rest of the team on it, then combined with (2.), that could satisfy the requirement for competence in test & inspection.

Of interest?: BS EN 60204-1:2006+A1:2009 Electrical Safety of Machines - https://www.spierssafety.co.uk/article/electrical-safety-of-machines/

Somewhere in all this should be preparing a Risk Management Plan, hazard analysis, risk reduction measures etc etc, and training in Risk Management, which you may already have had, and training for the team in Risk Assessment.

You also need to keep an eye on all the other standards that BS 60204 (all relevant parts) calls up as applicable too!

You could get consultancy help from BSI or other accredited bodies like Intertek to advise on specific issues if you have a bit of budget available!

 

[Roy Littlewood]

My personal view for what it's worth:
As you know, you need to be able to demonstrate you and the team are competent to do the work.
That means having documentary evidence that you have been on relevant training courses - eg attendance certificates etc.

The obvious question, given you are installing and verifying a system to BS 60204, is do you have evidence of training on 60204 (or maybe even some documentation regarding self-learning relevant parts of the standard).
or arrange for the team to attend one of many courses available (just a random example) Understanding EN 60204-1 | Machinery Safety Training | CMS - https://www.cobotsmachinerysafety.co.uk/safety-training-understanding-en60204-1

Thanks for the reply.

Your personal view is worth a lot to me.

We do have documentary evidence of BS7671, H&S, Working at Heights etc, etc

Ahh the not so obvious question, No we don’t have any training on BS 60204, but the system design is by our parent company which designs the machine and panels and provided the electrical schematics, although I have pulled them on a few things recently, mainly about cable size and protection, but I don’t think purely working to the designers design would be a suitable get out of jail, if anything happened

1. I don't feel NICEIC certification is necessary.
2. see above. I think you should all be sufficiently experienced that it's about 'Continuing Professional Development' (and records of that) rather than initial qualifications.
3. If you prepare a commissioning procedure, and 'train' the rest of the team on it, then combined with (2.), that could satisfy the requirement for competence in test & inspection.

Of interest?: BS EN 60204-1:2006+A1:2009 Electrical Safety of Machines - https://www.spierssafety.co.uk/article/electrical-safety-of-machines/

1. That was my thought as well.

2. We do regular continual improvements but possibly not in the area I now need to be looking.

3. I will be starting to write the commissioning procedure and we have discussed having regular "Toolbox Talks" and obviously documenting who attended and what was discussed.

Of interest? defiantly, I will take a good look and digest it.

Somewhere in all this should be preparing a Risk Management Plan, hazard analysis, risk reduction measures etc etc, and training in Risk Management, which you may already have had, and training for the team in Risk Assessment

We do have someone inhouse that prepares the risk assessments and method statements and they are NEBOSH, but have little to no electrical knowledge and when I asked about “Live Working Policy”, “Risk Assessment for Electrical Testing”, “Safe Isolation” his reply was “We don’t need any of those, we follow the customers policies”, I did offer to bake him a cake with a file in it for when he goes to jail.

Thankfully his boss is a little more clued up and the policies will get written and handed out to the team.

We have a 20 man team but only a few will be deemed competent for testing and I would rather keep the team small and keep better control.