When approaching any pre-commissioning cleaning project there are always risks involved for both team members and the environment. This becomes even more evident when chemicals and non-hazardous waste come into play. Safety should always be a company’s number one priority in these high-stakes conditions, but especially when their actions can affect the world around them.
To secure safety, a company’s quality standards must be high. When equipment just slides by safety standards, a project is compromised and the environment is at risk. Poor equipment can often result in leaks on the job site that become huge headaches for companies and project managers, not to mention the community in which it occurs. It’s easy to assume all companies provide the same level of equipment; equipment that keeps safety and integrity as its core design and procurement objectives.
As projects progress through construction and into startup, the opportunities for an environmental incident are numerous. When incidents occur it may mean a black eye for a contractor, but for the customer it carries much larger implications. Large fines, penalties, and increased scrutiny and regulation are common fallouts. As environmental regulations continue to tighten, customers are put at risk by not properly evaluating the companies who are engaged to perform specialized services. In the pre-commissioning cleaning business, this could be the difference in an incident-free project or a hundred thousand gallon, non-hazardous waste spill.
For a company to avoid the hassle and damages of these incidents, they must invest in good equipment, as well as high quality management standards. Let us explain. Hoses are an essential part of many pre-commissioning projects, but they are also an easy detail to overlook or underinvest in. Hoses must be designed and routinely pressure tested in order to ensure they will withstand the conditions they’ll undergo on the jobsite. Yet, many companies choose to opt out of this procedure because it costs both time and money– valuable assets, but not more important than safety.
Companies must also be sensitive to the circumstances of a project. In some cases, hoses cannot be used because of extreme conditions on the job site or the intended application. In this event, hard pipe must be used to prevent detrimental leaks. But don’t overlook the standards to which hard pipe spools and fittings are constructed to. Plate flanges are commonplace in the industry, but they’re unsafe and unfit for pre-commissioning projects. Companies must make the investment into building spools and fittings with ANSI rated flanges, and per ASME codes.
Ultimately, quality can never be compromised for the sake of dollar signs. It is important to remember that environmental and safety standards do not just protect the company running a project, but they also protect the company’s customers.