P 121
Gas Detector Portables
Post retirement from an active career life of 49 years in industry, this is the first time I am attempting
to continue my blog writing. Let me see how my fond experience memory sustain !
Coming to the quantity estimate of detector sourcing, though I was recommending to opt for 4000 nos. of Quadgas personnel safety portables, JMD Process and Safety management had different view
to approach the issue. 1) They openly expressed that they have a budget issue ;2) They were fearing that if a safety portable is linked to an individual, the safety management cannot track whether that individual has carried out the bump check at regular intervals (similar to ensure our smart phone battery power check);3) whether that individual has kept it safely and carry everytime when he goes in the field etc. So they suggested , why not we go with the shift hirarchy and have one common device for each position in a shift + take inputs from maintenance for their estimate of manpower in field- both departmental and permanent contract employess + some common stock in pool for the commissioning state of expatriates, senior management at site, HO personnel coming to site + some vendors specialist coming to field services/inspection etc. As their logic was convincing, though I had different line of thinking (which I shall cover later), I readily agreed with them.
On day 1 of the kick-off meeting with the identified vendor,I ensured that alomost all plant operational team members, Process system leads &maintenance leads of all disciplines and safety team personnel along with my team from RCP to be present .
Before going into that aspect, let me bring out, why and what made me to choose that party MSA over their fiercest competitors M/S Honeywell and Dragor?
When it came to Honeywell, though they had some superlative devices in multi-gas category that too with Zone '0' approval, they did not have uniformity of device models and corresponding check/calibration standards ! In the case of quad gas, they did not have the requisite combination of
%LEL with Methane as reference gas, CO in ppm,H2S in ppm and O2 % -in their portable combination as single device.
In case of Dragor, though they had this combination of portable, they did not have any standard bump module rig and standardized calibration set-up!
Honeywell were convassing to opt for dual gas type portables instead of quadgas combination.
More than these, MSA scored over others in their special feature of silent no distarbance alarm factor.
As usual ,when I gave this TBE recommending to go for a single vendor selection to procurement for
commercial negotiation, there was hue and cry. But Jamnagar safety group and operations were very happy ,since I looked into their ultimate objective and safety conscience. Here I have to bring out one important aspect. At this time of issuing the TBE, none had any idea about the total requirement of multi-gas portable and their corresponding bump test modules, gas cylinder/canister requirement and battery chargers etc. As the whole effort was evolving, one calling for some basic engineering with vendor participation to arrive at the combination by respective area operations team, corresponding bump test module- gas type and rechargeable qty. etc. we proposed to procurement to freeze the unit price at the time of issuing Letter of Intent and keep the order development under HOLD until the completion of basic engineering.
As the subject is new and both Reliance and MSA India team did not have prior knowledge on these aspects, there was a big hue and cry! Procurement group was refusing to issue the LOI in the absence of PR (Purchase requisition )in SAP system. Typical of AR, I have to brief Sh B Narayan and seek his help. He being a chemical engineer and had functioned as project manager, could appreciate the facts immediately and ordered the concerned to go ahead committing the LOI on the identified party.
At that stage, came another hurdle!
Key Aspects :- Conviction, Critical challenge, Faith, Incidence analysis, lack of experience,
Technical issue, Team building
Gas Detector Portables
Post retirement from an active career life of 49 years in industry, this is the first time I am attempting
to continue my blog writing. Let me see how my fond experience memory sustain !
Coming to the quantity estimate of detector sourcing, though I was recommending to opt for 4000 nos. of Quadgas personnel safety portables, JMD Process and Safety management had different view
to approach the issue. 1) They openly expressed that they have a budget issue ;2) They were fearing that if a safety portable is linked to an individual, the safety management cannot track whether that individual has carried out the bump check at regular intervals (similar to ensure our smart phone battery power check);3) whether that individual has kept it safely and carry everytime when he goes in the field etc. So they suggested , why not we go with the shift hirarchy and have one common device for each position in a shift + take inputs from maintenance for their estimate of manpower in field- both departmental and permanent contract employess + some common stock in pool for the commissioning state of expatriates, senior management at site, HO personnel coming to site + some vendors specialist coming to field services/inspection etc. As their logic was convincing, though I had different line of thinking (which I shall cover later), I readily agreed with them.
On day 1 of the kick-off meeting with the identified vendor,I ensured that alomost all plant operational team members, Process system leads &maintenance leads of all disciplines and safety team personnel along with my team from RCP to be present .
Before going into that aspect, let me bring out, why and what made me to choose that party MSA over their fiercest competitors M/S Honeywell and Dragor?
When it came to Honeywell, though they had some superlative devices in multi-gas category that too with Zone '0' approval, they did not have uniformity of device models and corresponding check/calibration standards ! In the case of quad gas, they did not have the requisite combination of
%LEL with Methane as reference gas, CO in ppm,H2S in ppm and O2 % -in their portable combination as single device.
In case of Dragor, though they had this combination of portable, they did not have any standard bump module rig and standardized calibration set-up!
Honeywell were convassing to opt for dual gas type portables instead of quadgas combination.
More than these, MSA scored over others in their special feature of silent no distarbance alarm factor.
As usual ,when I gave this TBE recommending to go for a single vendor selection to procurement for
commercial negotiation, there was hue and cry. But Jamnagar safety group and operations were very happy ,since I looked into their ultimate objective and safety conscience. Here I have to bring out one important aspect. At this time of issuing the TBE, none had any idea about the total requirement of multi-gas portable and their corresponding bump test modules, gas cylinder/canister requirement and battery chargers etc. As the whole effort was evolving, one calling for some basic engineering with vendor participation to arrive at the combination by respective area operations team, corresponding bump test module- gas type and rechargeable qty. etc. we proposed to procurement to freeze the unit price at the time of issuing Letter of Intent and keep the order development under HOLD until the completion of basic engineering.
As the subject is new and both Reliance and MSA India team did not have prior knowledge on these aspects, there was a big hue and cry! Procurement group was refusing to issue the LOI in the absence of PR (Purchase requisition )in SAP system. Typical of AR, I have to brief Sh B Narayan and seek his help. He being a chemical engineer and had functioned as project manager, could appreciate the facts immediately and ordered the concerned to go ahead committing the LOI on the identified party.
At that stage, came another hurdle!
Key Aspects :- Conviction, Critical challenge, Faith, Incidence analysis, lack of experience,
Technical issue, Team building
