P 126 J3 Gas Detector Portables

P 126


J3 Gas Detector Portables

Mr Gustavo took that assignment personally and studied. As MSA did not have internal capability to develop such Apps, he contacted some specialist group at Houston and reverted on last day. That party gave the feedback that such a specific request has already come from one customer in Abu Dhabi and it may take several months to develop the same in MSA products. So he suggested that Reliance may undertake that research as pilot project for trial objective and gave the contact particulars of the said party.

On return to India, I had a big shock! The core CHSEE group raised a spoke - how the project HSE group can go ahead sourcing the gas detectors certified suitable for Zone1 only instead of Zone0?
They were not ready to agree with the fact that in refinery, most of the areas fall under Zone 2 only and only few places come under Zone1. Zone 0 come in picture only inside the cone roof tanks and under ground pits. They were influenced by M/S Honeywell representative canversing. Fortunately
both S/Sh B Narayan  & Deepak Datta , the authorities in project, being chemical engineer by qualification and had field experience, understood the situation .They supported my decision to go with Zone1 certified devices and cleared to procurement to issue SCN for dispatch.

The issue did not stop there! As I was expecting, JMD had a huge top-up requirement and they furnished the second intent in Nov.'16 for procurement activity. By that time, I handed over the project HSE Department to Dr.Atul Ku Srivastava, who was asked to report to Sh Gordan Goyal, Process chief in projects. Somehow things went out of control. From my side, I was suggesting that since these requirements are top-up quantity, procurement should go ahead on nomination basis and discuss the rates with the original supplier and commit. Also, my recommendation to go with the same party arose from the angle of universal bump testing module. Otherwise, it call for two or three different version of bump test modules and combining them for network communication is a challenge! As a control system engineer by qualification and experience I could visualize that aspect .But each individual had different objective; especially CHSEE group wanted to show their technical superiority! Even the expatriate experts from Shell,BP &Lendoll Basel reviewed my version and endorsed but it was over-ruled.

Here, I have to bring out some technical aspects !! Though M/S Honeywell was the only party who canversed for Zone0 selection and had PESO approval, really speaking they also did not have ATEX approval forZone0 for  IR type sensors, which was part of their offer. When I took up the matter with PESO authorities, they were surprised to note that fact and withdrawn the approval then. But M/S Honeywell were going around that IOC has approved their products for Zone 0 and only that should be practised in Indian industry. Unfortunately Reliance CHSEE group did not want to go through these analysis and dictated that Reliance also should opt for Zone0 selection only for the entire top-up requirement. Even at that stage, I was the only one ,who tried to project that no party can furnish all the types with Zone0 certification and we may land up with the issue of communication links with two different manufacturers. People with vested interest took stand  and over-ruled my recommendation. Due to misunderstanding and misinterpreting my version of recommendation, people concerned went to the extent of suspecting my integrity even after loyally serving the company for 30 years. I have been asked to keep away from that sourcing activity.. With pain I had to watch this mess from distance! As forecasted and expected, the mess is still there  and no one has ventured to link the communication between several version of bump system. The end user has lost interest and living with the unfinished version! By that time,I am retired from Reliance service in March'18, but there is no end solution in place.
                                                                                                     Contd......
Key Aspect:-  Incident analysis,  Technical issue, Transfer

P 125 J3 Detector Portables

P 125

J3 Detector Portables

As mentioned, with my presence at Pittsburgh, Reliance could receive all documents as required through system and the vendor was happy with the receipt of Code1 approvals. But there was a catch in clearing the goods !

As mentioned earlier, since the whole trip to Pittsburgh was considered unofficial, I did not sign witnessing the inspection  tests but conveyed that RCP will clear and issue SCN through system.
On third and fouth day, I spent my time on discussions with respect to overall system configuration for bump testing through Galaxy, data collection for last 6 months, data gathering process and how to extract through server etc. Also analyzed and debated the frequency necessity of bump testing of each type-both personal and multi-gas/twin gas type. Based on that , the discussion paid attention to the inventory requirement of each type of gas canister .  As we had the initial distribution plan of 44 buildings and corresponding device type for bump testing, MSA engg. team worked out the canister sourcing plan. While looking at that issue, they clearly presented the canister manufacturer recommendation for the shelf life for each gas type canister. Then we worked out the first inventory requirement of canister MTO, considering the shipment logistics from Texas to Pittsburgh to Jamnagar through sea route. and informed RCP to issue the confimed PO for the same.

 In the whole bargain, the negative factor was -the shelf life of some of the gases were as low as 9 months and longest was 24 months and from Reliance side, the plant commissioning were phased out and some delay in mechanical completion/ready for commissioning of some plants. The net result was, some of the gas canisters were required to be replaced even before pre-commissioning. There came a catch! Whether these replacement have to go under project budget or revenue cost. Sh.BN being the Head of Procurement Group took the call and settled.

During the technical session, I had some dreams to look for! As I was convinced with the product robustness, I raised some product improvement features and had special session with the product design team. They are:

1. Can MSA incorprate GPS enablement with elevation in 3D data for coordinates in each 4X device?
The idea was to map , whereall that particular device has moved with 'X' personnel at what time near to which equipment etc.
2. Since Reliance has sourced 4X personal protection device based on position hirarchy attached to each building and employees are likely to be transferred inter departments, I looked for incorporation of picking up the employee identification like his employment no. as per his identification badge during his bump testing at the start of his shift.

Both these requirement had a back ground objective. 1) With the mapping of gas concentration picked by that device at particulr time, operations/maintenance can plan their healthy house- keeping by taking nessary course corrective maintenance of the equipment  in that spot.  That is, the device becomes a handy tool to spot in advance the defects/probable leaks in plant area. 2) If the person's identification is incorporated, the Health team can co-relate an individual's inhalation of /hydrocarbon toxic gases over a fixed period and recommend necessary course measures for his health care.
When I placed these request on table, MSA top management was completely perplexed! They immediately asked Mr Gustavo to study and come out on fourth day for meaningful forward path.
Rest is History!!                                                                                                          Contd.......

Key Aspect:- Accountable,  Conviction, Communicate, Incident analysis, Initiative, Planning,
Responsible, Technical issue

P 124 J3 Detectors Inspection clearance

P 124


J3 Detectors Inspection Clearance

As my USA trip cropped up all of a sudden, everyone including the vendor offices at India,Dubai and USA were perplexed! Moreover, vendor was afraid that though the materials might be manufactured at the factory but they cannot seek clearance for shipment/air lifting in the absence of all vendor drawing approval in place( upload in system with Code1 clearance).It was clear to everybody that I was the only one who had complete clarity on the issue. Reliance procurement did not have any clue on that account and my deputy in project could not understand to pick up the gravity of  situation.
That was the time ,MSA Director Mr.Stuart came out with a bright idea and requested my service  help to get over the problem. He requested me whether I can spare a few days during my leave at USA ,to visit their factory at Pittsburg , review and approve the deliverables and participate in final on-line inspection of the portables as well as galaxy devices. He also felt that I can use that time for arriving at the full configuration of total system by discussing with their system leads and factory/system. personnel. As I did not have any fixed agenda at USA(during that vacation) I agreed for his request.
I was clear that I shall not treat that visit as official  and carry out the task only on technical basis, in the interest of successfully expediting the project deliverables. So looking at the calender and personal convinience, I indicated that I can spend my time from 7th Dec. to 12th Dec. max at Pittsburgh. MSA management felt relieved and organized my local travel and stay etc. at Pittsburgh.
It was four day trip and MSA topmost management was all praise for that help.

It so happened that ,that was the time the factory took the multi-gas portables assembly  and 4X meant for SEZ-gasification and PXIV  in-line inspection. Their inspection process was a revelation to me as everything was automated and run through conveyors for board checking, sensor fixing, each sensor undergoing for its respective gas sensitivity test for its range etc.

As I specifically requested for visiting the sensor manufacturing and test lab (which is restricted place even for their own employees), with a special non-disclosure agreement signed, top management escorted me for visiting it and deliberate with their system chief. As I am basically an Automation engineer  by qualification, we could exchange effectively about sensitivity, area classification etc.

With the factory team , I could go deeply about their inspection process/ procedure, certification, record tracability and test records storage etc.  All these took two days of my time.

Meanwhile, on reachning their factory on first day itself, I gave my complete document listing for review to their  product lead specialist Mr Gustavo.So he put the respective team members on the job to accumulate all of them and fixed the meeting/discussions on fourth day morning. As I was directly dealing with the factory members themselves, they could understand the specifics with full clarity and organized to produce all of them. As most of the deliverables  are UL/FM approved and the factory has got ISO approval, my task became easy in reviewing and understanding. On my review, I asked them to upload in Reliance system and was in constant touch with my assistant Mr Sandesh Tikhe at RCP. I was continuously giving him step by step instructions to clear every deliverable.

The funniest thing was ,I had to work 16 hours a day to cover up time difference between India and USA  during my annual vacation holidays!
                                                                                                                   Contd....
Key Aspects :-   Accountable, Attitude, Communicate, Planning, Recognition, Responsible, 

P 123 J3 Portable gas Detector system

P 123

J3 Portable gas detector system

As said, none had any clear picture of how to proceed forward! The crux of the issue was , that people could not distinguish the difference between sourcing only portables, what they used to do in original refineries  with that of having a  system where  regular bump test can be executed and data gathering for the last six months of each portable device  is feasible and one can ensure to transfer them to central server for data history and track. People concerned could not appreciate its value  but I alone had different ideas.

So, with a statistical data analysis of number of personnel associated with each PIB/Control room, we arrived at the requirement of 4X portables(Personnel protection) with quadgas  for each building.and with operation/s inputs, arrived at the requirement of all other multi gas detectors meant for area check and  work permit clearance etc.. When it came for 4X , with the vendor input data of 30-40 secs for each portable bump test time taken and no. of 4X bump modules, we  calculated the number of Galaxy module requirement, taking max. of 10 portables to be bump tested in each galaxy at every shift beginning. That means approx. 3 -4  min.time slot to take for 10 personnel to have their respective bump tested device in possession to move into field at their shift beginning. Once we could arrive at the Galaxy requirement and portables both personnel (4X) and other multi gas portables requirement  for each building , we could freeze the corresponding gas canister type(quadgas and other specific gas for respective building) requirement and portable  power chargers easily.

With that, the project could give the PR to procurement to commit the order. As usual, there was confusion for the codification of each item in SAP database. Added to the mess, since these were all new in nature and SAP codification responsibility was with COE-HSE group for these safety devices, we were forced to exert more efforts to sort out. But ultimately we could complete this task by mid-November 2015.

Thereafter the vendor indicated that the production will take place in first week of December and he would like to complete the order before that year X-Mas holidays (before 22nd Dec.2015) and clear for shipment. When the project and procurement lead took up the matter for factory inspection schedule and identify the team for deployment, two issues arose.

1. Somehow the local rep. of the vendor did not have any idea about the vendor data submission/approval process and he was furnishing only standard sales catalogue for review/approval.  It forced me to take up the matter directly with their Dubai office and HQ factory since the  person concerned was not technically qualified and could not understand the matter.

2. Sh.B Narayan  felt there was no necessity for any factory acceptance at all since we have placed the order on one of the world's reputed firm and their internal quality assurance must be excellent.
Over&above, considering  internal personality differences and potential capability issues, he concluded that nobody need to make the travel to USA.

So it became a No-GO situation! At that time only, RPMG management issued a circular that all employees have to necessarily take that year PL before 31st Dec. failing which they will forego their earned PL for that year. As I was also one in that listing, it forced me to avail my leave. As I did not have any plan at all, it was utter confusion then.  All of sudden I decided that I will go to USA alone and spend some time with my two sons at New Jersey; as my aged in-laws are permanently staying with us, my wife could not accompany me. As I could get very cheap to&fro ticket through my travel agent, I planned to leave immediately by Nov. end itself.
                                                                                                               Contd.....
Key Aspects :-  Incident analysis,  Lack of experience, Responsible, Technical issue

P 122 J3 Sourcing Gas Detector portables

P  122

J3 Sourcing Gas Detector Portables

After freezing the various combination of multi gas type and quadgas type, the issue cropped up that from which factory of M/S MSA they have to be sourced by Reliance. None in the entire set-up, be it MSA management, or Reliance end user or procurement group looked into the aspect of  Country of origin, not having the actual manufacturing facility for these devices at their German establishment, issue of multiple transfers for these sensitive equipment and corresponding gas canisters etc.
The vendor be it their India office or Dubai/Germany office could not even understand the implied
constraints and were going with Reliance's procurement dictates! Reliance procurement team had only the sole objective of European Credit facility  ignoring the country of Origin issue and multiple transits.  As usual I became a bad boy while putting my condition that these have to be sourced only from their original manufacturing establishment, here it is Pittsburgh,USA. Finally, on my sole insistence on technical grounds, they were forced to look into sourcing them directly from their factory at USA,their HQ. But on prestige, they retained to go with Euro order instead of US $.Since that did not affect the technical aspects, I allowed it to go.

How we arrived at the initial qty. requirement ?
After successfully scuttling all the controversies, I shifted the scene to Jamnagar to associate the field team- ultimate stake holder/s to identify and arrive at the quantity requirement of various types. As help I had the services of Ms Leena Thomas and Sandesh Tikhe. Though both of them did not have
any back ground knowledge on the specifics, they applied themselves to extract the input from respective plant/PIB in-charge  to identify the quantum requirement of quadgas personal safety device. When I created such an atmosphere of interest to participants, they did their homework as far as opertional team members and volunteered to present/justify their requirements. There were meaningful hot discussions where to keep the bump test modules  and how many such modules required etc. So with meaningful deliberations, we arrived at identifying locations not only in PIBs but also in control rooms and some common places. There the arugument arose, when a person report for duty from home, how safe he can be until he reach his point of reporting for duty to pick up his safety device. Discussions on those three days at Jamnagar made everyone aware and conscious about the impact by the treacherous toxic gases in the field.

During that stage, they came out with 850 numbers of quadgas detectors and about 250 numbers of all other combinations having 5 gases /2 gases sensor.  For gases like Cl2,Ammonia, we opted for 2 gas combination.

The funniest thing was , nobody could arrive at the final number of Galaxy bump modules and corresponding gas canister combination.to be placed in any of the PIBs or control rooms. Even the vendor reps. did not have an iota of the picture, since their company did not have any experience in
handling such a big project order. So, when I assumed that responsibility to work out the same with my team members, people in RCP felt that I am exceeding my limits of authority and helping the vendor out of the way. During that stage of my career, several camps got formed in RCP  to disgrace me. Without analyzing, some people raised the bogey  that I have gone ahead in accepting Zone'1' certified devices and it should have been only zone'0' approved! All of them were carried away by M/S Honeywell/s claim of Zone '0' certification requirement. It forced me to go deep in reviewing the requirements and also look at all Honeywell Test certificates for those family of detectors. Honeywell was claiming that they are the only party in India who has got Zone'0' approval from PESO department. Funnily I noticed then, that even they do not have Zone'0' ATEX certification for the detectors with IR sensor! and they have misrepresented the case to statutory authorities and got certification.. As I have to save my repute and being the person who was a party in drafting the Statutory Rules for the country, I took up the matter with that time CCE and got their certification reversed then. That made many people unhappy in the house.
Even at that stage, we could not freeze the order since galaxy bump modules and gas canister quantity were not frozen.  Then came the twist!
                                                                                                                               Contd......
KeyAspects :-  Accountable, Communicate, Conviction, Critical challenge, Human relations,
Incident analysis, Initiative, Leadership, Reputation, Technical issue, Team building

P 121 Gas Detector Portables

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

P 120 J3 Gas Detectors-Portable

P  120


J3 Gas Detectors Portable

When we started looking for sourcing these portables in 2015, many of us were not conscious enough about the knocking effect of toxic gases.As most of the team members were from oil refinery back ground, they were giving importance  only for flammability of hydrocarbon release, be it in liquid state or gaseous vapor. So they were going with area classification criteria for device selection and qty. requirement depending on likely peak manpower present in a zone that too for % LEL consideration as basis.

Here I have played some important role in highlighting the nausea factors of toxic vapors of H2S and CO as well as carcigenic nature of Benzene and Toluene. Dr JV Kelkar, with his rich knowledge and experience in handling ethylene cracker and we both  having worked together in implementaing naphtha cracker at IPCL Baroda, brought out the importance of having multi point GC for Benzene in both ROGC and PX IV. Since that being afixed installation, we asked the Instrumentation group to carry out that. At that state, I took the call by summoning plant wise/ area wise Operation& Process system personnel and deliberated to understand the possibility/probability of presence of gas release in earmarked zones covered by respective PIB building.

Why PIB Wise?
As I was told that every field engineer in operations will report for duty only in their earmarked PIB & then only move into the field, we decided to opt for PIB wise type selection for  muliti gas type portable catering to that earmarked zone  and quantitiwise personal safety portable based on number of people estimated.
The multi gas portables are essential for specific pre-check in field for the absence of identified (listed) gas presence in that area before releasing a work permit to any maintenance team-both cold and hot works of all mainteance discipline, be it handled by company employess or contracting agency.
When it come to personal portables, we followed OSHA guideline of opting Quadgas detector - % LEL (Methane as basis), CO,H2S & %O2 for all areas .Since presence of hydrocarbon is there everywhere in JMD Complex, we chose % LEL sensor methane basis, even to take care of C2/C3 vapor presence in air. As we have introduced coke gasification in J3, the importance of monitoring CO and H2S  presence in any area ,that too in ppm increased. Syn.gas contain CO and H2  when it is purified , but in Gasifier area there are possibility of H2S presence also.

Additionally, there can be Ammonia, HCN, Cl2,SO2 etc. in gasification complex and all these were covered under multi gas detector portables.

How we arrived at the total quantity requirement for quadgas portable in each PIB area?

To start with I was planning to source 100% qty. based on estimated total manpower attached to respective PIB + some spare inventory. Based on that time estimate, it was coming to 4000 numbers exclusively for catering to manpower attached to all PIBs.  Over& above that, there are personnel attached to various control rooms, plant managers, top management in operation, maintenance personnel,  contract personnel presence on permanent basis, people regularly visiting from HO and visitors  etc.Had we struck with that , it would have come to 7000 or so.
My objective was  ,to start with, it would be a possession by each individual for his personal safety similar to his employment identity badge.

Key Aspects :-   Accountable. Attitude, Codes&standard,  Incident analysis, Lack of experience,
Leadership, Technical issue