In our last issue, we mentioned the severe shortage of qualified maintenance personnel. In addition to being tragic, death and lost time injury on the job exacerbate the shortage situation. And many high-exposure practices are time consuming compared to their alternatives. Not only can addressing the exposure issue protect precious human life and increasingly scarce skilled workers, it can raise productivity.
One option available to you is to modify equipment to reduce exposure. You want to look at equipment and testing methods for ways to reduce exposure to live parts. An example is the infrared window. Without such a window, the crew must remove covers, make the scan, then replace the covers. This is time-consuming, and it raises the danger level. With the window, you don’t need to remove and replace the covers. Now instead of having two people spend 10 minutes to get a scan, one person can walk up to the window and do it in mere seconds.
Remote test terminals are another example. Have you installed these everywhere that it’s practical to do so?