Another fire hazard in a Kerala based plastic products manufacturing plant, expected loss above 500 Crores.

Fire hazards are not so common in manufacturing plants, however if it occurs, sometimes that would be the end of the business. Most of the manufacturing plants provide basic fire fighting equipment's to control fire when it erupts. In due course, the management gets confidence as they have not experienced any such mishap’s and / or their priority changes due to various reasons which includes increased production demands, lack of storage space, poor bottom lines and so on.

Plastic manufacturing plants often false under Small scale units and operates with minimum skilled manpower. Majority of manpower requirement is for unskilled jobs and the floating population of migrant workers makes the on the job training difficult.

Many Plastic manufacturers use the state of the art manufacturing machines but their basic electrical infrastructure may not support safe and reliable manufacturing.

Small scale units cannot afford highly skilled engineering staff and hence manages the show with available technicians. Often such technicians fail to convince their management about their basic maintenance requirements which includes manpower, materials and methods. They often lack sufficient training on safety matters specific to their manufacturing plants and hence follow the so called ‘ Juggads’ in maintenance management.

Reason for fire

Actual reason for the fire hazard is yet to be identified but primary investigation reported it as ‘Electrical Short circuit’.

Can short circuit leads to fire?

Yes but often it may not be the actual reason! During the time of short circuit, heavy current flows through the circuit which initiates current based protective systems such as Circuit breakers and Fuses to operate and disconnect the supply, which prevents chances fire.

Then what could be the other causes of fire?

Any anomalies in electrical installation like improper contact area, insufficient conductor rating, over loading, effects of harmonics and many such issues leads to temperature build up and when it crosses a certain limits it can initiate fire.

Why our protective devices cannot prevent fire by disconnecting power supply?

Most of the or all of the protective devices such as Fuse, Over load Relay, Miniature circuit breaker ( MCB) ,MCCB, ACB etc operates based on the current flow. Except short circuit or Over loading in all other cases the current will not increases above the set point and hence wont trip.

Then how can we eliminate such chances of fire?

Yes it is possible through structure maintenance activities.  

Condition based maintenance – CBM – helps to maintain healthy installations in the manufacturing plants and ensures safety. Basic CDT techniques ( Condition Diagnostic Techniques ) like Thermography can avoid such mishap’s if it is used professionally to identify and repair issues in electrical installations which includes

-         Improper connections or looseness

-         Improper crimping

-         Under rated wires and cables

-         Poor quality wires and cables

-         Quality or Strength deterioration of Electrical gadgets and equipments

-         Thermal foot prints of harmonics and many…

All identified anomalies should repaired immediately based on priority and avoid hot spots in the installations to ignite fire. This would also help to reduce distribution losses and overall energy consumption and improves reliability. Inspection and Maintenance team should work in harmony to identify such issues before it leads to fire and initiate repair jobs effectively.

Conclusion

We need to shift our focus from fire fighting to fire chances elimination; this would promote safe, reliable and efficient manufacturing. Employees and manufacturing plants are the major assets of any business and hence the protection of both is essential for a sustainable business. Even though insurance coverage is available (Unfortunately many doesn’t have insurance!) revival of manufacturing process after a major fire is difficult and recovering the lost market is almost impossible. Hence let us move forward to eliminate chances of fire and protect our assets.

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www.sustenergyfoundation.org or mail us to [email protected]