Creating Job Safety Assessments (JSAs) is a crucial yet time-consuming task, especially when dealing with thousands of sites. For one of the biggest utilities in the country, manually preparing these documents for over 5,000 devices and substations would have taken an estimated 104 working days costing $70,000. This daunting challenge demanded an innovative solution that could drastically reduce time and effort while ensuring accuracy and safety.
Understanding the Challenge
A JSA is a critical document in ensuring workplace safety. It includes the Emergency Action Plan (EAP), detailing site-specific information such as the type of site, its geographic location, and crucial emergency contacts. Our customer, a user of Power-View, required JSAs for over 5,000 devices and substations. Manually preparing these documents would take an estimated 104 working days—an impractical task.
The Power of Automation
The solution lies in leveraging automation through Power-View, our GIS solution. Power-View maps all assets, providing their exact geographic positions. Using Python, a script was written to automate the creation of these JSAs.
How the Script Works
The script retrieves the latitude and longitude of each site and queries multiple sources to find the nearest clinic, hospital, police station, and fire department. This is akin to using Google Maps to find the nearest ER. The data collected is validated and compiled into a PDF document, ensuring accuracy and reliability.
Integration with Power-View
Each PDF is linked to the corresponding asset in Power-View. Users can easily access these documents, even without cell service, through a pop-up box that appears when clicking on an asset. This feature includes tasks, images, related assets, attributes, and, crucially, the EAP.
Impact and Savings
The automated process completed in under 60 seconds what would have taken 104 working days manually. This efficiency not only saved time but also translated into significant cost savings of $70,000.
Thank you for joining this journey through innovation in safety and efficiency. Stay tuned for more insights and breakthroughs in the next video!
About the Author:
Dr Nathan Wallace, PE has BS degrees in Electrical Engineering, and Physics, a MS in Engineering, and a Ph.D. in Engineering from Louisiana Tech University. Nathan is a CoFounder and Director of GridIntel. Nathan is actively involved in the IEEE-PES PSRC and PSCC technical committees and currently chairs two IEEE standards development working groups. Nathan is a licensed PE in AL, LA, MS, OH, and TN.