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Making life easier for our Industrial Clients!

By Mike Collins, PE, LEED AP

Allen & Hoshall wants you to have peace of mind that all systems are good to go. We are a full-service firm with over 100 years of experience and a long history providing building facility assessments, design, and construction services for industrial clients. Our experience includes over 300 million Sq. Ft. of energy audits and equipment assessments in the last 30 years. A few recent examples of our experience can be found in the Industrial Section. Below are a few areas our staff can make life easier in the industrial environment.

Utility Reliability
A momentary loss of electric power can cost the average Industrial customer upwards of $14,000 dollars based on Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Surveys. An extended outage can add up to hundreds of thousands in losses that can never be recovered.

Understanding the condition and configuration of your existing equipment is crucial. A thorough examination and preventative maintenance plan can avert any unplanned failures before they happen. Implementing redundant systems can further reduce the risk of downtime.

Energy Savings
Most states now require that new facilities or renovations be designed to meet national energy code requirements. Our staff has over 30 years of experience doing facility assessments and developing cost saving measures that can be implemented to save energy in all types of facilities. These measures can then be prioritized and sorted by initial cost, simple payback, depreciation, return on investment, or deferred maintenance costs. These systems can involve mechanical to architectural, water and electrical.

LED Lighting and Controls
It is estimated that the average building dedicates 30% of the energy it consumes to lighting systems. The latest energy codes require a comprehensive assessment of the lighting systems and a minimum amount of watts per square foot of energy usage by the lighting systems. The easiest way to do this is by installing highly efficient LED lighting systems and comprehensive lighting control systems. Rest assured, lighting control systems used today utilize technology that has been in use for over 20 years and in the most demanding environments.

Integrating New Systems
It is sometimes very difficult to determine if an existing building can be used to house a new piece of equipment. An electrician, like hometeamelectric.com/city-page/thousand-palms/ offers, can help you assess this. We can also help your staff determine what will be required to make the installation possible. We have extensive experience in providing comprehensive and cost effective solutions for interfacing the building systems with process systems by providing installation drawings to compliment a manufactures’ shop drawings. These systems can include electrical circuitry, compressed air, heating/cooling air or liquids, and hydraulics. Special considerations must be taken for the environmental conditions that each of these systems are subjected to.

Seismic
Memphis is situated in one the highest rated seismic activity zones in the country. There are preventative measures that can be implemented in existing or new facilities to minimize the impact that an earthquake will have on the building. Most companies fail to realize that this also applies to the installation and replacement of equipment. An in-depth assessment by a licensed engineer is essential in determining the proper seismic bracing and foundations required by Code.

Safety
In these times of heavy litigation, who can afford to overlook safety? J. Paul Leigh, Economic Burden of Occupational Injury and Illness in the United States. Milbank Quarterly, Vol. 89, Issue 4, p. 728 (December 2011) provides estimates of the national costs of occupational injury and illnesses among civilians in the United States for 2007. The total estimated costs were approximately $250 billion and average loss of manpower per event was 8 days.


OSHA
The Occupational Health and Safety Administration implements Laws and rules that apply to all aspects of workplace safety. Allen & Hoshall can help your company do a thorough assessment of potential problems and help implement cost effective solutions. Problems that may exist include handicap accessibility, asbestos, lead, fall protection, spill remediation, arc flash warning labels, and seismic bracing for installed equipment. We can also point you in the direction of useful tools such as risk assessment software to ensure that you can identify hazards and even assess and manage any risks over time so that you can implement control measures. It’s so important to do this. It can reduce the number of accidents that workplaces experience, keeping their staff safe. Often, most workplaces find that they just need to install some workplace safety signs to keep their employees safe. By installing some signs, workers should be aware of all potential dangers, keeping them safe from any dangerous chemicals or machinery, for example.

Arc Flash
Allen & Hoshall can provide extensive arc flash calculations along with the labeling required by the National Electrical Safety Code for the available energy at each piece of equipment and the required Personal Protection Gear required to operate that equipment. In addition, we can model your system for load flow, fault current and voltage drop and provide a comprehensive action plan for improved system reliability.

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