Food Industry Brand Made Significant Savings When Sigma-HSE Re-Evaluated an Internal HAC

The client is a food industry brand. After completing an internal hazardous area classification (HAC) study, the customer faced a significant financial bill and further disruptions to productivity following equipment replacement time.

Undertake a review of their defined hazardous areas and identify viable process solutions. Understand and limit the true cost of their internal classification study.

We produced and submitted a more accurate and practical hazardous area classification register, e.g. smaller extents around leak points rather than blanket zoning of entire areas, such as silo enclosures.

We undertook numerous Non-Electrical Ignition Risk Assessments (NEIRA) to certify existing equipment in zoned areas, e.g. dust extraction fans, screw conveyors, rotary valves, etc. This was a significantly cheaper alternative than complete replacement with ATEX rated equipment.

By improving housekeeping and developing systems to identify and rectify releases from within the system, the extent of several hazardous areas within the process was reduced.

The customers’ internal classification was highly conservative and resulted in large areas being classified as hazardous unnecessarily.