Safety first

15 DECEMBER,2020 | By Markus Brugger

COVID as particular safety aspect was and is with us, including all required protection measures taken seriously by all of you. We discussed related actions at various occasions, thoughtfully followed by CERN and all of you. From the very start of the initial lock-down, throughout all these difficult months, your commitment allowed us keeping you, your colleagues, and our experimental areas safe, while ensuring the tremendous work progress as reflected in my previous and following Advent stories. You remained vigilant and your pro-active behaviour has allowed possibly dangerous situations not only being identified, but also addressed by immediate related actions or procedures you proposed and later implemented together with the DSOs/HSE (e.g. risk of overheating of power plugs, them being part of the many legacy installations we have across our areas). In this, but during LS2 in a much larger context, safety comes also as a natural ingredient to all our activities, starting from the detailed work preparation, the numerous VICs you organized and, in a period, where many safety improvements are implemented for the respective infrastructure. The corresponding list is long, but let me name a few, starting with the East Area Renovation project as such where all electrical non-conformities will be addressed in this context. For NA-CONS, this came in several flavours, the conducted detailed safety risk analysis across EHN1, EHN2, ECN3 and associated tunnels and galleries, as well as the implementation of several improvements such as the control room pilot without the need of a false floor or addressing the grounding of many beamline elements. Speaking of false floors, we could finally also address the respective renovation for ECA4. The same holds true for AD/ELENA, where we were able to render the constrained experimental areas safer by adding dedicated safety exits to the smallest areas, in addition to the overall project safety activities. We also reacted quickly to problems identified during annual safety checks, such as for the AUL installations with immediate mitigations actions launched and where we can now progressively move towards a coherent AUG deployment limiting the requirement of AULs. Documentation being an important aspect in all this, in collaboration with the experiments, HSE and the DSOs, you also established several safety procedures, naming the XCETs, the access to our technical galleries or the chemical inventory now being more and more integrated in CERES (Chemical Register for Environment, Health and Safety) and where we also profited from addressing related storage aspects in EHN1. Many of us are holding DSO, WSS, PSO or other safety related roles, allowing others in the group relying on their experience and effective advice in many situations. Safety training comes as a regular ingredient, thus thanks to the support from HSE/DSO and others, we get a sound basis for our safety related work, such as a recent department seminar addressing the multiple aspects of safety in the context of contract activities. It is thus with confidence that I am looking forward to the work ahead of us. Many thanks and be safe!