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Tackling Combustible Dust Safety with Tim Heneks
274 Plays2 months ago
In the latest episode of the Feed & Grain podcast, host Steven Kilger sits down with Tim Heneks, Director of Engineering Services at Dustcon Solutions, to explore the critical issue of dust control and maintaining workplace safety. Tune in as they discuss combustible dust hazards, dust hazard analysis, and cost-effective dust control upgrades.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, my name is Stephen Kilgurn. I'm the managing editor of Feeding Grain and the host of the Feeding Grain podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today as we dive deep into the issues affecting the feed manufacturing, grain handling, and allied industries. Today's episode is brought to you by the bin whip from New Mat Systems. The powerful dual impact bin whip removes the toughest buildup and blockages in industrial storage silos without hazardous silo entry. Learn more
Importance of Dust Safety
00:00:25
Speaker
today. at bennwhip dot com today i'm talking to tim heennicks Director of Engineering Services at DustCon Solutions. It's a great show. We talk about the importance of dust control and maintaining a safe work environment, how getting a dust hazard analysis done works, and how to do cost-effective upgrades to your dust control. I hope you enjoy the interview. If you want to help out with the podcast and are listening to this in a podcasting app, please rate us and subscribe. If you're listening online, sign up for the Feeding Grain newsletter, Industry Watch, to see the new podcast drop and stay up to date with all the news from around the industry.
00:00:59
Speaker
Now on to the show. Hi, Tim. Thanks so much for joining us today on the podcast. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me, Steven. I'm really glad to be here. Yeah, me too. We were talking a little bit before we recorded about how interesting and important this topic is, especially combustible dust safety, because when a tragedy does happen, it's the guy who has to then go right up and try to figure out what happened.
00:01:23
Speaker
It is something that is constantly brought to my attention. So it's important that we kind of bring it to everyone's attention. Yeah. I can imagine from that perspective. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's really weird. It's a, it's a weird place to be, but for anyone out there who doesn't know you, can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your background and what you do in combustible dust safety?
Misconceptions and Cost of Safety Measures
00:01:44
Speaker
Yeah, certainly. So for those of the listeners that don't know me, my name is Timothy Hennix. I'm director of engineering here at dust con solutions.
00:01:52
Speaker
based out of Florida. I am a ah chemical engineer who started my career working in the plant doing improvement projects and and making sure that the plant ran smoothly. And then through you know an interesting path found my way into combustible dust safety where I got into the design and sales of explosion protection systems. And now I'm you know running an engineering consulting firm in which we are focused on combustible dust safety. So I gained ah an enormous amount of experience in the kind of the grain and and food industries. I am a professional engineer licensed in, I think, what a dozen states and counting.
00:02:34
Speaker
and I am a member of the NFPA 61 technical committee or at least the technical committee responsible for what is NFPA 61 and what we expect to soon be the agricultural portion of NFPA 660. Wow, I mean those are quite the holistic credentials. but Yeah, no, it certainly gives me a unique perspective from which to tackle the combustible dust problem. I, you know, it's very niche. It's a little difficult to explain at dinner parties what I do for a living, but I i do really like it. Well, at least it sounds impressive. I'm just a journalist. We have no credentials for anything. We have a bachelor's degree. I only have bachelor's degree too, but to me, I like to make sure the audience knows that I'm not just a pretty face. I know, especially on something we don't even have you on camera for. Like I said, dust control, dust combution obviously a very
00:03:28
Speaker
dangerous part of what we do in the grain handling feed manufacturing industries. So it's always a really important topic, especially this time of year where people might be running their stuff a little more, might be moving things through their facilities, questionable grain quality, all these other stuff. So it's always a really good time to focus on stuff like this. Can you talk a little bit about some misconceptions people in our industry might have about like the cost of these safety measures for dust control, for combustible dust, and why it's something that they should focus on and why it might not be quite as intimidating?
00:04:02
Speaker
as they think it's going to be? Yeah, I really like that question. I want to start by saying that each of our clients in every situation is going to be different and everybody brings a unique perspective. All the listeners are are going to have a different starting point on this. you know Whether it's ah a difference in the type of systems and equipment that they're working with, the type of materials that they're handling,
00:04:28
Speaker
or even something as basic as their level of knowledge, expertise, or or level of priority they're putting on combustible dust safety. you know There are going to be some listeners listening to this who have maybe never really spent a lot of time and effort thinking about combustible dust, and there's going to be others that that has been a really top priority for them for a while.
00:04:49
Speaker
But ultimately, I think that what you described in your question, there is some intimidation, especially with the perceived cost of what i I'm going to call prescriptive measures, those things that are defined clearly by the NFPA standards that govern combustible dust.
00:05:07
Speaker
Many of our our listeners might not realize that there's a little bit of a wider variety of options that they can use to address and tackle combustible dust concerns that don't always require the installation of these fancy, complex, expensive explosion protection systems. Yeah. And especially if you're in an older mill and you're kind of used to dust, you look around and there's always been dust.
00:05:33
Speaker
It can kind of start to just fade into the back of your mind until obviously there's some kind of incident that you need to address. Sure. And i you know to piggyback on that, I think one of the things that that we often hear is, well, it's a food product. It's safe. Why would this be hazardous? And to some sense, that's right. We're not talking about a hazardous chemical that's going to hurt you if you you touch it to your skin. But we consume food for energy.
00:06:03
Speaker
right There's a lot of core value in there that can, in the right conditions, exert that energy through combustion, which has dire consequences for facilities if they're not well managed. Exactly. Well, to help the people out, can you provide a few examples of some cost-effective safety measures that Maybe people aren't thinking of when they first think about dust management. Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to keep this brief because I could go on for days. But you know first I want to establish that there's really two two kind of general sides to safety measures when it comes to these combustible dust issues.
Safety Measures and Management
00:06:43
Speaker
And that's administrative controls versus engineering controls. right So administrative controls could be something as simple as ensuring that you've got the right
00:06:53
Speaker
hazard communication, training, procedures, housekeeping, culture, preventative maintenance. We're talking about things that are at a human level and if if it's known and understood that it's a priority to fix leaks when they happen or clean up dust at the end of the shift or ensure that we're following things like hot work, permitting practices, those can be really effective measures at preventing incidents from a combustible dust standpoint that don't take a lot of money. They do take kind of time and emotional and intellectual investment, not just from the leaders, but also from the entire organization. But those are things that I really stress because that sets the tone, right?
00:07:45
Speaker
Beyond that, on the engineering side, this is where I think most of the perceived cost is going to come from. And a good example I like to use in terms of how to a cost effective safety measure it is through designing your systems in such a way that you're minimizing the amount of dust that's going to escape and create hazardous locations that require rated electrical or the use of certain types of equipment that might not require those explosion protection devices that that can be quite costly or the use of explosion protection devices that are less complex, more passive, lower cost to both install and maintain long-term. It is a remarkable difference even with how much equipment technology has evolved over the last 10-15 years that I've been in the industry and how much tighter the seals are, how much less dust is produced in just the daily running of equipment than you do in a facility that's even
00:08:50
Speaker
10, 15 years old at this point. And just to give a quick example, we, this kind of blends the idea of that administrative and engineering controls, but we had a client at a green facility in Washington state, year or two back, that was essentially going through a startup and they found themselves in a little bit of an issue with the local building code officials.
00:09:11
Speaker
because they had a motor that was powering the fan on a dust collector located on the roof of a building, but it was in what the engineers that designed it deemed to be a classified location, right? And so what ended up happening was that the inspector said, well, that motor doesn't meet the classification rating that you guys have established for this area. You got to replace it. And anybody that knows these things knows that no simple task, especially once you're almost ready for commissioning And ultimately we were able to solve the problem by simply looking at whether or not that was an appropriate classification for that location, writing a letter, to the code official saying this was our technical opinion and getting them to buy in and agree. And all of a sudden what would have been maybe a hundred thousand dollar investment on the part of the plant turned out to be negligible. It took a couple of weeks worth of discussions and a letter and a stamp and boom, we're done.
00:10:08
Speaker
I mean regulators, people inspecting, they are usually willing to you adjust. They don't know the industry. Most of them are willing to admit that and willing to make changes if you go about things correctly. So that's a really like nice little like hopeful story that you can just talk to your your regulator and you can potentially make them see the light of day. that's That's almost hopeful. Yeah. Well, I've always said that if I can just talk to the local code official, they typically are willing to listen to somebody who knows more than them about combustible dust to say, oh, now that you've explained it in this way, I understand that the hazard is not as dire as I thought it was.
00:10:50
Speaker
but you need to be able to get that conversation that dialogue going and you also need to have somebody who understands the hazard who's willing to have that conversation right what i found is most engineers will when confronted with the idea of an unknown or something they're unsure about the default to the most conservative option the one that's safest the one that's not going to It's gonna be perceived safest i should say and one that probably doesn't put their liability or their license in jeopardy. Well especially cuz you have to have like phone calls with an official and stuff that doesn't sound fun i might make the one hundred thousand dollar repair to just avoid that if you say so.
00:11:31
Speaker
That's a choice for you. Well, ah so Dustcon's website, I was perusing it and you have these things called dust test, dust hazard analysis services that you guys could provide. Can you tell me a little bit more about them and what happens during one of those?
Dust Hazard Analysis and Maintenance
00:11:46
Speaker
Absolutely. Right off the bat, we sometimes get confusion from our clients about what a dust hazard analysis is and thinking that it's dust testing and vice versa. You think of the term dust hazard analysis and it sounds like it would be something done in a laboratory by a scientist, but ultimately a dust hazard analysis is a hazard assessment. You're testing where hazards are present related to combustible dust in the facility, what existing safeguards you have, and then what gaps might exist between your current safeguards and what's needed to satisfy safety and compliance requirements.
00:12:23
Speaker
So this is something that's relatively new. Actually, the DHA, the term dust hazard analysis was coined as part of the NFPA 652 rollout back in the mid 2010s.
00:12:37
Speaker
And since then, it's been incorporated into the other combustible dust standards. In particular, NFPA 61 applies to this industry. And it is a retroactive requirement. The dust has an analysis for all facilities that are handling combustible dust to do both existing and new facilities. But it's really not a scary endeavor. For our part, working with our clients, we think of the DHA as the path to a clear understanding of what's needed to successfully manage combustible dust hazards. It may be the case that we get into a facility and they're already doing all the right things and there's not much there for them to improve on. That would be the exception rather than the rule. Most of the time though, it creates a roadmap for, hey, here are the things that need to be implemented, do these things, got yourself into a much shatter situation from a safety and compliance standpoint.
00:13:35
Speaker
contrast that to say dust testing in which we really are dealing with scientists in a laboratory taking a five gallon pail of dust that's been generated from say rain cleaning process and feeding that dust into laboratory equipment that will establish whether or not that material is a fire or explosion hazard and to what extent.
00:14:00
Speaker
A lot of the types of values that you hear talked about for combustible dust, things like KST or minimum ignition energy or the temperature it takes to ignite, these are all established through ASTM protocols in which our laboratory would take the the sample, do the test method, and output those results. And those would then become inputs to the dust hazard analysis, or they might become the basis of safety for your explosion protection systems. Well, they're really fascinating. I mean, because they come up with this idea of taking responsibility for your plant, like really getting into the nuts and bolts of it and figuring out
00:14:45
Speaker
How much dust are we producing? How dangerous is that dust? And then from there, what exactly do we have to do to make sure that everyone goes home safe at the end of the day? Which is really what, I mean, all of this is about. It's this regulatory or stuff behind it, obviously, and there's laws you have to follow and all those things. But in my mind, it always comes down to the really important part of like not having to have a really bad conversation with an employee's family and seems like their services to that same goal.
00:15:12
Speaker
Absolutely. I really take to heart the idea that the work that we do is making workplaces safer, helping employees, staff, contractors, you know, come home safely at the end of each day. To be honest with you, combustible dust safety typically is thought of sometimes in a regulatory perspective.
00:15:35
Speaker
But I really like to think about it more from the safety perspective, like, Hey, how can we make sure that we're providing an environment that is free from these hazards that even if somebody's not killed, if you've ever seen the injuries.
00:15:52
Speaker
from somebody who's been involved in a ah burn situation. These are life altering injuries that really give you pause to think, hey, could this have been avoided? And so I personally take a lot of pride in being able to be a part of this goal. And I really like to impress upon clients that that's really what we're after. And there there's more to it too. I mean, you know there's also a you know business continuity side of this, which if you have a grain dryer fire,
00:16:22
Speaker
And you know all of a sudden, it's inoperable for a few weeks. Even if nobody's hurt, that could be a major issue from a business perspective in which yeah you've now lost production because of something that was unplanned and unavoidable. Absolutely.
00:16:41
Speaker
It's an avoidable problem. I'm just a few miles from the Didion milling explosion that happened, dust explosion that happened a few years ago. And so I heard a lot about the fallout of it, just from local reporting and stuff about that. And you're like, no, this changes lives. Five, six years later now, they're still dealing dealing with the fallout from that one incident and it is not great. So all these things are really important, especially the the getting in and making sure everything is fixed and good beforehand.
00:17:10
Speaker
Also, who wants to work in a really dusty environment? Nobody, no employee that I've ever talked to says, I love all the dust that's laying around. Well, Steve, I think a lot of the listeners would probably resonate with that comment. We hear a lot recently from our clients about how hard it is to get and keep labor in kind of jobs because of that exact sentiment. And if making it a safer, more pleasant work environment is going to help solve that problem, you might be killing two birds with one stem. Exactly. At least make it more pleasant for the employees you have there. But speaking of the employees you have there and all of this, I know I got a little sidetracked there, but how can regular maintenance be a cost-effective way to stay compliant with this? Because a lot of it seems like it's that management side, that administrative side, that drilling in.
00:18:00
Speaker
Yeah, I think the best way to answer this is with an example. A few years back, we were contacted by a client that had an OSHA citation, and it included a number of different things, but on the list included housekeeping and typical classification. And the reason for this is that they walked into an area that was thought by the client to be unclassified, rightfully so if things were in their normal condition, but they probably hadn't been for about six months.
00:18:30
Speaker
they had some severe leaks within the dust system that made a real mess of the area. And so what ended up happening was that they could not keep up with housekeeping if they tried. And for one reason or another, it hadn't been addressed. So when OSHA came through, they took a sample, they tested it, they found that it was explosible and they said, Oh, well you've got a quarter or a half inch thick layer of this dust all over the area.
00:18:57
Speaker
In particular, on top of this high voltage electrical enclosure, which is not rated for a class 2 environment, we have found you to not be in compliance. Therefore, here's your citation. And when we got involved, we were able to effectively establish that, hey, it was actually the dust control, the maintenance, and the housekeeping that was the issue and not the electrical side of it, which helped to actually consolidate and reduce some of the fines from the from the citations.
00:19:25
Speaker
which is by no means the outcome of every one of these instances that we get involved with, but it kind of goes to show that if there had been a little bit more attention paid and resources allocated towards preventing that dust leak in the first place, all of a sudden, the ocean inspector may have walked through that room and not noticed it at all, not had anything to say, and you may have avoided that citation altogether.
00:19:52
Speaker
So I don't know if that's necessarily the perfect kind of all encompassing answer, but it's a really good example of how, Hey, look, dust control is really hard if you're not doing a good job of keeping the things that are supposed to be in the closed system in the closed system. Definitely. It also shows how valuable it is to have team like yours on your side when these.
00:20:16
Speaker
inspections do happen it because I know a lot of people would probably just grumble, pay the fine, and then move on. But to have some money on your side to like fight back a little bit sounds like a really big selling point. I appreciate the kind of words, Steven. We try very hard to make sure that we're ensuring that our clients are not just kind of rolling over if they are indeed in the right. I said previously the combustible dust is a little bit niche. It's not something that most generalists are going to be expert on, but what we believe is that if we can provide enough training and kind of coaching, we can at least ensure that there's an understanding from our client's perspective. Hey, here are the basics. We know that we're in the right for X, Y, and Z reasons.
00:21:02
Speaker
And if we ever have questions, they have somebody to call about it. Because at the end of the day, nobody can be an expert at everything. And to have the right resources at your disposal, that's what I think is most important. Yeah. I mean, that's a really good point. And part of being a good manager or a good facility owner or whatever your position is, is knowing what you're not good at.
Webinar Announcement and Additional Resources
00:21:22
Speaker
and deegating those things to people who are very knowledgeable is the key to a good running facility. But for those out there who have now had the light bulb go out and want to know more, where can our listeners learn more about cost-effective saving strategies and maybe a little bit more about you and your company? Well, first, we've got a ah webinar coming up. We're partnering with Feeding Grain here in and next month or so. Not sure when this episode is going to drop as compared to when the webinar will be, but in mid-September we're going to have a live webinar on this topic and I promise I will get into more examples with pictures and we'll go into a couple case studies that I think will really enhance the knowledge of anybody interested in the topic.
00:22:08
Speaker
Additionally, if you visit our website, www.dusconsolutions.com, it might even be easier just to pop duscon solutions into your Google search. you can find We've got a number of kind of resources and videos that can really help anybody that's interested in this. We do try to focus on making sure that our clients aren't you know just going with the the most expensive options out there. you know We try to advocate to ensure that we're pushing safety from a practical point of view. That's very nice to know because a lot of places they do push the most expensive option. so Yeah, I mean, you know as a consultant, our interest lies with our clients not necessarily to sell equipment. right We're not here to sell equipment or anything of that nature. I want to also mention
00:22:59
Speaker
Additionally, there are industry trade groups such as GEPS or NGFA that have wonderful resources on safety beyond just combustible dust. They have additional expertise far beyond what I have personally that can kind of help do that. I know that some of those conferences they have safety Presentations on these topics that you can listen to but they also have written resources that you can download and use and and start to implement within your facilities. Yeah it's harvest green safety week when we're recording this it won't be why the time this goes out but to date ourselves but yeah all those resources are at least on ngfa site are all free too so they're a great resource for people to go to but.
00:23:39
Speaker
Also, really exciting about the webinar. I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to be logged on. It's a great opportunity for people to get their questions answered and get kind of more in depth. Because despite people shouting at their listening or computer device while listening to this, I guess they're not going to get any questions answered here, but they can at the webinar.
00:23:58
Speaker
If the listeners yeah have any questions that they want to pose or need additional information, my contact information is not that hard to find. I'm sure that whether it's on our website or maybe it's in the podcast show notes or something like that, I'm sure that our listeners can find a way to get a hold of me if they do have a nit to pick about what I've said about the topic.
00:24:18
Speaker
It sounds good and we will have links to both your website and, of course, the webinar registration page and all that right in the show notes. So if you're interested, you'll be able to go down there and click. Tim, thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it. Right. Thanks so much, Steven. It was it was a pleasure. Really. Excellent. We'll have to have you on again soon. And for everyone listening out there, stay safe.