Get The Buzz... APM Steam Fossil's Vigilance Ensures Safety and Excellence in Spring Outage
On April 29, 2022, Millwrights were tasked with completing a fine mesh screen change outage. While disassembling one of the MSV bonnets, a millwright apprentice noticed a strange sound in the work area. Using a questioning attitude, the apprentice stopped work and raised the concern with his work partners. The noise was described as an air leak. At first the team thought it was the air horns that were located nearby for area cooling. Later, the apprentice noticed there were bubbles coming from around one of the MSV bonnet studs. Again, the millwright apprentice immediately stopped work and raised a concern with a change in the work environment. The area was very noisy, and the superintendent didn’t initially understand the concern completely. So, the apprentice continued to ask until his concern was clear and understood. The superintendent immediately removed all personnel from the work area until the concern was addressed with the customer and the GE site leaders. During investigation, it was discovered that there was 14.2 psi of residual pressure in the boiler drum, due to the cool down cycle of all equipment. The boiler drum continued to depressurize over the next one and half hours. Once the pressure was verified to be safe and LOTO was re-issued, the craft personnel were allowed to return to the task.
The actions of the apprentice and the Superintendent exemplifies APM’s safety culture, and more specifically, Human Performance and the STOP Work program. If not followed, this event could have had a very different outcome. This has been classified as a potential severe event (PSE).
“The actions of this individual may have saved the lives of the team.”
- Max Cassidy, GE EHS
Jacob Carroll joined Millwrights Local 1463 in January 2020, located in Omaha NE.
“I want to start off by saying Millwrights Local 1463 is honored to have Jacob Carroll as a member and industry leader. It is very exciting to hear that a young man like Jacob had the courage to speak up and bring light to the unseen problem. As we teach all our apprentices to speak up and say something if it doesn’t seem right, but as we all know sometimes it is hard to have the courage to actually do so. All of us here, including staff, training, and the membership can all see the endless opportunities for Jacob, and this just proves what type of man he is. Jacob, being a third-generation Millwright, is actively involved in the local and looked up to by the membership as a leader and we couldn’t be more proud to know him.”
- Dan Riskowski & Toby Graser BA, Local 1463
“Jacob’s situational awareness saved the day and likely saved many lives. That said, I would like to put in a positive word for the Carpenters Training Institute organization and what we have all been led to insert into our training programs. From day one when I took this position 2/1/21, safety has ALWAYS been at the forefront. From daily stretch and flex routines before class, to JHA’s being developed every day for shop projects to the fact that we talk about safety every day in every class. In other words, the apprentices are inundated with a safety culture from day one and daily going forward. I spent some time as a safety professional years ago and I developed a philosophy then that a good safety program relied heavily on simply keeping safety at the forefront of everyone’s thoughts frequently. CTI does a great job of doing this.”
- Jeff Chapman, Instructor, Carpenters Training Institute
In March of 2020, Jacob began working with APM. Since that time, Jacob has worked on seven (7) outages APM Fossil Steam outages with four (4) different Superintendents.
“I recently observed Jacob as he and his journeyman were filling out an STA card for their assigned task. I listened closely to the discussions about the assignment, hazards, and mitigation. Jacob showed a great understanding of their assignment, APM policies and the risk involved. Furthermore, he showed his leadership abilities by coaching his partner on the entire STA card process. After they completed their assessments, I reviewed their STA card. It was completed with detail. It listed the potential and mitigations for each hazard identified. CBS commitments were discussed and documented, and it was written clearly with exceptional penmanship.
- Kyle Rogers, Operations Division Leader, APM Fossil Steam