By Andrew Perks
We are being continuously asked how you improve efficiency and the operation of a cold store. That’s an interesting question depending on which side of the fence you sit.
 |
Andrew Perks is a subject expert in ammonia refrigeration. Since undertaking his apprenticeship in Glasgow in the 1960s he has held positions of contracts engineer, project engineer, refrigeration design engineer, company director for a refrigeration contracting company and eventually owning his own contracting company and low temperature cold store. He is now involved in adding skills to the ammonia industry, is merSETA accredited and has written a variety of unit standards for SAQA that define the levels to be achieved in training in our industry. |
In reality a cold store operation is primarily about logistics, handling, storing and distribution of product. Depending on which camp you are in, that sequence will be where your focus should be. However, management sees it as a complex problem with every sector being important to getting synergy of the whole facility.
Being a refrigeration guy, I always thought that the cooling side of the operation was the most important. Until one day, when working on a plant issue, my anxious client asked me what was happening and when would he be back up and running. I went into a whole lecture about all the issues – only to have the bemused client repeat: “When will I have cold air?” All he wanted was cold air. I have never forgotten that as I think it was one of the most sobering moments of my career. It’s that old adage ‘you can’t see the wood for the trees’. Well, I had lost sight of the service we were supplying, getting caught up in the detail and not the objective. Those few words of my client have stayed with me my whole life.
Being a member of the Global Cold Chain Alliance has broadened our outlook and we now see the bigger picture and have looked at addressing the following essential services when it comes to assisting facilities to get the best out of their cold store operation.
Primarily it’s all about basic management of the cold store facility and understanding how it all works, operating costs and resource efficiencies. The actual business revolves around logistics and that is where most cold warehousing staff are specialised. Moving product in and out is a major operation which needs to be focused in-house. Maintaining and operating the refrigeration system can be outsourced to specialised contractors who can take the workload and responsibility away from the cold store, allowing the staff to focus their efforts on storing and handling product.
We believe that the function of refrigeration systems in a cold storage facility is to deliver cold air at the correct temperature – it is an essential commodity. There will be the need to have an on-the-ground plant operator monitoring the day-to-day operation to a strict predefined programme. Each cold store needs to decide if they wish to become refrigeration experts or to enter an arrangement with a contractor who will maintain the plant.
However, each cooling plant has its own peculiarities that need to be addressed and is required to comply with legal safety requirements on the OHS Act as follows:
- SANS 10147 sites statutory legal compliance requirements: All refrigeration systems should have a certificate of compliance issued by the construction contractor
- Refrigeration operation manual, a requirement of SANS 10147: Simple information on components and how they work to permit a semi-skilled SAQCC Gas Cat A Plant Operator to monitor and be a front-line person in the plant’s operation working in conjunction with the site’s refrigeration contractor
- Maintenance and checks that need to be carried out: Statutory inspections and checklist for SAQCC Gas Cat A operational personnel compiled in a user-friendly format
- Record keeping: Plantroom logbooks for record keeping on site which are monitored on a regular basis
A lot of that should already be in place – and if not it’s maybe time to look at the control and operation of your refrigeration plant and ensure your plant operators are suitably trained and have the information required to allow them to do their job.
But it doesn’t stop there. One of the issues that we come across is a lack of preparedness for any type of emergency response. It’s painfully obvious that clients seem to think that a trained SAQCC Gas plant operator will handle anything that goes wrong on the site. Not so. The OHS Act requires that each site has a SANS 1514 emergency plan. This should be a working document on how to respond to an emergency uniquely tailored to the particular site.
The emergency response training needs to be tailored to the specific site’s emergency response plan for the site’s five emergency response teams:
- Ammonia responders’ team
- Evacuation team
- First aid team
- Firefighting team, and
- Security team
All five of these teams are required by the OHS Act to undertake site incident training once a year to ensure that they know exactly how to co-ordinate their efforts and respond in an emergency situation.
As you can see running a cold store requires a dedicated team, suitably trained and knowledgeable in their respective fields.
Till next month, stay safe.
By Andrew Perks