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Imagine . . .
. . . walking into a business office and
seeing the telephone operator seated before a big old-fashioned
switchboard, routing calls from this line to that by frenetically
yanking patchcords from this jack and plugging them into that one.
Imagine seeing the accountants hard at work on hand-cranked adding
machines, and the engineers struggling with slide-rules. Your jaw
would drop in astonishment.
But, for no other reason than that we are accustomed to it, many of us in the plating industry can look at plating shops which have not been substantially modernized in 40 or more years and not be shocked. Or worse, stand by in silence while an associate spends good money rebuilding a shop with new equipment -- but which shop will be indistinguishable from photos of the shop their grandfather built in the early '50s! Is it 'forward thinking' to build a brand new 1955 shop?
Times have changed, and economic factors
have changed. And in this age, we are also raising a new generation
of citizens who are most emphatically NOT used to 1950's style
wet-processing facilities, and will not tolerate their existence.
An old-fashioned switchboard at least has quaintness and harmlessness
on its side. But a plating shop with rinsewater splashing around on
the floor is a shop with toxic waste splashing around! As it was put
so succinctly by New Jersey's former Governor, Tom Kean: " 'Toxic' is
a matter of statute, not opinion." In a few years--at
most--customers, employees, regulators, and the general public not
only will be shocked to see such facilities, but will be outraged as
well -- ready to judge the owners and managers as socially
irresponsible.
The first principle in designing a shop for the present and the
future is that it must be dry. Achieving a dry shop involves several
general requirements:
Process Islands
In bygone days, plating shops were often arranged with a cleaning
line in one area, an acid room in another, and the plating processes
in a third. Wet work was carried from one area to another, dripping
all the while, with wastewater consequently tracked around by the
operators.
Such an inherent flaw usually cannot be rectified a tank at a time,
but requires rethinking the whole plating shop. Work must enter a
line dry, stay on a single wet-processing island, and be dried before
leaving the process island and entering the transportation or walking
aisles. This usually means that each processing line must be
independent and self-sufficient with its own cleaning, pickling,
plating, and post-treatment tanks.
Enclosed Waste
Lines
Old-fashioned shops often have trenches into which wastewater and
waste solutions flow, not only splashing around but relentlessly
searching for a breech in the floor coating through which they can
leach into the ground. It is the nature of the floor coatings in
plating shops to go unmaintained for years or decades; and, because
the coating is right on the floor with no observable dry space
between it and the floor, it is nearly impossible to notice a leak
before damage is done. In the long run, an impervious floor coating
in a plating shop is the exception not the rule; allowing wastewater
to flow in open trenches is almost a guarantee of contaminating the
earth below, and no one can even keep track of all the plating
facilities that have been saddled with cleanup costs in the
millions.
In modern shops all waste must be conveyed in enclosed pipes. The
pipes, whether in a trench or not, must be elevated off the floor a
bit so that there is a space between the bottom of the pipe and the
floor which can be observed to be dry. While few plating shops yet
use double containment piping, in planning any revamped area be sure
to at least allow space in the trenches and vias for the piping to be
double contained in the future.
Secondary
Containment
Valves and piping occasionally fail, tanks get overfilled, and acts
of God like fire and earthquakes damage primary containment devices.
For all these reasons, as well as to comply with local sewer codes,
OSHA safety rules, and pollution prevention regulations, secondary
containment is becoming increasingly necessary.
Some people feel that a curbed and coated floor is a good secondary
containment device, but the author believes plastic containment pans
are often a better approach for two reasons. First, a leak in a
containment pan elevated off the floor is visible and can be
corrected before any contamination of the ground occurs, while a
breech in a floor topping can be almost undetectable. Second, for
good housekeeping and worker attitude it is imperative that it be
understood that the floor is supposed to be dry; to install a floor
which is designed to be wet is a contradiction and an invitation to
sloppiness.
Attention to
Detail
It is important that an attitude be instilled which says that
wastewater should not reach the floor, and that if it does it must
immediately be cleaned up. Equipment that can help make this possible
includes drip shields between each tank and each containment pan.
Adequate freeboard and drain & overflow piping is also necessary
so that slosh-over doesn't occur when work is immersed in the
tank.
Usually, alarm horns should be installed to sound when liquid is
detected in floor sumps or containment pans. This is desirable
because there should be an immediate "downside" to the presence of
liquid in these areas or it will soon be accepted as normal. Then, of
course, the secondary containment device will have become a primary
containment device, and there will no longer be any secondary
containment.
For many decades it was routine for steam traps to vent to the
atmosphere. The resulting accumulating moisture not only accelerates
corrosion, but inevitably results in a wet shop. Today, there are few
shops where condensate is not returned to the boiler; but there
should be not a one.
Extensive rust and corrosion can be costly, condemn housekeeping
programs to failure, demand impossibly high maintenance levels, and
imbue most who see it with the suspicion that something is terribly
wrong.
Vital to modern shops is the use of modern materials. Whereas steel
tanks and catwalks can sometimes be essentially unmaintainable, PVC,
polypropylene, and proper grades of fiberglass will last indefinitely
in most plating environments without significant maintenance.
Even worse than steel is aluminum, and aluminized or galvanized
materials. These materials are deliberately designed to corrode! See,
in some environments the corrosion products comprise a relatively
impervious skin; but in a humid and acidic plating shop, aluminum and
zinc accelerate corrosion rather than retard it. Where sheet metal
must be used for roofing panels and other uses, make sure it isn't
galvanized or aluminized. And, while speaking of the roof, remember
that substantial wide flange girders may be heavier and more
expensive than spindly bar joists, but they can be painted and
otherwise regularly maintained at a fraction of the cost.
Not only should the major equipment items be built of plastic, but
the little ones should be as well. Metal electrical conduit, pipe,
pipe support clamps and patent channel can be virtually impossible to
maintain in a plating environment; but when these items are made of
plastic they can be installed and virtually forgotten; with
occasional cleaning will look brand new for many years.
Plated steel bolts, nuts, and washers don't belong anywhere near a
plating tank. Where plastic can't easily be used, stainless steel
hardware should be the minimum requirement.
Depending on the process chemistry, it is usually advantageous to
nickel plate the anode and cathode rods and saddles, resulting in
tremendously improved appearance, corrosion resistance, and
durability over plain copper. The copper in bus runs can be lacquered
to prevent corrosion and to enhance cleanability.
To appreciate the importance of cleanliness in a plating shop,
consider a parallel: As you drive up to a MacDonald's restaurant and
see employees hard at work washing windows that are obviously already
spotless, do you worry about the cleanliness of their food
preparation counters--or is it just illogical that the counters could
be dirty when the employees have nothing better to do than rewash
windows that are already clean? Similarly, if you run a plating shop
which is spotless you will have far less trouble with the regulators
and the public.
While it is certainly important to enforce a program of regular
cleaning, the shop also should be easy and practical to clean in the
first place.
In designing the process islands, allow for access all around. When
one side or end of a tank line is inaccessible due to being placed
against a wall, it can be dangerous or impossible to clean and
maintain. Instead, maintain aisleways between walls and the process
lines on all four sides.
Tanks should be elevated a minimum of 12" off the floor so that the
underside of the tanks can be readily inspected and maintained, and
so there are no blind areas where sweeping and mopping are impossible
and dirt and trash accumulate.
If your maintenance people have to climb ladders or install temporary
scaffolding to gain access to an area, that area will not be likely
to be kept clean and properly maintained. Permanent access platforms
are the solution.
Shape the contour of the floor, and design the walkways, so that
there is a bare minimum of structure to clean, coat, and maintain.
Strive for an integrated design where each piece of structure serves
multiple purposes, rather than tacking on "this & that" and then
having to clean, paint, and maintain countless little brackets and
supports forevermore.
New shops should be planned with high headroom. Substantial exhaust
ventilation is becoming increasingly necessary for safety reasons as
well as to maintain cleanliness, and it can be nearly impossible to
design a draft-free environment when high air flow rates are employed
in a shop of low headroom. Additionally, a high headroom shop reduces
corrosion of the ceiling panels and roof supports, keeping the
working environment cleaner and more maintainable--not to mention
permitting better lighting, providing cleaner air for the employees
to breathe, and reducing the feeling of claustrophobia that a plant
full of chemical tanks and hot vats can impart.
To try to save energy at the cost of inadequate lighting in a plating
shop is perhaps the ultimate example of penny wise and pound foolish.
The energy requirements of lighting a plating shop are so minimal
compared to rectification and tank heating that they can probably be
safely ignored; and if the cost of rejects is taken into account, a
good case can be made that bright lighting actually saves energy.
Most shops should probably double their number of lighting fixtures
before even bothering to do any calculations or lighting
measurements! In many jurisdictions, the power company will even help
you pay for this new lighting if you use energy efficient
fixtures.
High pressure sodium fixtures might be okay for outdoor lighting at
night, but the author's opinion is that for a proper work
environment, lighting must be white, not orange. Fluorescent lighting
fills this bill adequately, but even better are metal halide lights.
And metal halide lights mounted way up in the rafters are one less
thing exposed to corrosive tank fumes, thereby simplifying cleaning
and maintenance.
In designing a new plating shop, an additional factor that can be
considered is available daylight. Some shops, like some artist's
studios, have taken outstanding advantage of natural lighting. Yes,
we are advocating windows.
When considering the tangible benefits of proper lighting, the
intangible should also be kept in mind. As long as there are humans
on this planet there will be primordial suspicion about dark places.
Even children know that bogeymen hide in dark corners. And to the
regulators and the public, the bogeymen that live in the dark corners
of plating shops have the names "Environmental Skeleton" and
"Imminent Disaster". Just because these bogeymen aren't seen is not
convincing evidence they're not lurking there. The only sure way to
drive them away is to turn up the lights.
Just as cleanliness in the visible areas generates a confidence that
the less visible areas are clean, bright paint in varied colors
implies a sense of organization and purpose, a feeling of safety and
predictability, that things are under control and all is well -- the
"Sesame Street effect".
Acid tanks might best be bright red, while acid rinses are bright
pink, and other tanks other bright colors. Electrical panels should
be blue enamel, moving parts OSHA orange, and aisleways yellow.
Ceilings and walls should probably be brilliant white, not only for a
clean appearance but to enhance reflectivity and thus raise lighting
levels.
While you're brightening things up, if you've worked hard to keep
your grounds uncontaminated and your shop air clean, demonstrate it
with outdoor plantings and an abundance of living things inside.
None of this is meant to be taken as cynicism--as if we should try to
con people with a slick paint job, like some oily car salesman.
Rather, the fact is that we should be constantly organizing,
planning, thinking, and improving all the time. And having done so,
having made real progress, we should turn up the lights and proudly
show off what we've achieved, and transmit that sense of organization
to others--not obscure it all under a uniformly lifeless coat of drab
institutional paint.
We live in changing times, with new
technology constantly making improvements possible. Some of the
possible changes are inexpensive, easy to implement, and can be done
in step-wise fashion beginning immediately. Others are much more
expensive, and may essentially require starting over in whole areas
of the shop.
But the public will soon be asking for the heads of anyone operating
a plating shop in the fashion of the '40s and '50s, so it is most
certainly not too early to begin our general plans to bring our shops
into the next century.
