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Since the disasters of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma (also known as the 2005 Gulf Coast Hurricanes) businesses are investing and planning for the next disaster by reviewing both Natural Disasters (flood, fire, earthquake, hurricane, etc) and Man made disasters (accidents, walkouts, sabotage, burglary, virus, etc). For the purpose of this plan, we will be focused on Natural Disaster planning.
With increased importance of continuous critical business functions, combined with a transition to an around-the-clock economy, the importance of protecting organizations ability to ship has become a focus point. Skarnes Incorporated has served to aid, counsel and assist with the planning process and execution to protect the ability to continuously ship products for our customers. With the help of Hytrol Conveyors, we have prepared a response plan, instituted an all hands on deck approach, and defined available equipment that can be released to the site within 24 hours of the approved action plan.
The disaster recovery plan for your facility is based around the future potential for flooding. Therefore we will focus on the conveyor system, controls, and field wiring with regards to a flood occurring without warning and secondarily with notification.
Please keep in mind that customers should incorporate the ability ship orders intended from other facilities. We believe this can be enacted within 1 hour from the time the need is identified. This "shifting" of work load is already occurring for other situations such as out of stock items, freight costs, and overflow.
Recovery Efforts for the Conveyor System
In this section we hope to identify the steps to take and time required to get the conveyor system up and running again. Skarnes Incorporated has a dedicated team that will implement all the resources necessary to execute an "all hands on deck" approach. We also have the manufacturing and warehousing support of Hytrol Conveyors. They are committed to shipping standard conveyors within 24 hours of any event of this magnitude.
The first step in the recovery is the needs assessment. "How much got wet?", "Did the electrical system get wet?", "Did the control panel get wet?", "How about roller bearings, motors, reducers, and the various other mechanical components?" Skarnes Incorporated will deploy a team to complete this assessment within 12 hours of being contacted. We will submit a report to the Customer Management team with photos and costs associated to the various items as shown to the right.
This assessment will include the mechanical items as well as the electrical. The Skarnes team will evaluate the initial loss due to the immediate hazard and will work to identify the future loss once the disaster subsides and items begin to rust, corrode, and deteriorate as a part of long term failure.
A primary focus would be around the electrical infrastructure. The standard wiring practice using EMT conduit is not water tight. Therefore all fittings, junction boxes, connections and wire would be highly susceptible to failure. Because these items are labor intensive to move or modify, they generally are only dealt with after a disaster has occurred. One exception to this rule of thumb would be the electrical panels themselves.
In the electrical panel we have all the motor starters, fuses, disconnects, and a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC). If given sufficient warning, we could evaluate for the possibility of disconnecting the panel and moving it to a higher elevation. Based on the time allowed this could mean we cut the main wire feeds to the panel for salvage purposes only or we disconnect and tag each wire appropriately in the hopes of reinstalling it at a later date.
Contact Skarnes to ask about a disaster recovery plan.
