Air pollutants, dust, chemicals and other potentially hazardous materials pose a variety of health risks to workers in the manufacturing, construction, and related industries. While many businesses operating in these industries conduct process hazard analyses (PHAs) or take other steps to establish OSHA process safety standard compliant workplaces, they often struggle to know how to select measures that best meet their business objectives or to ensure that the measures chosen are well implemented. It is for these critical, yet challenging problems that manufacturers turn to EAD, a trusted advisor in engineering, automation, design and project management solutions, to help solve.

EAD designs with safety as their top priority. The firm primarily serves clients in the food processing, pharmaceutical, and logistics/parcel industries; however, they can perform services at any facility requiring process safety management (PSM) compliance. Unlike many companies that offer process safety consulting services, EAD has an in-house engineering team with expertise in a full range of disciplines, allowing them to provide customized support in process controls integration, industrial construction management, structural engineering, mechanical engineering, and electrical engineering, to name just a few specialties.

EAD leverages this wealth of expertise into their PSM programs so that they are at once comprehensive in scope yet attuned to the specific needs of each client. Once implemented, EAD provides 24/7, 365 days per year of support to make sure clients can maintain their programs over the long-term. “More than just developing a compliant PSM program for clients, we develop a program that makes the lives of our client’s operations professionals easier. We give them tools to ensure preventive maintenance and improve the management of change programs and documentation,” says Ed Gaither, engineering director at EAD.

"We believe in the idea of relationship building, and assist our clients in making things better, safer, and more profitable for them"

From enabling clients to deploy safe designs to helping them design safe processes to carry out their projects, the EAD team does it all. They assist construction companies with constructability reviews of equipment and tools, ensuring safety is a part of the design strategy of all equipment deployed on-site. At the request of their clients, EAD even develops customized standard operating procedures.

“We start early to fundamentally set some basic guidelines for our clients along the lines of life, occupational, and process safety,” Gaither explains.

EAD has earned a reputation for providing clients with process design safety services of exceptionally high quality. They develop PHAs that are customized to each client facility. The firm even evaluates the caliber of PHAs that clients may have commissioned from other firms, providing recommendations on how to best address prior findings and helping to ensure the recommendations are successfully implemented. One of the firm’s major long-term clients is a leading Fortune 500 foods producer prone to combustible dust safety hazards as a result of the types of materials they must handle. EAD partnered with the client to develop their internal combustible dust safety standards, taking into consideration every detail, from the size of their ductwork to the types of technologies needed to protect their dust collectors.

Drawing from an extensive portfolio of engineering, construction, and automation solutions, EAD increases clients’ production efficiencies and lowers their operational costs. They are also positioning themselves at the forefront of the industry through technology investments that drive high-value, integrated solutions. The company is purchasing automation technologies that better facilitate data collection from the production floor, providing clients with tools to make more data-driven business decision making. “We believe in the idea of relationship building, and assist our clients in making things better, safer, and more profitable for them,” concludes Dean Epperson, senior project manager and safety director at EAD.