Hello All,

My company is currently almost totally non-compliant, and we are trying to determine what method[s] to employ to solve the problem.

Some of the powers that be think we can just use the tables, mark everything a "2", use HRC2 PPE, and anything that's over a "2" we don't work on.

My problem is that I don't know how you could possibly know something might be over a "2" if you don't perform the assessment. I have been told I can do the assessment myself, but I don't feel that I am qualified since I'm not sure where some of the key data comes from. ie. Bolted Fault Current

If I follow orders, and do the calculations, and it turns out later (after some incident with injuries let's say) am I personally responsible for this?

Thanks for your consideration.

Generally, your employer is legally liable, not you. You would be ethically responsible, however, if you performed a study for which you were not capable of performing correctly either because of lack of expertise or lack of information. If you are a registered PE, you could lose your license. The lack of information can sometimes be handled by engineering judgement, but you must have the experience necessary to exercise the judgement and the knowledge to understand how to make conservative estimates.

And when something happens that trips one of your breakers in a large panel (or even worse a main breaker), are you suposed to just let it stay open and not do any work to determine why it tripped or reclose it after? Even if you called in the power company, they can not open the feed unless the mains are tripped open first, which still requires opperation while energized...then can't just close all the breakers while de-energized and have power company re-energize. Bottom line, work on equipment while energized is required at times and you should have a proper arc flash analysis done to determine the magnitude of hazard while doing such work and appropriate PPE to wear. If the company doesn't like the prosective of cost, tell the to research the fines that OSHA will impose if an incident does happen and Arc Flash compliance is not in place...