Herzig Engineering

Arc-rated gear is only protective if it is the right rating and in the right condition.

PPE is the last layer of defense, and it is the one people quietly compromise. Gloves go untested past their retest date, arc-rated clothing gets contaminated or worn thin, and face shields get scratched to the point of distraction. A layer that looks fine can be doing far less than the worker assumes.

Rating matters just as much as condition. PPE has to match the incident energy of the specific task, not a general guess. Category 2 gear in front of a Category 3 hazard is exposure wearing the costume of protection.

Inspect it, respect the retest dates, and match the gear to the study. PPE you have not verified is a hope, not a safeguard.

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A single-line diagram that no longer matches the building is worse than no diagram at all.

The single-line is the map of how power moves through a facility, and it is the starting point for arc flash studies, coordination, troubleshooting, and safe switching. When equipment gets added, replaced, or re-fed and the drawing is not updated, every decision made from that drawing inherits the error.

Crews plan isolation from the single-line. If it shows a feed that was removed or misses one that was added, someone can believe a section is dead when it is not. The document meant to keep people safe quietly becomes the source of the hazard.

Treat the single-line as a living record. When the system changes, the drawing changes the same day.

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The default for electrical work is de-energized. Energized work is the exception that has to be justified.

NFPA 70E is clear that live work is only acceptable when de-energizing introduces additional hazards or is infeasible, and even then it requires an energized electrical work permit. That permit is not paperwork for its own sake. It forces a team to document the justification, the hazards, the boundaries, the PPE, and the plan before anyone opens the equipment.

The permit process exists to interrupt the "we'll just do it hot" reflex. Most of the time the honest answer is that the work could be scheduled during a shutdown, and the permit is what surfaces that.

If your team does energized work without permits, the missing step is the one that asks whether the work needed to be energized at all.

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Grounding and bonding get used as if they mean the same thing. They do not, and the difference matters when a fault hits.

Bonding ties metal parts together so everything that should be at the same potential actually is, leaving no dangerous voltage difference between two things a worker might touch at once. Grounding connects that bonded system to earth. Both are needed, and they do different jobs.

When bonding is missing or loose, a fault can put a metal enclosure at a lethal potential while the system still looks normal. The protective device may not clear the fault quickly, because the low-impedance path back to the source was never really there.

If your grounding and bonding have never been verified, they are an assumption, not a protection. It is worth confirming the path actually exists.

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An extension cord is the most overworked tool in most facilities, and the least inspected.

Temporary power invites permanent risk. Cords get daisy-chained, run through doorways, pinched under equipment, and left in damp spots well past what they were rated to handle. The damage builds slowly: a nicked jacket, a bent ground pin, a warm plug, until one of them becomes the path to a shock or a fire.

Temporary also has a way of becoming permanent. A cord meant to power a tool for an afternoon is still feeding a workstation months later. If a circuit needs power long term, it needs real wiring, not a cord.

Before the next shift, look at the cords your team leans on. Retire the damaged ones and stop the chains.

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The 2026 NEC expands arc flash labeling to nearly all commercial and industrial equipment, not just the gear you think of first.

The update pushes labels onto more equipment and expects the data behind them to reflect current system conditions. A label is only as good as the study feeding it, so equipment added or modified since your last analysis may now be both in scope and out of date.

If your labeling program was built around the old requirements, this is the year to confirm what changed and where your gaps are, before an inspector or an incident finds them first.

Are you up to date with NEC 2026: https://vist.ly/5fs6c