The 5S Way To Safety In Datacentres

Every organisation today has a datacentre or a computer room. It is possible that some of them would have been built many years back, some would have been revived and some would not. This usually includes computer rooms in locations / branches / factories. It’s the time to introspect whether the datacentres and computer rooms in our office / location / branches are safe, secure and in order. Safety is an attitude and has to be 100 percent all the time.

Everyone is aware of the damage and impact a mishap due to unsafe conditions can do for an organisation and its people.

Pointers To Ensure Safety At Work Place / Datacentre / Computer Room

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• Identify and asses the current scenario in terms of potential safety hazards from Power Protection, AC, Fire Alarm, UPS, UPS Battery, Powering in Racks, Electricity Cables, and Servers Protection, Networking equipment, etc.

• Some of the computer rooms and datacentre may be used for storage of paper, files or boxes which are potential for any safety hazard.

• Identify unused electronic equipment, including Printers, Scanners or Battery, which can also be a potential safety hazard.

• Classify these items under category and do a detailed root cause analysis of each of these items for potential safety hazard

• Dispose of unused items as per your organisation’s scrap policy

• Document these processes and scenarios for future reference.

• Come out with a checklist for periodic review to ensure 100% safety in workplace.

Pointers For Better Housekeeping In Datacentres And Computer Rooms

If we take a walk around our datacentre and computer rooms, we will find enough opportunity for better housekeeping / up keep of the same. In LEAN / Quality Management / Six Sigma, it is known as Visual Work Place (Concept derived from Visual Factory). We can apply the same principles in our datacentre / computer room to create visual appeal.

• Visual display on racks mentioning what is inside them

• Visual display of servers and network equipment inside the racks for easy monitoring and maintenance.

• TPM charts displayed

• Network diagram and LAN diagram

• Performance Monitoring Charts on datacentre equipment displayed

• In case of emergency details displayed

• Lighting in datacentre / computer room to be eco-friendly

• Cable management to ensure there are no cables hung

• Owner name and contact details displayed in computer room / datacentre on racks, networking equipment, servers, etc.

5 S principles from Lean Management / TQM / Six Sigma

• Sort (Seiri) - Separate the necessary things from the unnecessary and discard the unnecessary

• Set in Order (Seiton) - Neatly arrange and identify things for ease of use

• Shine (Seiso) - To always clean up; to maintain tidiness and cleanliness in your workplace

• Standardise (Shitsuke) - To have workers make a habit of always conforming to rules

• Sustain (Seiketsu) - To constantly maintain the 4S above

A safe workplace and visual workplace will create a safe and healthy environment for people working in it and also for people seeing it.

The views expressed by the author are personal and not meant to represent the official position of Otis and UTC on any matter.