Meeting Challenges with Innovation

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Canadian S&Cers have been working to install a system of switchgear units at McMaster University Medical Centre in Hamilton, Ontario. This teaching hospital has three major functions: a children’s hospital, a women’s health center, and adult outpatient services. It is ranked as a top three research hospital in Canada. Before S&C came along, it also featured eight different switchgear lineups custom built back in the ’70s, according to Navid Kazemeini (Toronto Sales Office). These older lineups had begun having frequent problems, causing disruptions and frustration for the medical centre. Whenever the hospital had to work on the equipment, they dealt with outages throughout the hospital.

Another company attempted to retrofit the switchgear units but was unsuccessful. McMaster put out a call to see what different manufacturers would be able to do for them. Bringing reliable electricity to the hospital came with a whole host of challenges: Narrow doors and hallways only two-thirds the size of any switchgear system, an existing layout that had to be tailored to, and an intense logistical operation. S&Cers never shy away from difficult obstacles, though, and put their heads together to meet the hospital’s needs.

After extensive back-and-forth meetings between the customer, engineers, and other professionals, a never-before-seen solution was devised. The team decided to build each bay in separate locations, fully assembling at the factory and then disassembling before shipping.

“This required lots of site coordination with the hospital contractors,” Navid explains. “With the supervision of our PSS field services personnel, we helped the customer put the switchgear back together on-site and it is now operational.”

With the first system installed and operating smoothly, McMaster’s people knew they could trust S&C with the rest of this extensive project, which includes seven more units. Installing the rest of the equipment is an ongoing commitment that S&C is eager to take on. Our vision is to empower people to transform the grid, and there is no better example than creating innovative solutions to support those on the front lines of a pandemic.