Lancs Industries
Encyclopedia
Lancs Industries is a manufacturer of protective clothing, containments, glovebox
es, enclosures, lead shielding
, and other supplies used for reducing risk and increasing safety of workers in potentially hazardous environments.
Founded in 1974, Lancs Industries is headquartered, and has a 10000 square feet (929 m²) facility in Kirkland, WA, with a field office in Warwick, RI, and provides products for both public and private entities such as, Naval shipyards, nuclear power
plants, and Department of Energy
lab facilities.
, England
, Hollingsworth was an employee of British Aircraft Corporation
working as an aeronautical engineer who came to the United States
in 1966 for an engineering exchange program with Boeing Aircraft
. Choosing to remain in the U.S. as a Boeing employee after the exchange period ended, he worked on the Supersonic Transport (SST)
program in the Seattle metropolitan area. This program was terminated and Hollingsworth ultimately left Boeing in 1974.
Hollingsworth launched Lancs Industries in 1974, as a sign-making company serving the industrial safety market. Projects for Mare Island Naval Shipyard
eventually led to the company’s expansion into fabricating plastic barriers, containments, and protective gear using radio-frequency (RF) heat sealing technology. As the U.S. Nuclear Navy
expanded throughout the 1970s, the need increased for radiological safety items used in construction and maintenance of nuclear powered ships
at Naval shipyards. Lancs worked closely with the Reactor Plant Services (RPS) group at the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics
, designing, fabricating, and supplying these items.
The use of lead wool radiation shielding and heat-sealed plastics for contamination control in commercial nuclear power plants took a dramatic upswing in 1979 as a result of the nuclear accident
at Three Mile Island. This led to the hiring of Ron Therrien from Electric Boat’s RPS in 1983 to address the expanded market for Lancs products in all electrical utility-owned nuclear plants located in North America.
As the Cold War
progressed toward the eventual termination of the nuclear weapons program in 1989, the Nuclear Weapons Production Complex
operated by the U.S. Department of Energy
, consisting of many National laboratories and production facilities, was quickly transformed into a series of radiological decommissioning, decontamination, and remediation projects. These activities ignited a large and continuing demand for supplies and equipment needed to protect human workers from ionizing radiation
and prevent the spread of radioactive contamination
when dealing with radioactive waste
operations. Personal protective equipment
and clothing, containment tents, glovebags, drum liners, covers, flexible sleeving and sheeting, all became instrumental in performing this hazardous waste
cleanup work.
By the year 2001, Lancs had grown in size and reputation to the point that Hollingsworth decided to sell the company. The company was acquired in early 2002 by Tim Wiest, a former Naval officer
in the nuclear power program and telecom industry executive. Under his direction, the company has continued to expand and address a wider set of customer needs with increased responsiveness and sophistication.
Buoyed by an increase in spending in the nuclear power field, Lancs Industries posted record revenue for the company in 2009. Company owner Tim Wiest expects a strong year in 2010 due to stimulus money and increased demand."It's good to see the optimism for this industry," He said.
Lancs Industries is a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Association
.
The ALARA principle is applied throughout the nuclear industry and environments involving radiological exposure, often driven by the field of Health Physics
and common sense. While personnel exposure and dose limits are often explicitly set by a given institution, the methods of controlling exposure to minimize dose within those limits are left to the ALARA practices, which can be quite different from place to place. The Health Physics professionals often have Lancs Industries manufacture items according to the specific ALARA approach for their institution.
The practice of ALARA can generally be considered a cost-benefit tradeoff. The selection of particular methods to control exposure involves optimizing the marginal cost of a given approach with the resulting benefit or reduction in overall dose. If the additional protection provided by an item reduces exposure risk by an amount that is judged to be beneficial compared to the additional cost of materials or labor required for that approach, then it will be reasonable to employ that approach. This is the essence of ALARA.
Sleeving provided on rolls is often cut to length and used to cover radioactive material to prevent the spread of contamination during handling. Typically made of PVC or Polyurethane film formed into a flexible tube, sleeving can cover pipes, hoses, and cables to provide a protective layer. To handle odd-sized objects, adequately sized sleeving is opened so an object can be inserted into the tube which is then twisted to enclose the item at both ends. Tape can be used to secure the twists in place, and then cut free for handling. This is commonly referred to as “horsetailing”.
Glovebags
help to confine contamination at the source, limiting the spread to the space inside the glovebag. Glovebag chambers can be fabricated in limitless shapes and sizes, forming a barrier to enclose a workspace. With attached glovesleeves that allow access for handling, transfer ports to move objects into and out of the chamber, and service sleeves for tooling and ventilation, glovebags can be made to accommodate a wide range of operations on hazardous material without directly touching the items.
Glovebox
A glovebox is a sealed container that is designed to allow one to manipulate objects where a separate atmosphere is desired. Built into the sides of the glovebox are gloves arranged in such a way that the user can place their hands into the gloves and perform tasks inside the box without breaking...
es, enclosures, lead shielding
Lead shielding
Lead shielding refers to the use of lead as a form of radiation protection to shield people or objects from radiation. Lead can effectively attenuate certain kinds of radiation because of its high density and high atomic number; principally, it is effective at stopping alpha rays, gamma rays, and...
, and other supplies used for reducing risk and increasing safety of workers in potentially hazardous environments.
Founded in 1974, Lancs Industries is headquartered, and has a 10000 square feet (929 m²) facility in Kirkland, WA, with a field office in Warwick, RI, and provides products for both public and private entities such as, Naval shipyards, nuclear power
Nuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...
plants, and Department of Energy
United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
lab facilities.
History
Lancs Industries was founded by Graham Hollingsworth. As a native of LancashireLancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, Hollingsworth was an employee of British Aircraft Corporation
British Aircraft Corporation
The British Aircraft Corporation was a British aircraft manufacturer formed from the government-pressured merger of English Electric Aviation Ltd., Vickers-Armstrongs , the Bristol Aeroplane Company and Hunting Aircraft in 1960. Bristol, English Electric and Vickers became "parents" of BAC with...
working as an aeronautical engineer who came to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1966 for an engineering exchange program with Boeing Aircraft
Boeing
The Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...
. Choosing to remain in the U.S. as a Boeing employee after the exchange period ended, he worked on the Supersonic Transport (SST)
Supersonic transport
A supersonic transport is a civilian supersonic aircraft designed to transport passengers at speeds greater than the speed of sound. The only SSTs to see regular service to date have been Concorde and the Tupolev Tu-144. The last passenger flight of the Tu-144 was in June 1978 with its last ever...
program in the Seattle metropolitan area. This program was terminated and Hollingsworth ultimately left Boeing in 1974.
Hollingsworth launched Lancs Industries in 1974, as a sign-making company serving the industrial safety market. Projects for Mare Island Naval Shipyard
Mare Island Naval Shipyard
The Mare Island Naval Shipyard was the first United States Navy base established on the Pacific Ocean. It is located 25 miles northeast of San Francisco in Vallejo, California. The Napa River goes through the Mare Island Strait and separates the peninsula shipyard from the main portion of the...
eventually led to the company’s expansion into fabricating plastic barriers, containments, and protective gear using radio-frequency (RF) heat sealing technology. As the U.S. Nuclear Navy
Nuclear navy
Nuclear navy, or nuclear powered navy consists of ships powered by relatively small onboard nuclear reactors known as naval reactors. The concept was revolutionary for naval warfare when first proposed, as it meant that these vessels did not need to stop for fuel like their conventional...
expanded throughout the 1970s, the need increased for radiological safety items used in construction and maintenance of nuclear powered ships
Nuclear marine propulsion
Nuclear marine propulsion is propulsion of a ship by a nuclear reactor. Naval nuclear propulsion is propulsion that specifically refers to naval warships...
at Naval shipyards. Lancs worked closely with the Reactor Plant Services (RPS) group at the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics
General Dynamics
General Dynamics Corporation is a U.S. defense conglomerate formed by mergers and divestitures, and as of 2008 it is the fifth largest defense contractor in the world. Its headquarters are in West Falls Church , unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, in the Falls Church area.The company has...
, designing, fabricating, and supplying these items.
The use of lead wool radiation shielding and heat-sealed plastics for contamination control in commercial nuclear power plants took a dramatic upswing in 1979 as a result of the nuclear accident
Three Mile Island accident
The Three Mile Island accident was a core meltdown in Unit 2 of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania near Harrisburg, United States in 1979....
at Three Mile Island. This led to the hiring of Ron Therrien from Electric Boat’s RPS in 1983 to address the expanded market for Lancs products in all electrical utility-owned nuclear plants located in North America.
As the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
progressed toward the eventual termination of the nuclear weapons program in 1989, the Nuclear Weapons Production Complex
Nuclear weapons and the United States
The United States was the first country to develop nuclear weapons, and is the only country to have used them in warfare, with the separate bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. Before and during the Cold War it conducted over a thousand nuclear tests and developed many long-range...
operated by the U.S. Department of Energy
United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
, consisting of many National laboratories and production facilities, was quickly transformed into a series of radiological decommissioning, decontamination, and remediation projects. These activities ignited a large and continuing demand for supplies and equipment needed to protect human workers from ionizing radiation
Ionizing radiation
Ionizing radiation is radiation composed of particles that individually have sufficient energy to remove an electron from an atom or molecule. This ionization produces free radicals, which are atoms or molecules containing unpaired electrons...
and prevent the spread of radioactive contamination
Radioactive contamination
Radioactive contamination, also called radiological contamination, is radioactive substances on surfaces, or within solids, liquids or gases , where their presence is unintended or undesirable, or the process giving rise to their presence in such places...
when dealing with radioactive waste
Radioactive waste
Radioactive wastes are wastes that contain radioactive material. Radioactive wastes are usually by-products of nuclear power generation and other applications of nuclear fission or nuclear technology, such as research and medicine...
operations. Personal protective equipment
Personal protective equipment
Personal protective equipment refers to protective clothing, helmets, goggles, or other garment or equipment designed to protect the wearer's body from injury by blunt impacts, electrical hazards, heat, chemicals, and infection, for job-related occupational safety and health purposes, and in...
and clothing, containment tents, glovebags, drum liners, covers, flexible sleeving and sheeting, all became instrumental in performing this hazardous waste
Hazardous waste
A hazardous waste is waste that poses substantial or potential threats to public health or the environment. According to the U.S. environmental laws hazardous wastes fall into two major categories: characteristic wastes and listed wastes.Characteristic hazardous wastes are materials that are known...
cleanup work.
By the year 2001, Lancs had grown in size and reputation to the point that Hollingsworth decided to sell the company. The company was acquired in early 2002 by Tim Wiest, a former Naval officer
Officer (armed forces)
An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a sovereign power and, as such, hold a commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position...
in the nuclear power program and telecom industry executive. Under his direction, the company has continued to expand and address a wider set of customer needs with increased responsiveness and sophistication.
Buoyed by an increase in spending in the nuclear power field, Lancs Industries posted record revenue for the company in 2009. Company owner Tim Wiest expects a strong year in 2010 due to stimulus money and increased demand."It's good to see the optimism for this industry," He said.
Lancs Industries is a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Association
Principles
Many industries involve activities that expose workers to potential hazards. Physical hazards such as falling or fire, biological hazards such as infectious pathogens or disease, and material hazards such as chemicals or toxic carcinogens, must all be addressed by taking appropriate measures to reduce the risk of harm or injury to workers. The guiding principle is to keep this risk “as low as reasonably achievable” (ALARA)ALARP
ALARP stands for "as low as reasonably practicable", and is a term often used in the milieu of safety-critical and safety-involved systems. The ALARP principle is that the residual risk shall be as low as reasonably practicable...
.
The ALARA principle is applied throughout the nuclear industry and environments involving radiological exposure, often driven by the field of Health Physics
Health physics
Health physics is a field of science concerned with radiation physics and radiation biology with the goal of providing technical information and proper techniques regarding the safe use of ionizing radiation...
and common sense. While personnel exposure and dose limits are often explicitly set by a given institution, the methods of controlling exposure to minimize dose within those limits are left to the ALARA practices, which can be quite different from place to place. The Health Physics professionals often have Lancs Industries manufacture items according to the specific ALARA approach for their institution.
The practice of ALARA can generally be considered a cost-benefit tradeoff. The selection of particular methods to control exposure involves optimizing the marginal cost of a given approach with the resulting benefit or reduction in overall dose. If the additional protection provided by an item reduces exposure risk by an amount that is judged to be beneficial compared to the additional cost of materials or labor required for that approach, then it will be reasonable to employ that approach. This is the essence of ALARA.
Methods
Loose radioactive particles can be found throughout a radiological work facility. Barriers made of flexible materials help to confine the spread of this contamination and to protect workers from exposure. Barriers can be in the form of different configurations such as, sleeving, glovebags, containment tents, catch containments, bags, covers and protective clothing.Sleeving provided on rolls is often cut to length and used to cover radioactive material to prevent the spread of contamination during handling. Typically made of PVC or Polyurethane film formed into a flexible tube, sleeving can cover pipes, hoses, and cables to provide a protective layer. To handle odd-sized objects, adequately sized sleeving is opened so an object can be inserted into the tube which is then twisted to enclose the item at both ends. Tape can be used to secure the twists in place, and then cut free for handling. This is commonly referred to as “horsetailing”.
Glovebags
Glovebox
A glovebox is a sealed container that is designed to allow one to manipulate objects where a separate atmosphere is desired. Built into the sides of the glovebox are gloves arranged in such a way that the user can place their hands into the gloves and perform tasks inside the box without breaking...
help to confine contamination at the source, limiting the spread to the space inside the glovebag. Glovebag chambers can be fabricated in limitless shapes and sizes, forming a barrier to enclose a workspace. With attached glovesleeves that allow access for handling, transfer ports to move objects into and out of the chamber, and service sleeves for tooling and ventilation, glovebags can be made to accommodate a wide range of operations on hazardous material without directly touching the items.