ATEX / EEx Equipment Service SOP
An ATEX/EEx equipment service SOP for equipment already installed in a classified hazardous area: certification verification, isolation, inspection, service or repair, and a hard compliance re-verification gate before return to operation.
How it works
Replace the lanes with your actual hazardous-area roles
This chart uses ServiceDesk, Field Electrical, ATEX / EEx Specialist, QA / Compliance and Customer. If a separate person independently signs the compliance gate from whoever performed the repair, keep that as its own lane rather than folding the check into whoever happens to be closing the enclosure.
Put your own marking and compliance tolerances on both gates
"ATEX/EEx certification current and matches equipment?" and "Enclosure restored to EEx compliance (gaskets, torque, flamepath gaps)?" both need the actual accepted marking, gas group, temperature class, flamepath gap tolerance and fastener torque values, not just "checked". Write them into each row's comment field so the person verifying isn't relying on memory.
Name who has the authority to call Halt or Non-conforming
Both decisions in this chart are hard stops that cannot be overridden by schedule pressure. Attach a named role, not just a title, to each so there's no ambiguity about who can send a job back to documentation review or send an enclosure back for rework instead of letting it close up wrong.
Set People and Workload on every row before you rely on the BI panel
The workload panel can only total hours for rows that carry them. Fill in People and Workload for each step as you adapt the chart, using realistic effort hours rather than elapsed time, so a week with two hazardous-area jobs actually shows up as a busy week for the right specialist.
Decide what counts as a non-conformance at the compliance gate
"Enclosure restored to EEx compliance (gaskets, torque, flamepath gaps)?" is only useful if the specialist and the technician who did the work agree in advance on what triggers the Non-conforming branch: a gasket that wasn't replaced, a fastener torqued by feel instead of to spec, a flamepath gap outside tolerance. List examples directly in "Rework enclosure closure to correct non-conformance" so the checklist isn't interpreted differently by whoever happens to be on duty.
Frequently asked questions
What triggers the start of the ATEX/EEx equipment service process?
The process starts at "EEx equipment service request received": a customer reports a fault, or scheduled service is due, on equipment that is already installed and certified in a classified hazardous area. That single fact, that the equipment sits in a classified zone, is what pulls in every gate that follows, starting with fixing the equipment's identity and zone before anything is touched.
What happens if the equipment's certification can't be verified?
The "ATEX/EEx certification current and matches equipment?" decision routes a mismatch straight to "Halt job, request missing certification or documentation", and the job is held, not written off. Once the manufacturer's declaration of conformity or the customer's own equipment record resolves the gap, the job goes back through certification verification from scratch rather than resuming partway through.
Why is the compliance check after service as strict as the certification check before it?
Opening an EEx enclosure for service and then closing it back up wrong defeats its protection exactly as completely as an uncertified nameplate would have. A missing gasket, a fastener that wasn't torqued to spec, or a flamepath gap outside tolerance is invisible to a general close-up look, so "Enclosure restored to EEx compliance (gaskets, torque, flamepath gaps)?" is drawn as a hard gate with the same weight as the certification check, not a formality on the way to functional testing.
Who has the authority to call a compliance non-conformance?
In this chart the compliance gate sits with the ATEX / EEx Specialist role, Cecilia Rourke, not with the technician who performed the repair. Naming that authority explicitly is what keeps schedule pressure from turning a rework call into a judgment the person who did the work makes about their own job.
How is this different from Scanel's Generator & Electric Motor Maintenance SOP?
The generator and motor maintenance SOP covers rotating machinery maintenance in general, with vibration analysis and alignment as its own mechanical discipline. This SOP exists specifically for equipment, including EEx-rated motors, that sits in a classified hazardous area, and it adds the certification-verification gate before the enclosure is opened and the compliance re-verification gate after. Use this SOP whenever the equipment is EEx-rated and already installed in a classified zone; use the ordinary maintenance SOP everywhere else.
Does this SOP cover installing new EEx equipment in a hazardous area for the first time?
No. This chart is the service side of Scanel's hazardous-area work: equipment that is already installed and certified, and now needs service, maintenance or repair. Fitting new EEx equipment into a classified area for the first time is engineering and installation work, scoped and approved before this SOP's "EEx equipment service request received" step would ever apply.