Madigan Army Medical Center

Madigan Army Medical Center (MAMC), located on the Fort Lewis campus near Tacoma, Washington, is a state-of-the-art 414 bed medical center serving over 175,000 military personnel and dependants. The main building consists of 1.2 million square feet of occupied space and an additional 1.2 million square feet of interstitial space for service equipment. Construction commenced in 1985 and the facility opened for business in 1992.

As originally constructed, MAMC protected its critical electrical circuits with 29 ASCO automatic transfer switches, all open transition type. Sixteen of the transfer switches were equipped with bypass-isolation mechanisms. The hospital's five 850 KW standby generator sets are controlled by ASCO paralleling switchgear. A full test of the entire emergency power supply system (EPSS), including transfers of all 29 transfer switches, is conducted monthly in compliance with NFPA 110.

The ASCO equipment performed according to spec from the beginning, but the facility engineers frequently received complaints about the power interruptions caused by the monthly automatic transfer switch (ATS) transfers. Sensitive electronic equipment would frequently have to be re-booted after a scheduled EPSS test.

In 1995 the hospital contracted ASCO Services Inc. (ASI), the service arm of ASCO Power Technologies, to convert eight of the most critical transfer switches from open transition type (break-before-make) to closed transition (make-before-break). ASI assumed all responsibility for a turn-key project, including installation, startup testing, and user training. Madigan's engineers were so pleased with the results that they contracted ASI to convert the remaining transfer switches in the facility to closed transition type over the next 5 years. The project was completed in 2000, and today all 29 transfer switches are make-before-break type. EPSS testing is conducted during peak hours with no transfer-induced interruptions in power. Electrical Branch Chief Bill Pitts reports that his people can now test the entire emergency power supply system with confidence. "The tests are transparent to our medical personnel," he says, "we no longer get those nasty phone calls when we test."

The performance of the converted ASCO switches at Madigan has been so satisfactory that ASCO closed transition transfer switches were utilized in the recently completed Elmendorf Army Med. Center in Anchorage, Alaska (all 14 switches) and chosen for all applications in the still-to-be-completed Bassett Army Hospital near Fairbanks, Alaska. When an ex-Madigan engineer was hired at Valley Medical Center in Renton, WA, one of his first projects was to purchase and install 10 ASCO closed transition transfer switches for a new wing.

For more information about the ASCO equipment at MAMC, or to request a facility tour, contact us at Sales@SFGriggs.com