If you are responsible for a facility and the people working in it, there is a distinction here that catches a lot of operations out. A study is a document with a date on it. A program is the thing that keeps people safe. They get bought as though they were the same item, which is how a facility ends up with a completed study in a binder and a safety manager who is still exposed.
The four parts, and what happens when one is missing
A current study
What it is. The incident energy analysis itself, run to IEEE 1584, reviewed at least every five years and again whenever the electrical system changes in a meaningful way. New equipment, added feeds, reconfigured protection, or a change to available fault current from the utility.
The trade-off. Treating the study as a one-time purchase is the most common way these drift. Without an update cycle and a trigger tied to changes in the system, the number on the label stops describing the equipment behind the door.
Accurate labels on the equipment
What it is. The results communicated where the work actually happens. Incident energy, working distance, arc flash boundary, and required PPE, on every piece of equipment.
The trade-off. Relabeling is tedious work and it is the step that turns analysis into protection. A current study with old labels leaves your people guessing at the panel, which is the one place a guess actually costs something.
PPE that matches what the study calls for
What it is. Protective equipment on hand, at the arc rating the analysis requires, in the sizes people will actually wear.
The trade-off. Correct labels with the wrong PPE behind them are worse than no labels, because people follow the label and believe they are covered. This is the easiest part to check and the easiest to let slide as inventory turns over.
Trained people
What it is. Everyone who works on or near energized equipment trained on the hazard and on the work practices that go with it.
The trade-off. Training costs production time, which is why it slips. Good PPE and no training means the protective equipment is in the cabinet and the work practices are in nobody's hands, and what people actually do at the equipment is what decides whether somebody gets hurt.
Why all four have to be true at once
They depend on each other, which is the part that is easy to underrate. Any one of them alone gives you the appearance of a program and none of the protection.
A working program has an update cycle, a clear trigger for re-evaluating when the system changes, and one person who owns keeping it current between studies. With no owner there is nobody whose job it is to notice when it has gone stale, and it will go stale.
So the question worth asking is whether the approach covers all four parts, keeps them current on a schedule, and leaves somebody accountable, rather than which firm will produce a study cheapest.