Working in the office makes it easy to focus on the individual tasks and get detached from how our products are making a difference to people’s lives. One of our customers was kind enough to facilitate an onsite visit so that Andrea (our Halma Future Leader on a marketing placement) could see first-hand how our products are used and who the end users are. This meant a visit to an oil refinery to see where our Crowcon portable gas detectors are used.
“The main thing that surprised me was the sheer size of the site. The oil refinery was very spaced out and it took us 10 minutes to walk from the entrance of the site to where the Crowcon engineer’s based. The engineers and employees around different parts of the refinery wore Hi Vis jackets, big safety boots, hard hats and all appeared to have personal gas detectors. During a quick site tour, I learned the products of the oil refinery are not limited to gas or petrol, but also tar, asphalt, lubricants, washing up liquid, paraffin wax and much more.
The products are all stored in big containers with pipes all over the site. Most of the products are highly flammable which explains the big focus on safety. In the distance, there were a few dome shaped containers which are pressurised vessels. If one of them were to explode, it would have a 10 mile blast radius. Suddenly I had the urge to leave and drive about 10 miles.
Crowcon’s engineer base was full of orange T4s, Gas-Pros as well as an army of “Daleks”, I mean Detectives, awaiting calibration and service. While the harshness of this industrial environment was evident from their appearance, they were otherwise in good working order, and the service engineer worked through the devices quickly.
The end users think of them as a simple device they have to wear to do their job, and they like the simplicity and reliability of Crowcon devices. The Detectives get thrown around and Gas-Pros are almost black is comparison to the usual orange, which just showcases how important the robustness of our devices is. The dangers of this working environment are not generally a big concern to the users, this is everyday life to them. Our devices help ensure they go home after a tough shift. Ensuring the devices are functioning properly is down to the service engineers, and they need to think for the users to ensure that the devices are being used properly.
Seeing Crowcon’s devices being used and the number of times someone enquired if the devices are calibrated and ready to go back into action, highlighted just how important use of portables as part of the safety regime is considered. “Quality” and “robust” is how users describe Crowcon products and even though they may now treat them like the life saving devices they are, the devices are regularly used and valued. They make a very flammable and dangerous environment a safer place to be.”
