|
PETROLEUM DIRECTORY: Fire and gas protection from the first step to the last at Engineered Fire and Safety
Jessica Hess Petroleum Directory Contributing Writer
When you ask Don Maupin, general manager of Engineered Fire and Safety, what people should know about this Kidde-affiliated company, his answer conveys the company’s impressive ability to get a job done quickly, cost effectively, and concisely. Any and all services relating to fire and gas protection, security, or sound systems can be accessed through this one source. The contracting challenge When an extensive fire and gas protection project needs to get done, Engineered Fire and Safety can take a lineup of different companies to complete the multiple aspects of the job. Design and specifications might come from one group, engineering from another, equipment supply from yet another, and on down the line through installation and quality assurance. As Maupin knows, “in all those different steps and all those different entities there’s always a little miscommunication and there’s a cost to that.”
The company recently benefited from a structural shift in its parent company, Kidde PLC, the world leader in fire protection systems and equipment. This put Engineered Fire and Safety directly under the umbrella of Kidde-Fenwall, the major industrial service group of Kidde PLC. This brings the technical resources Kidde-Fenwall has around the world closer to home. “So when we have a project, and need to bring in those extra resources,” Maupin explains, “the resources are now under our organization versus us having to go to another company entity and trying to utilize those resources. ... It makes doing contracting work and service work a whole lot easier.” Showing its capabilities So what does this change mean for clients and potential customers of Engineered Fire and Safety? “Being part of Kidde-Fenwall and having all those resources under one roof, we can take a project from the conceptual design and philosophy all the way through the engineering, installation and final functional checkout and turn it over to the client,” Maupin says.
Engineered Fire and Safety has demonstrated just that. The company was recently contracted by Forest Oil to provide the strategy and philosophy for the new Kustatan facility and Osprey platform. Engineered Fire and Safety then completed the entire design, procurement, installation oversight and commissioning of the fire protection system. That job included everything from the fire and gas detection system, fine water mist system, tank farm foam system, and sprinkler system down to the portable extinguishers. From beginning to end the duration of this project was only seven months.
Engineered Fire and Safety also worked for BP recently doing a large alarm upgrade project. Maupin feels the job was a great success in streamlining. “What BP allowed us to do, in the project we did for them called MCC (main construction camp), is that we went in there and did all the site surveys, did the engineering, procurement, installation and turned over the system to them. And we did that for far less cost than any other project of that size when they went the standard way.”
The breadth of resources this company offers keeps expanding in other ways as well. Take for instance its recent integration with the Bogen line of sound systems. Bogen does institutional operations as well as high-end work like the fountain and music interaction at the Bellagio resort in Las Vegas. With Bogen, Engineered Fire and Safety can make a more competitive bid for fire protection suppression systems in jobs that need paging, intercom and clock systems also, like schools, jails, and hospitals. Keeping up skills As Engineered Fire and Safety’s line of products and services increases, the training and specialization of its staff has to keep up with the trend. To accomplish this they have separated out the specialties in the company. Teams are now designated as specialists in fire protection or in sound and security. Maupin said: “we don’t want to have a jack of all and a master of none — we want to have masters.”
Training takes a high priority at Engineered Fire and Safety. Tens of thousands of dollars go into helping the staff learn equipment, get licensed in their fields, and keep their training up to date. In fact, there’s no question that the expertise of its people stands as a tremendous asset.
The knowledge of the company’s staff keeps them well versed in fire codes, but most codes are intended for commercial, not industrial, purposes. That’s where performance-based engineering stands out. “We have to design the system to meet the intent the code but give the protection we need for this industrial application. That’s where you rely on your expertise,” Maupin says.
He points out much of the staff has been with Engineered Fire and Safety since the inception of the company in 1986; they have grown side-by-side with the company. Many started as apprentices or administrators and worked their way up through the National Institute for Certification in Engineering Technologies specialized training and licensing programs. They are now journeyman technicians, design engineers, and managers who stay on top of their fields with continuing training and experience. Building trust By focusing on long-term relationships with companies and building trust with clients, Engineered Fire and Safety has gained service agreements with ACS, MTA, Arctic Slope Telephone, Alaska Village Electric Co-op, Unocal, Marathon Oil, BP and XTO Energy, among many others.
Part of these trusting relationships comes from the fact that Engineered Fire and Safety looks for long-term agreements doing jobs that focus on its strongest assets, not doing short-kill business. The company prefers to not take a job rather than risk not doing it right. The staff strives to give customers what they need, not solely the most convenient thing for Engineered Fire and Safety to offer. Convenient Offerings One of the principal things Engineered Fire and Safety offers is convenience. Maupin points out that the staff is accessible any time day or night, seven days a week. Service and emergency availability can’t be emphasized enough in the industry.
FieldCentrix, an up-to-the-minute online service through Kidde-Fenwall, will be up and running in the next few months. This program allows the company’s staff and customers to see the service status of any contracted fire or gas detection and suppression system. Clients can check the log, know when routine service is due, and schedule with the company to do the work — all online. As the scheduled work is being done, the technician on the job will keep the log updated so clients can check the status of the work in real time on the website.
Additionally, the company’s library contains a substantial supply of information on current and previous versions of fire protection systems, so the technicians can service almost any kind of equipment they encounter.
When a fire and gas protection system gets installed, it needs to be user-friendly for the people working on-site. Maupin explained how the cabinets they build keep convenience in the forefront: “Our systems, the way we design them, integrate pretty much seamlessly with their process control systems.” In the oil and gas industry that means equipment for monitoring process activity gets streamlined with Engineered Fire and Safety’s fire and gas protection system. Summing it up As Maupin says, “We are owned by the largest manufacturer of fire and gas detection systems as well as suppression systems. We know what new products are out there and how to best apply that to your project. We’re constantly updating our skills as far as new code compliances and product support.” The team at Engineered Fire and Safety is ready for the challenge.
|
