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A pioneering first for telecoms saviours
Zip Communications has launched
a 24/7 answer service in response to the demands of the 24/7 nature of
the offshore industry.
The Zip 24/7 team is devoted to
reacting to the failure of safety critical communications equipment
offshore. The service allows offshore telecoms engineers to call the
company day or night for a consultation on all aspects of their
installation from basic advice to ordering equipment to more in depth
specific knowledge on health and safety compliance.
The creation of the service is the brain child of the founders of the telecoms company who came up with the idea as a result of gaining feedback from offshore telecoms workers.
The problem was not simply having someone on hand to assist with the part required but also the lack of provision of specific industry knowledge.
Alison Bishop, director of Zip
says: "The oil industry is not 9-5. Telecoms failures can happen at any
time and because of the safety critical factor it can mean the
difference between shutting down and not. The down manning of
non-essential personnel is costly and will result in the loss of
hundreds of thousands of pounds for one platform alone."
"We realised that something was needed to ensure oil companies were happy in the knowledge that their staff are safe and the platform is not in breach of any legalities laid down by the regulatory bodies."
Installation managers have
agreed that knowing the part is coming on the next flight makes the
difference between continuous production with an operational risk
assessment in place or having to think about closing down the platform.
Alison adds: "We have had
instances where while the part is being shipped out we have been able to
work around the problem and keep the installation within the correct
health and safety parameters by simply using our tacit knowledge."
To contact the out of hours team please go to the contact us page on our website.
Zip Communications managed to
stop a platform being served a prohibition notice thanks to some quick
thinking, quick installation of parts and some canny redistribution of
existing assets.
The platform had suffered years of poor maintenance as well as inadequate document control of safety critical and essential operational systems. The standard had dropped to a level of complacency that was unacceptable to both the ICP and HSE inspectors: PA systems, satellite communications and a whole host of other systems had failed to meet with basic guidelines.
As a result, an improvement
notice was served, but the knowledge and skills needed to turn around
the situation in such a short space of time were simply unavailable.
After an initial confidential consultation with the client Zip experts coordinated an audit and survey of what telecoms systems were available to firstly satisfy all agencies that a short term operationally risk assessed option was viable. This was then followed up with a series of projects to upgrade systems and in some cases install completely new systems to meet with all mandatory regulations.
Fortunately the solution offered
by Zip was more than enough to satisfy the ICP and the client is now
happy for Zip to be creating a maintenance strategy to ensure the safety
critical systems never fall into this state again.
Alison from Zip says: "Unfortunately these scenarios are all too commonplace on aging assets offshore. Part of the pleasure in our job is knowing firstly we have made the asset legal but more importantly knowing the guys offshore are safe and the communications systems are of maximum resilience."