Our Customer Stories provide a real life insight into how our team of experts at Newson Gale visit sites supporting customers with their static control queries, providing the best solution and safety for the company and their operators.
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Due to the nature of the hazardous materials that this company handles at the refinery location, they require the assurance that their vehicles are properly fitted with approved static earth and earth verification systems, to provide personnel and equipment protection against a static spark in product transfer applications. The Newson Gale Earth-Rite® MGV provides that protection and was recommended to the customer.
Vacuum trucks are used in clean-up operations involving cement dust and as part of one application, a cement quarry put the unit and operators in confined space, heavy dust environment. Due to the high risk of a static spark igniting the dust atmosphere, proper earthing with control interlock is a requirement. Newson Gale recommended the Earth-Rite® MGV and a static hazard training program.
The initial inquiry was for a site and demo visit. The company were unsure as to which product would be best suited. Newson Gale understood that the customer was based in Canada or NE. Newson Gale presented the Metal and P1 to the customer. The delivery of final products took place in Feb 2016, after the company were looking at units on a regular basis as programmed/discussed.
The customer initially inquired in March 2013 where Newson Gale sold one unit, since then we have sold 1-2 every 4-6 months. In total so far we have 12 units of protection equipment are used on site. The Bond-Rite® REMOTE static earthing system has become a standard product at this plant.
The customer requirements included the ability for operators to positively confirm that the hoses they attach to the truck are safe to use (Check that the hose is still conductive) and to confirm that the truck itself is grounded with visual identification.
The customer installed the Earth-Rite® MGV and OhmGuard® on all new vehicles and are in the process of retrofitting all other vehicles in the field (over 200 units have been installed).
Being that the facility is unmanned during the days operation the operators wanted to have interlock controls to make sure a safe working environment was present. Newson Gale products installed on site to help with the current issues were 4 (four) Earth-Rite® RTR with 50′ VESM02 Cable Reel.
This company are a privately held Italian global manufacturer of confectionery and gum. The company is the third largest confectionery manufacturer in the world. They employ 17,000 people via 30 subsidiary companies and distributes its products in over 159 countries.
The US Headquarters had an explosion in their silo area where they unloaded various sugars. The cause of the explosion was contributed to a built up of static during the unloading process which ignited sugar dust in the silos.
Newson Gale’s contact at the site has been requested to come up with a standard for addressing static electricity at this location and potentially adopted as a global standard. This site has been given approval to use Newson Gale.
The company produces and markets gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, asphalt, ethanol, biodiesel, liquefied natural gas, olefins, polymers, intermediate chemicals, as well as base oils, inedible corn oil and distillers grains.
The customer has twelve (12) 55 gallon drums that store Ortho Xylene. The site had an audit and they were instructed to have visual indication that the canisters were grounded. The customer initially asked for the Bond-Rite® REMOTE battery operated version but was convinced that the battery life would not be conducive to a product that was grounded 24/7.
Coding Products is a leading manufacturer of standard and custom hot ink rolls, hot stamp foils and thermal transfer ribbons. Inks are generally used in the manufacturing process and are received by truck.
Coding Products ordered an Earth-Rite® PLUS in January of 2014. I followed up with the customer and offered an informal site survey and the Earth-Rite® MULTIPOINT was recommended. I went back in 2015 and provided a second site survey where we further discussed the benefits of constant grounding/monitoring with the Earth-Rite® MULTIPOINT.
The customer has sixteen (16) Mixers (Mills) that need continuous ground monitoring with visual control. The interlock feature will be added at a later date. Each Mixer is monitored at the top half and bottom half of the mixer and two drums/totes per mixer is also grounded and monitored. By utilizing the Multipoints two outputs we had the ability to ground/monitor two mixers with one Earth-Rite® MULTIPOINT II.
This customer contacted Newson Gale to ask for help to ensure that the FIBC Type C bags sourced were the correct resistance and being correctly earthed. They have implemented systems in many sites world-wide for interconnected plant items, FIBCs, road tankers and footwear testing. The customer’s excellent knowledge of their processes and attention to detail aided the work with Newson Gale and their subsidiaries / local distributors.
It was important for this customer to comply with the latest standards regarding FIBCs and have the latest technology when grounding road tankers. This ensured that their applications were grounded in the safest way possible. Newson Gale offered them local support via subsidiaries and local technical distributors. They have implemented systems in many sites world-wide.
Whilst conducting an informal site survey, Newson Gale utilized the OhmGuard® to check existing grounds and found several items which were not grounded or did not pass 10 Ohms due to a build up of paint or poor connection. This was situated in the press area where each press has eight (8) stations which require grounding for items that move in and out regularly. Newson Gale originally suggested three (3) Earth-Rite® MULTIPOINT systems per press, however CFC International chose to use one (1) Earth-Rite® MULTIPOINT with eight (8) VESX45-IP’s to ground and monitor the eight (8) ‘moveable’ items which included 55 gallon drums, pump carts and solvents drums. CFC International are not using the process control dry contacts at the moment. In addition to this, CFC International purchased an OhmGuard®, 10 Ohms to check the existing permanent grounds.CFC International Corporation, an ITW Company, is a worldwide specialty coated film company. They produce chemically complex coatings, films, foils and laminates. They also have a sister company in Michigan, who are also a customer of Newson Gale.
The customer had in place a grounding system that was an adaptation of a grounding system for truck loading. The system provided a false positive even when the clamp was in a resting position. Having provided education on a true grounding system for FIBC bags they realized they needed to improve. They learned about the proper resistance measure for an FIBC bag and appreciated a system specifically for this application. The customer purchased eight (8) systems and six months later purchased three (3) more.
This was a fortune 500 specialty chemical company located on the West Coast who produced special compounds for the paint and coatings industry. The company had in place special requirements for grounding and in particular, grounding railcars and bonding loading arms. The railcars required two connection points (top manhole and one side of the car). In addition, the company required bonding straps along the length of the loading arm (6 points). Because of the low M.I.E. of the products being transferred, the company required the continuous monitoring of all grounding and bonding connections which included a total of eight (8) points to be monitored for each railcar off-loading station.In total five (5) systems were delivered.
Newson Gale conducted a site survey and found numerous REB Clamps with rounded tips. There were also multiple layers of paint built up on the containers which were most likely not being penetrated. In addition to this, reels with alligator clips were being used to ground three truck unloading areas. Observations also showed employees manually mixing powders into vats that contained solvents.The customer purchased three (3) Earth-Rite® RTR systems, thirty (30) Bond-Rite® CLAMP with 30 m Reel, one (1) Bond-Rite® EZ, twelve (12) VESX45 Clamps, six (6) Bond-Rite® CLAMP with Reel and one (1) Sole-Mate™
Whilst conducting an informal site survey, Newson Gale utilized the OhmGuard® to check existing grounds and found several items which were not grounded or did not pass 10 Ohms due to a build up of paint or poor connection. This was situated in the press area where each press has eight (8) stations which require grounding for items that move in and out regularly. Newson Gale originally suggested three (3) Earth-Rite® MULTIPOINT systems per press, however CFC International chose to use one (1) Earth-Rite® MULTIPOINT with eight (8) VESX45-IP’s to ground and monitor the eight (8) ‘moveable’ items which included 55 gallon drums, pump carts and solvents drums. CFC International are not using the process control dry contacts at the moment. In addition to this, CFC International purchased an OhmGuard®, 10 Ohms to check the existing permanent grounds.CFC International Corporation, an ITW Company, is a worldwide specialty coated film company. They produce chemically complex coatings, films, foils and laminates. They also have a sister company in Michigan, who are also a customer of Newson Gale.
