Making light work of smoke vent servicing.
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The maintenance team at one of the UK’s leading car manufacturers needed a lightweight, easily stored solution for servicing roof mounted, automatic smoke vents.
The background
Twelve roofs across this 580-acre car plant are fitted with automatic hydraulic smoke vents which require twice yearly lifting and servicing. The car company’s maintenance team made contact with REID Lifting through appointed resellers Safety Gear Store and chose a REID lifting solution over a tripod/ beam alternative.
The challenge
As this was a rooftop location, the customer needed a gantry solution which provided easy, all round access to the smoke vents and which was safe, portable and lightweight so that the system could be moved from vent to vent during the servicing without damaging the rubber membrane. Crucially, it needed to be quick and easy to put up and down, so that each unit could be easily packed away and stored up on the individual roofs when not in use.
The solution
This car manufacturer’s lifting requirement was urgent, so REID Lifting attended at short notice to demonstrate the Porta Gantry Rapide to them on site. The maintenance team had already seen the product online and watched the assembly video but wanted to try it out for themselves. By marking out the size and shape of a vent on the factory floor, they could see how quickly it could be put up and down and see how manoeuvrable it was within the limited space available. Even at the first attempt, the team were able to assemble the Porta Gantry Rapide in little over a minute and took less than five minutes to fix all of their chosen accessories. The Porta Gantry Rapide proved a much more workable solution for them than the tripod/beam option they had originally considered, not just because of the speed of assembly but also because it gives better access to the vents themselves, and packs away into a more compact unit. REID has supplied twelve custom beam 2.5m Porta Gantry Rapide systems to the car manufacturer via Safety Gear Store, all with a Checkmate FABXR fall arrest recovery block to ensure the safety of the workforce.
The feedback
The customer is so pleased with the Porta Gantry Rapide that it has already identified other confined workspaces within the car manufacturing plant where it can deploy the REID Lifting solution.