Firth Henderson

The industrial electrical specialists at Allwest Electrical knew they were up for a challenge when the batching system at Firth Henderson went offline; and with no assistance commitment from the fibre service provider they reached out to see if we could help restore service and bring the plant back online for their customer.

Lead plant and automation specialist Kieran Conroy called in the job on a rainy Saturday afternoon. He explained that Chorus has placed approximately fifty meters of fibre cable in a concrete crack across the main yard, approximately 10-20mm deep. With hundreds of truck and loader movements over the yard each day, it was almost inevitable that the installation would fail.

“The Chorus install seemed like a disaster waiting to happen. No part of the installation was fit for an industrial site. Firth are totally reliant on the connection to run their operations. We needed to get it working, we needed it done quickly.”

After meeting the branch manager Lea onsite, we understood the flow on effect. It had been a long day for her; trying unsuccessfully to get a commitment from Chorus and planning the logistics that would occur if the plant was to be put out of production.

Our structural fibre expert Mark Leonard got to work excavating the fibre feed from the boundary, recovering a useable length. The next step was to scale a silo and rig an overhead cable to a pole on the boundary and connect, temporarily restoring connectivity. “We had to think on our feet and work with the supplies we had available. It was late on a Saturday evening, there wasn't a fibre supplier that we could just pop over to and collect gear from. Fortunately, we were mid-project on another fibre job, so we had equipment available to provide a temporary repair.”

Shortly after midnight the temporary repair was complete.

Though it had been a long day, it was clear that Lea was extremely impressed. We helped her avoid a great deal of stress and she had peace of mind knowing that the plant was ready for action on Monday morning.

Plans were made alongside Kieran’s team and Lea to meet again after production hours during the week and complete the job properly. The temporary overhead cable was replaced by a rigid fibre duct, protected by galvanised steel conduit. Lea organised for the concrete pad to be cut and a trench dug through to the building. With the fibre laid properly, the trench was filled with concrete.

Outages such as these never occur at a good time, and always cause pressure and stress to those affected. We were pleased to provide another outstanding result for Allwest Electrical and their customer.