My role has changed quite a lot over the years. Whereas once I was directly responsible for a vast array of project deliverables, whether it be an electrical earthing system design, delivering training, or personally undertaking investigations into stray current, circulating currents, or lightning protection system failures these days I am more likely to be introducing people to the company. Steve Hutchinson, our Group CEO, and I are often out and about learning about the needs of our customers, how they work and what challenges they face; by doing this we have been able to communicate those needs back to our JMI technical team, and to our FM Sudafix product team, from this point our staff can then service the customers a lot better.
Through our proactive and customer focused approach we constantly find new ways to operate, and also fresh challenges to overcome; each and every time the company gets wiser, more effective and this improves customer experience. Electric safety systems, whether they are lightning protection systems, stray current control systems, coordinated surge protection systems, electrical earthing / grounding systems, equipotential bonding / equipotential coupling arrangements, or other related systems can appear very confusing, and because the threat to be controlled is electricity it is incredibly important that effective safety is achieved.
Electrical, electronic, and micro-electronic items and systems are everywhere, and the amount is increasing all the time. As a consequence of these sorts of development we often find that our customers and clients are helping us break new ground in electrical safety and we are proud to support them. Over the past few years we have helped develop sector changing electrical earthing systems in the telecommunications sector that have seen changes in approach and methodology that has seen installations in North America, Europe and I believe the next deployment will be in the Far East. We have helped get key infrastructure facilities back to safety after aggressive corrosion, and protected it from any future deterioration. We have developed sector changing electrical safety systems such as key equipment earthing systems, stray current management systems and equipotential bonding systems for light and heavy rail systems that is changing European rail safety. And when it comes to creating long lasting solutions that are protected from thieves and corrosion to extend their service life in the power and petrochemical sector I do not think that any other organisation comes close to our achievements.
The key aspect here is innovation. Our customers are presenting us with new challenges because they are innovators, and we love it, because these challenges are forcing us to innovate and improve, and what could possibly be more satisfying? I must admit it can be a bit frustrating when you discover or develop a new solution that will save time, money and lives, and you realise that it has transferable opportunities in other sectors but find a lot of closed doors. This is the scary part of being an innovator for some people, by the very definition you have to be doing something completely different to what you have done before, or to what the rest of your industry is doing. The underlying question in the back of people’s minds, I’m sure, is frequently “I don’t want to be the first to try something new,” and whilst it may be reasonable to think of things this way, at the same time you cannot help but think that they almost do not deserve the chance to improve things. There is a phrase we often cite in top level management meetings at FM Sudafix and that is the “dare to be great moment” and the innovation aspect of our work relies on finding like minded people. Essentially here you are talking about the character of the marketplace; if people see innovation as nothing but risks then they are unlikely to ever take hold of the opportunity to improve, however we have been very fortunate to encounter and work with people who have genuine problems and sincerely want to overcome them, those are the people we like to work with.
On a number of our innovation projects we have had to undertake demonstrations or have our solutions tested. We have never had a problem or complaint with this, because if we put our name to a solution or method we know that it will work, so we have never been afraid of being judged on the merits of our performance: simply put, we succeed. Overcoming a legacy mindset, that familiarity of doing something one way, or purchasing a particular product, or from a specific company, can be challenging, but all we are offering is solutions or improved ways of working and if people want to benefit from that they have to take the step of working with us.
We pride ourselves on improving every day, and that means our customers are constantly enjoying the benefits of a focused company that makes their lives easier.
JMI Earthing Services has been providing the technical safety net for numerous companies projects the world over for some years now, but as with all things at the FM Sudafix Group, its development is by no means complete. As the ability of JMI to provide professional, effective, value engineered solutions for construction disciplines such as specialist earthing / grounding, coordinated surge protection systems, stray current management, cathodic protection systems and rail earthing / grounding elements is a core reason for customers returning to the FM Sudafix Group it was imperative that the resources behind the organisation were commensurate with the level of demand.
