“Hey, hand me a big wrench.”
“What size?”
“It doesn’t matter, just hand me a big wrench.”
“What do you mean it does not matter?”
“I am going to use it as a hammer anyway!”
This has always been a funny joke, but it illustrates a point.
“Hey, hand me a big wrench.”
“What size?”
“It doesn’t matter, just hand me a big wrench.”
“What do you mean it does not matter?”
“I am going to use it as a hammer anyway!”
Recently SSP was contacted by a regional Energy Company that wanted a comprehensive training session on tube fitting installation for members of their staff. They had a “situation” at one of their well pads; that “situation” was a fire.
As in any situation like this, an investigation took place to find out the cause of the fire. Was it a leaky fitting? A glitch in the system? An operator error? As it turns out, all of the tube fittings in the system were top of the line, well manufactured, and free of errors. The cause was improper installation, due to a lack of training.
The Energy Company had become aware of SSP though some sales efforts, but mostly through training classes we offered at Zane State college, in Zanesville, OH. We know that safety is extremely important and proper installation comes from proper training.
We have a classroom setting on site, here at our factory where we routinely conduct training classes, so we invited the Energy Company to our test lab right away. At the end of the half-day session, both SSP and the Energy Company felt the tools and training provided would ensure proper installation techniques for future projects.
We also left with a valuable lesson for ourselves; making a quality fitting and validating it through testing is not enough. It does not matter what brand or style of tube fitting you chose to use, if they are installed wrong, they can all fail.
- Martin Mitchell is an SSP Customer Service team member. He has been with SSP for 9 years.