One of the country’s leading suppliers of specialist hire equipment is rolling out a new investment programme to upgrade its electrical testing facilities throughout its national branch network.
MCA Fusion Hire & Repair, part of Wolseley UK’s Infrastructure division, is a leading provider of butt fusion and electrofusion equipment for the welding and jointing of plastic pipe used in the utilities, construction, and telecoms sectors.
As part of an improved test management strategy, the company is installing dedicated safety testing stations at each of its nine branches using sophisticated test technology that has been specifically designed for the hire, rental and service industries.
At the centre of the new MCA Fusion electrical safety testing protocol is the SafeCheck 8 tester, along with a label printer, bar code scanner, fault simulator unit and test beacon, that together provide a fully integrated and traceable ‘test and tag’ safety system.
The bench mounted SafeCheck 8 has built-in pre-configured tests for Class I, Class II and IEC extension lead/power cord testing to ensure compliance with the Hire Association of Europe code of practice and all other safety regulations.
The tester automatically sequences through earth bond, insulation, earth leakage, continuity and full function load tests to ensure that hire equipment continues to perform within original specifications.
MCA has recently expanded its product range to include products that also require flash testing as part of the testing procedure, and the SafeCheck 8 with its 1250V Class 1 and 2500V Class 2 test voltages is ideally suited for this task.
The new electrical testing programme is being introduced by MCA Fusion’s Technical Director, Rod McCulloch. Rod said: “Our range of jointing equipment is used in many safety critical applications and it is imperative that it not only performs to the highest standards, but that our customers can have confidence that the equipment complies with all the necessary regulations.
“As part of our policy of adopting best practice standards in the hire industry, the new safety testing bays have been designed on a modular basis to ensure a consistent and high quality approach to testing across all of our branches.
“We are very grateful for the specialist advice and support provided by the Seaward hire sector team in creating a highly robust and traceable hire testing system that fulfils our unwavering commitment to meeting our safety obligations.”
The MCA test protocol requires that all equipment is tested before being issued on hire, with the test stations also producing special test labels with details of the test results, equipment ID, date of test and a bar code ID for re-test purposes. Test data from the SafeCheck is also being integrated with the company’s asset management software program to ensure a seamless record keeping system.
To help MCA achieve its aims, Seaward’s specialist compliance testing team provided comprehensive onsite and offsite product support and technical guidance throughout the new test station specification, design and development process.
To ensure that the new installations meet the specific test requirements of the MCA product range, this has included technical demonstrations, help with software system amalgamation and the customisation of printed safety labelling.
Lee Warburton, Key Accounts Manager for Seaward Compliance and Precision products, said: “We’ve worked extremely closely with MCA to ensure that the new test stations completely match the safety testing needs of the business as a whole.
“The technical solution provided by the SafeCheck 8 kit not only meets the specific safety needs of the MCA equipment, but is also compatible with the company’s administration and record keeping systems, which is essential in ensuring absolute consistency across the complete branch network.”
The new test facilities are anticipated to be in place at all MCA Fusion Hire & Repair branches by the end of the year.
