Today’s energy sector is a very different one from that of a few years ago. Despite this being traditionally the summer shut-down time and a quieter period, Blaze is still busy delivering the final commissioning and hook-up on two of the largest offshore wind projects in Europe.
Our order book is currently running into next year and with the reignition of work in the North Sea, we have recently been recruiting for offshore projects. We have also opened an office in Great Yarmouth to service the growing demand in the southern North Sea. Internationally, we have taken on partners in Azerbaijan and Zambia to further facilitate the trade we have in these areas.
The game is well and truly back on.
Our strategy to grow the business has had to change in recent years and we have evolved from being a manufacturer of fire and safety products to the oil and gas industry to delivering solutions across multiple market sectors including mining, renewable energy, waste to energy, the Ministry of Defence and the public sector. Whilst the premise of how we control and extinguish fires remains the same, the consequence of fire hazards is very different. In these new markets, there are very different standards to work to and we have spent a considerable amount of time retraining our technicians to ensure they have the necessary skills and competence in these sectors.
And therein lies our USP – the ever-important ‘difference’ that we are always striving to achieve to set us apart from our competitors.
As an independent manufacturer we can offer a fully integrated solution to our clients, negating the need for them to engage with multiple suppliers. We can provide the full design, supply, installation, commissioning and ongoing service and maintenance package. For the client, only dealing with one supplier keeps project costs lower and offers full visibility of progress.
We are not shackled to only using group products, enabling us to deliver from across a range of suppliers. We are experts at integrating across various products and developing specific solutions such as commander modules.
Commander allows us to take standard detection and alarm products and digitise the input/output signals. The information becomes a fibre optic architecture using Siemens PLC controllers to drive everything from human machine interface, customer plant and building plant management systems, to SCADA systems and CCTV, all of which can be managed securely via the Cloud.
Using fibre optics and the Cloud vastly simplifies the interconnections so reliability and availability are not compromised. This works well in many of the risk areas we operate in. For every customer we understand their challenges and define appropriate cost-effective solutions. As a result, and despite the Brexit effect, we have seen our export business rise to nearly 60% of our overall revenue. Whether this can be sustained post-March 2019 remains to be seen. But in the meantime, we will continue to innovate, develop and deliver the winning difference in fire safety.
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