Stuart is the General Manager of new members: Outreach Offshore Ltd. In this month’s article he informs us about the company, its offering and some quick win ways to increase workboat lifting equipment safety.
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“Joining the Workboat Association is an exciting move for Outreach Offshore – we would like to share our experience within the workboat sector for health and safety improvements.”
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What is the history of Outreach Offshore Ltd.?
Outreach Offshore Limited, formally a division of Outreach Ltd is renowned as a leading supplier of hydraulic handling, lifting and access equipment within the wind, oil and gas, shipbuilding, aquaculture and marine industries. Products sold by Outreach Offshore Limited are universally recognised as being of the highest quality. Each product is carefully matched to the intended application and fully engineered. This ensures compliance with all relevant codes and standards. This also ensures the result contributes to maximum benefits to the client, whilst managing a budget.
When did you join the company?
I joined the company 5 years ago when it was part of Outreach Ltd. At the time, the main goal was to build and enhance the Outreach offshore division of the company. After the business was demerged I became the lead of the newly formed Outreach Offshore business. The focus of this new business venture was to service the specialist sectors in marine, oil and gas, wind energy and shipbuilding.
What is your background?
I’ve had many roles within the oil & gas, wind energy and shipbuilding industries over the past 39 years, with experience in multiple complex projects. I have always aimed to provide the best solution for clients while maintaining excellent quality – I have made a good career based on developing active customer relationships supported by our extensive technical knowledge, we are fully equipped to assist in all aspects of your [lifting] equipment needs for your project.
What services do you currently offer?
Outreach Offshore Limited supply and install bespoke hydraulic lifting solutions including R.O.V LARS systems, control cabins, specialist tether winches alongside handling and access equipment for offshore and onshore activities. This includes marine cranes manufactured by the PALFINGER Group.
Ancillary activities include importation, installation, load testing, repair, servicing, commissioning, demonstration, operator training, production, and testing. Alongside this extensive list, we also provide engineering design services to meet the needs of any project.
Outreach Offshore Limited is committed to providing the correct support and services for your project. We like to take a proactive approach with our products in which we will examine, maintain and provide crane parts packages or just parts support post-purchase. This is included with our comprehensive support and service packages.
What are the objectives of Outreach Offshore?
Outreach Offshore’s primary objectives are to provide our clients with lifting solutions that meet their standards and provide reliability in service by supplying quality equipment that is reliable and fits the needs of our client’s operational capability. However, conversely, we also understand that in the current economic climate we find ourselves in means that budgets are very important in the overall success of a project. This is why we use our extensive knowledge and understanding of the marine sector to engage with our clients to enable the most cost-effective and compatible solution which can also be delivered in a suitable time-frame to keep up with project deadlines.
What has been the main driver for you to join the Workboat Association?
To gain opportunity within the industry that enables us to showcase our capabilities. We offer world-class service and products that are specifically manufactured for this key sector. As the main Palfinger dealer in the UK, we feel that these products will fit well within the industry due to the fact that they are engineered to a very high quality and standard whilst providing lightweight, structural capabilities. The workboat sector would benefit from this continued innovation as well as their stringent safety standards. Similarly, Outreach Offshore would like to share our experience within the workboat sector for health and safety improvements.
Could you give us some quick-win advice to those responsible for cranes on Workboats?
Good technical support is essential to enable the correct choice of crane specific to each workboats capability. Choosing the correct crane duty and operational capability is fundamental to vessel safety and stability. This includes taking into consideration, significant wave height (Hs), over boarding requirements, power requirements and corrosion protection which is all based on the conditions in which the crane will be subject to daily.
Secondly, it is vital that the crane operators are fully trained by an accredited provider to ensure health and safety awareness while operating equipment is fully understood. This ensures peace of mind that the health and safety and well-being are managed while operating a complex piece of equipment. Each piece of equipment has differing skills needs to maintain and operate it, Outreach Offshore offer ALLMI accredited training courses specifically tailored to suit each customer’s requirements.
Lastly, it is greatly important that maintenance requirements are met on-time and correctly to ensure that cranes remain in good condition, this provides to ensure longevity, minimise risk and increase reliability. To promote this always use a reputable company to supply technical service and parts backup, this is vital to minimise downtime of machinery and keep systems running.
Do you have any unique offerings for the Workboat Industry?
Outreach Offshore Limited has extensive knowledge in sectors that are directly serviced by the workboat industry. This knowledge and experience of environmental requirements allow us to provide the best solutions possible for our workboat clientele.
Alongside this, over the past year Outreach Offshore Limited has been developing our unique Mini eLARS System. Small ROVs are increasingly being used within the workboat industry for inspection/intervention, seabed mapping and maintenance work. From this, we have identified a health and safety requirement to aid with the deployment and retrieval of these small ROV vehicles. We have spent over a year developing a solution made to safely launch and recover vehicles in a controlled condition, removing manual handling risks to the operator through innovation. This system is fully electric, which negates the requirement for hydraulic control and again matches environmental needs to remove the potential for oil spillages into the sea. The system integrates our MK8 tether winch which is 90% made of polypropylene.
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Joining the Workboat Association is an exciting move for Outreach Offshore, as we aim to contribute with our knowledge and experience of supplying an engineered lifting solution that matches each individual task. We see the workboat association as an ideal platform to showcase our world-class equipment but also further develop our ability to provide our products and services into an evolving and diverse sector that we see through health and safety needs as standards develop.
