The core ethos at First Integrated Solutions gives customers the best possible product and service in order to keep them coming back. On the back of continuous improvements in customer experiences, the company has enjoyed fruitful, long-term relationships with its customers. Richard Hagan met with Business Development Director Gary Taylor and Managing Director Martin Suttie to find out how this dynamic company continues to set the standard every day for equipment at job sites offshore and across the United Kingdom.
First Integrated Solutions (FIS) is an industry leader in the equipment rental sector, providing complete, innovative solution packages backed up by technical support and high-quality customer service. In addition to its equipment rentals, FIS also manufactures wire rope slings, and it provides procurement management, inspection services and Hand-Arm Vibration Syndrome (HAVS) management and analysis services.
F IS prides itself on being a customerfocused, one-stop-shop for the offshore industry, providing high-quality equipment from well-known, established brands that offshore teams are familiar with and comfortable with using.
“Having that well-known equipment makes the customer’s experience as easy as possible, because you don’t
want your teams having to spend lots of time learning how to use it,” said Managing Director, Martin Suttie. “We make it possible for the guys to open the container or pallet and find everything that they need to do the job. That’s the experience we want to deliver and it’s all part of our emphasis on customer service.”
An integrated footprint
FIS’s operations are incorporated across two distinct sites: its headquarters and main operations base are in Aberdeen, Scotland, while a smaller satellite facility is in London. Altogether, FIS employs approximately 80 people.
On the strength of both its own convictions and customer demand, FIS’s operations are proudly carbon neutral.
“We are working on further potential improvements, such as extending the solar panels that we already have on our main building, across to our other buildings,” confirmed Mr Suttie.
FIS has augmented those physical measures with the purchasing of carbon credits to offset its remaining – currently unavoidable – emissions. “Due to our efforts with these initiatives, our overall emissions percentage will still decline despite our fast growth,” he continued.
Robust product range
FIS’s core strength is the depth and breadth of its range of rental equipment, including ATEX (an EU safety certification for potentially explosive atmospheres) products, rigging lofts, welding plant, power tools and fabric maintenance equipment. Its offerings are designed
and delivered to provide a safe, efficient and cost-effective equipment solution to the energy, utilities, civil engineering and construction sectors.
Business Development Director Gary Taylor shared three highlights of FIS’s range: “We have several products that add to safety offshore, including ATEX HAVI, Cleanspace breathing respirators, and RiConnect. RiConnect is an RFID tag ging system that we’ve tailored into solutions demanded by the industry. It includes applications such as pre-use checks for offshore users, and electronic tracking of the service history of the items. RiConnect helps to ensure that pre-use checks are
done every time equipment is taken out of the rigging lofts, for example.”
PBS Offshore, which provides full EPC (Engineering, Procurement, Construction) services to Total UK’s assets, trusts its equipment rentals to FIS. “We support this contract with our full range of products and services, negating the
n eed for the client to manage multiple vendors,” said Mr Taylor. “It also helps to drive commercial and technical innovation on the client’s sites, while providing the client with a dedicated resource supporting the delivery of their contract’s key performance indicators (KPIs).”
“WE PLAN TO CONTINUE OUR CURRENT GROWTH TRAJECTORY WHILST ALWAYS ENSURING THAT THE CUSTOMER IS KEY BY SUPPORTING AND SUPPLYING THEM WITH A ROBUST, COMPREHENSIVE RANGE OF RELIABLE, HIGH-QUALITY EQUIPMENT”
FIS provides both sales and rental of equipment. While its ATEX kit, complete rigging lofts and air hoists continue to prove strong performers on the rental side of the business, its wire rope slings and hydraulic equipment have seen strong ongoing sales.
Shaping the future of safety
FIS constantly strives to provide workers in the oil and gas sector with equipment that shapes, leads and builds on their safety culture. “Workers’ wellbeing is at the foremost of our product development strategy,” Mr Suttie noted. “A recent example of this is our investment in providing ATEX HAVi, a wearable technology designed to record operators’ Hand-Arm Vibration
exposure, enabling compliance with the control of vibration at work regulations. Our range of working at height equipment, and our working at height compliant power tools is also a highlight.”
Additionally, One of FIS’s sister companies, First Competence, has embraced high-tech solutions for training and competence: using Virtual Reality, the company can recreate accidents, putting the user back at the scene of the incident which they can then re-watch multiple times, moving between different viewing points. This ensures that the lessons learned from those events are
more easily understood by the trainee and more easily shared.
“From what we have seen, this method is much more useful and memorable than reading a report,”.
FIS believes that a strong safety culture is key to retaining skilled workers in the oil and gas sector, who are constantly at a premium. “While attracting and retaining staff is partly about pay, it’s also about respect for your team and ensuring that they are looked after,” said Mr Suttie. “Employers that look after the health and safety of their team are likely to improve staff retention; therefore it’s vital that senior management teams must pay
attention to innovation in the safety market to protect their team. We have very skilled people with transferable skills in the industry and it’s important that as an industry we look after them.”
In conclusion, Mr Taylor reflected on FIS’s future: “Thanks to our ongoing capital investments in new rental fleet equipment, (which is much higher than our competitors), we will be here for a long time still to come.
“But in the meantime, we expect to see increased opportunities in the defence, nuclear and offshore wind sectors. We plan to continue our current growth trajectory, while always ensuring that the customer is key by supporting and supplying them with a robust, comprehensive range of reliable, high-quality equipment.”
