Fluid System Onsite Inspection Services
Swagelok Onsite Services helps organizations improve fluid system productivity, reliability, and profitability through expert, hands-on assessments. During onsite visits, experienced specialists evaluate your operating environment, identify issues such as leaks, corrosion, faulty connections, and hose concerns, and provide practical recommendations for improvement. Using a specialized digital inspection application, Swagelok can document findings with detailed observations, photographs, and estimated cost savings associated with corrective actions. Backed by decades of fluid system expertise, onsite inspections help uncover hidden inefficiencies, improve safety, reduce operating costs, and support more reliable performance. Learn how Swagelok's Onsite Services team can help you better understand your systems and make informed decisions to optimize plant operations.
I think it’s to do more with less. They need to be able to provide high production value to their end user. They need to do it with fewer people, and they need to do it in as quick a timeframe as possible.
We have trained associates who go to their sites and help them identify leakages in their systems, which they probably were not aware of earlier, and help them save costs and improve safety.
It’s really important to get out there on-site and see what’s there. Only then does it become apparent. Maybe some of their challenges start opening up a little bit, and we have a better understanding of what they’re trying to achieve.
We’re looking for things like issues with hoses, corrosion, under-tightened or over-tightened connections, and Teflon tape on compression fittings. We’re trying to find ways where they can improve what they’re doing. We’re helping them achieve savings and greater efficiencies.
We could be looking at a number of different systems, so it could be anything from a refinery to a simple nitrogen line. Safety is obviously a key driver to what we’re looking for on-site. We’re trying to help customers make sure that their site is in safe working order.
Installation errors and leaks are probably the most common things that we find. By having us on-site and delivering these sorts of reports, customers can really achieve maximum efficiencies and maximum output.
One of the main things that helps us is an on-site inspection application that was developed specifically for this type of work. This application allows us to go into the field, collect data, and record everything in a digital format. That way, it’s easily accessible to the customer.
When we’re done with one of these surveys, the on-site inspection application allows us to document issues as we come across them. First, we put a tag on the issue, and most tags will be serialized. We then take photos with the application so the customer has a clear vision of where that issue is located in their plant.
Typically, within the report, there will be an introduction, a scope of work, all the data that’s been collected, and the number of joints, for example, that we’ve counted on-site. We collate all the issues, and we can attach photographs to those issues.
If that report is then going on somebody’s desk, it’s going to be a report that is really difficult to ignore. The feedback I have from my customers is that the report is best in class. Their level of detail is something they have not seen before.
The biggest benefit that the customer receives is mainly long-term cost savings. You may be paying a little bit more now, but in the long term, it saves you a lot of labor time.
We can put an average figure around what that leakage might look like over a set period of time. For example, per year, you would lose X amount of money based on the leaks that we’ve seen today. That’s quite a powerful message because, typically, they’re not difficult to rectify.
Swagelok is the expert when it comes to fluid systems and fluid system components. We’re essentially filling a gap in the knowledge base that our customers face from a retiring workforce.
We went to a site where, while we were doing the survey, we realized that some of the filters they were using in the sample system didn’t have the required flow running through them to operate as a self-cleaning filter. The customer was able to send technicians out that day and adjust flow rates, saving the time they had spent every day changing elements and cleaning filters.
When we help customers, it feels good for everyone involved. It’s a great feeling to help a customer and achieve something where we can actually implement something or help them make their plant or off-site facility a lot safer.
Swagelok has an extensive distributor network that spans the world. A local customer will work with a distributor, and that distributor understands their needs, what’s important to them, and the history of that site, location, or plant, whatever it may be.
On the global level, we’re able to come in with global resources to support that local distributorship and, more importantly, the local customer.
When you deal with experts like Swagelok, you get value for your money that isn’t matched anywhere else or by anyone else.
