West Fire Extinguisher Service: Streamlining Fire Safety Inspections

West Fire Extinguisher Service, a trusted fire safety organisation based in Macon, Georgia, implemented Orca Scans Fire Extinguisher Inspection Solution and, as a result, have managed to knock hours off their inspection times, increase the accuracy of their tracking, and save money in the process 👏

Here’s how they did it 👇

The Challenge: reduce the need to travel back and forth to inspection facilities

West Fire Extinguisher Service inspects and manages fire safety components across Georgia and beyond, meaning technicians can often travel up to 8 hours to undertake an inspection. Any missed details meant the team must return to the facility, resulting in extra travel costs and wasted staff time 📉 so getting it right the first time is vital!

Before implementing Orca Scan’s tracking system, these inspections were conducted using pen and paper checklists on clipboards 📝

Technicians would painstakingly note down the serial number of each fire extinguisher, individually ticking and signing them off. Once completed, the technicians would travel back to HQ, where the reports clerk would manually input all the data into an Excel spreadsheet on the computer before sending these to the customer for checking.

As you can imagine, this was a long process and would result in occasional human errors, so it was time for a well-overdue upgrade.

A little bit of context: Meet the team at West Fire Extinguisher Service

Kelley Cole, CEO of West Fire Extinguisher Service, has over 30 years of experience in fire safety, having spent many years working in the fire department before taking over West Fire Extinguisher Service in 1993. Initially, the company focussed on fire extinguisher maintenance and inspections, but this evolved into delivering comprehensive fire safety solutions, including fire suppression, fire dampers, fire doors and more.

Michelle, Office Manager, has been with the West Fire Extinguisher team for years and was recently tasked with finding a digital solution to increase accuracy, efficiency and travel time for the team. She investigated several solutions and finally found Orca Scan.

How Orca Scan Provides a Solution: Reducing travel time, Saving money Increasing accuracy on inspections

Using the Orca Scan Fire Extinguisher Inspection Template has transformed West Fire Extinguisher Service’s operations.

Technicians can now use their smartphones to capture all the information they need during an inspection, including 👇

• The year the Fire Extinguisher was manufactured
• The last service the Fire Extinguisher had
• The previous hydro test
• The barcode number
• And the location of each Fire Extinguisher

There are no more manual inputs; the team assigns each item a linear barcode that can be scanned on inspection. In the Orca Scan app, the team have a dedicated sheet for each facility, and they can customise fields to ensure they get all the information they need from each location.

When technicians have finished an inspection, Michelle and the team in the office have instant access to the sheet via the Orca Scan web app for reviewing and finalising. When ready, Orca Scan automatically exports them to Excel using Orca Scan’s handy Integration so it’s prepared to be sent to the customer.

This approach means that Michelle and the team in the office can monitor and verify all inspections before the on-site team leaves the facility.

Has the solution been successful?

Since administering the Orca Scan Fire Extinguisher Inspection Solution, Michelle and the team have increased the accuracy of their inspections, which has led to a considerable saving in time as they no longer need to travel back and forth to facilities to rectify mistakes 👏 The company have saved hours of time, and decreased extra costs on things like staffing and fuel - you know what they say, time is money 💸

Michelle initially ran a pilot of Orca Scan with a single technician and has since rolled out the system to seven employees who are confidently using Orca Scan on their smartphones to capture accurate inspections 🙌

Thank you ❤️‍🔥

We want to thank the West Fire Extinguisher Service team, especially Michelle, for sharing their story of how implementing Orca Scan has reduced costs, simplified processes, and increased accuracies of inspections. Your feedback has been extremely useful, and we look forward to working with you for years to come.

Do you have a story to tell? Get in touch!