Chemical companies are subject to stringent statutory regulations, and bear responsibility for the safety of their staff, the public and the environment. They are thus generally professionally prepared for immediate response in the case of accident or emergency. Emergency plans are set in place detailing procedures and alternatives and assigning responsibilities for every possible event. DuPont Performance Coatings (DPC), a leading manufacturer of industrial coatings, liquid and powder coatings for the automotive, auto repair and selected industry sectors, has installed FACT24 as part of crisis management strategy at its Wuppertal site. The communication system is the optimum preparation for emergencies and reportable events such as chemical or gas leaks, fire or danger of explosion, accident or other potentially hazardous situations within or outside the plant. In the event of an emergency, FACT24 Notifica-tion and Conferencing Service communicates information to the works management, a series of specialist departments and if necessary also official bodies, press representatives and the gen-eral public.

The safety requirements of a modern chemical company had stretched DuPont’s former in-house alerting system to its limits. After conducting in-depth research, in the summer of 2006 DPC finally chose FACT24 Notification and Conferencing Service for its Wuppertal site. Now DuPont can use FACT24 to notify not only its plant fire brigade, but if necessary also a range of specialist departments, the management team, technical services department, corporate communication and medical team. At the Wuppertal plant, FACT24 stores up to 60 names per scenario and notifies them simultaneously within minutes.  

Criteria determining a call-out
In making their choice of FACT24, DPC was particularly attracted by the system’s ease of operation, convenient data management and, first and foremost, the cost benefits of the service in comparison to installing an alarm server, which would have required expensive maintenance con-tracts and provision of extra personnel. In addition, the rapid notification in the event of an emer-gency and the option of registering feedback are critical features enabling DuPont’s crisis man-agement team to optimize personnel availability planning.

“At DuPont’s Wuppertal plant we have now upgraded to the new version, FACT24 premium, and can thus benefit from the enhanced range of customization options for our scenarios“, comments Andreas Kalker, head of the plant fire brigade / plant security at DuPont Performance Coatings GmbH & Co. KG. “Our decision in favour of FACT24 was primarily clinched by the high technical availability, parallel alerting options and flexibility of configuration offered by the service.“  

High availability as confirmation of quality
“The chemical industry is a major source of clients for us, owing to the heightened public sensitiv-ity to its operations and the stringent statutory regulations governing documentation and reporting requirements“, explains Christian Götz, member of the managing board of F24 AG. “As service providers, we not only guarantee to our clients that our FACT24 service is always state-of-the-art, but also deliver 99.98 per cent system stability – important because after all, a large-scale emergency could also put our client’s hardware or telephone system out of action.“

Further client case study from the chemical industry: 
Celanese under Markets & References / Energy & Industry