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Leading load cell company Broadweigh has passed its final audit to be granted full membership of the Lifting Equipment Engineers Association. LEEA is a representative body for all those involved in the lifting industry worldwide. It has taken 3 years to achieve full LEEA membership which is only available to companies that are ‘engaged for profit in the verification of lifting equipment’, and which, in the opinion of the LEEA directors, is competent and can give adequate service.

Tom Lilly, application engineer at Broadweigh commented: “Three years ago Broadweigh joined LEEA as an Associate member because we strive to be the best – not only in the quality of product we offer but also in the role that we take within the entertainment industry. We then decided last year that we should be including a thorough examination in our recalibration and refurbishment service. We control the manufacture of almost every part of the Broadweigh load shackle which means that we are best placed to perform these checks”.

“This last year has been busy, with production engineer Alex Maruschat and I going through a series of training and development courses. We now both hold our LEEA Team cards showing that we have passed our exams following the training. This then placed us well to have our full membership audit which is now fully signed off.”

Kelly Voysey, marketing manager explained: “These aren’t just ‘turn up and pass’ types of courses. A lot of work goes into getting the qualifications and we are extremely proud of the efforts of Tom and Alex to gain these qualifications. This is hugely rewarding to us as a brand but also gives added piece of mind to our customers.”

The new certification could arguably not have come at a better time for Broadweigh’s customers. The company remains open for business despite the current COVID-19 crisis and is offering support to anyone who owns their kit and who wish to use the quieter time enforced on the live events industry to perform regular inspections on their kit. As well as their standard scheme of thorough examination, customers are advised to give their kit a thorough visual inspection looking for any defects; bent/cracked parts of the hardware, battery leakage, missing parts – carry out an inventory making sure that bow serial numbers correspond to that of the pin/ electronics – keep a record of the shackle firmware and test the equipment to a known weight as this will identify if there is any drift from the calibration (+/-1 % or +/25 kg typical whichever the greater). Keeping records of the readings will allow for future comparison.

“It’s also worth remembering that we are always on hand to provide free basic Broadweigh Toolkit and Log100 training and we can also upgrade your shackles too – from a re-calibration to a full firmware and electronics upgrade,” said Kelly. “We have always advised our customers to get their shackles recalibrated regularly, but since 2019 this is a service that we have been able to offer in-house. It doesn’t matter how old your shackles are or how many hours of use they’ve had, and now might be an opportune moment to send them to us at our factory in Exeter for a calibration check.”

As well as ramping up their servicing and inspection offering, the company’s R&D team remain busy as ever. Kelly commented: “Our engineering teams are focused right now on delivering new solutions which will be brought to market soon. 2020 started out as a year of big change for us – and that commitment has not changed despite this extremely challenging landscape. Our ultimate goal is to keep all our teams safe and well and to keep being useful and relevant for our customers. We want to provide a level of service and expertise that our customers have come to expect from us.”

Tom Lilly concluded: “Being a member of LEEA gives us access to a wealth of lifting know-how, backed by technical ability from members with different skills across the world. We supply kit to clients globally and the LEEA membership is recognised as carrying the highest standards across the world, sharing best lifting practice and improving safety for all.”