Gate and Barrier Services Ltd

Vacancy:

Posted by gateandbarrieron July 10, 2020August 3, 2020in Tribology, Vacancies

Electro-Mechanical Field Service Engineer

We are currently recruiting for an electro-mechanical field service engineer to join our well-established family business.

You will be predominantly working on automated equipment, nationwide, at customers sites carrying out planned, reactive maintenance, installation and repair tasks to Gate & Barrier and DHF standards. You will be mainly based from home, working Mon-Fri with occasional overnights stays. A small amount of unsociable hours will be required. You will be provided with a company van.

You must:-

Hold a current driving license.
Hold a current British Passport.
Work well alone or as part of a team.
Be computer literate including email, office applications and general Windows features.
Be a positive, self-motivated, proactive individual with the ability to operate effectively under pressure to rapidly changing circumstances.
Have good communication skills with the ability to build successful working relationship with customers and colleagues and be well organised and self-disciplined.

The role involves the installation, repair, servicing and maintaining of the following automated industrial equipment: –

Sliding and folding gates
Parking barriers
Full and half height turnstiles
Road-blockers and bollards

Key Elements of the Job

Electro-mechanical maintenance and installation engineer, experience to include 17th edition & minimum 3 years time served preferably within the security industry. Mechanically oriented person
Electrical engineering experience.
Full, Clean UK Driving License is essential.
Experience of fault diagnosis and repair to component level.
Able to assess, quantify and record new works/repairs and modifications to equipment that may be needed.
Knowledge and understanding of health and safety regulations.
Be involved in project engineering, assembly, installation and commissioning of new equipment
Ideally possess a working knowledge of hydraulic & air systems.
Be able to read semi-complex diagrams & trouble shoot working systems.
Install & repairs electrical conduit, cables, piping, tubing including all necessary connections, controls & grounding as directed.
A knowledge of PLC programming would be an advantage as would being able to read semi-complex diagrams.
Ideally you should have proven experience as a Field Service engineer, a good telephone manner and the ability to provide Technical Support customers over the telephone.
DHF training would be an advantage but not essential, training will be provided.
Be actively involved with operations and maintenance support at Customers’ premises.
Enthusiastic, inquisitive, self-motivated, with practical skills and able to work singularly and as part of a team in a small company environment.

Authority & Responsibilities

Responsible for repairing, maintaining and installing a large range of access control equipment i.e. automated gates, vehicle barriers, turnstiles, road blockers and bollards.
You will be responsible for maintenance of all types of A/C and D/C electrical equipment, gearboxes, pumps, valves, drives & all allied mechanical equipment.
Dismantling, repairs & re-assembly of electrical motors, relays, timers & all allied electrical equipment.
Attend site surveys for new and current customers.
To provide first line response to emergencies during normal working hours and a small amount of out of hours calls when on call.
The job involves working away from home for one or two days on a regular basis.
Ongoing accreditation and retraining in the Health & Safety field with DHF and CCNSG Passport to safety accreditation
Have the desire to learn and continually improve your knowledge.
Available to work out of hours on a rota basis.

Implementation of Company Policies.

To maintain the good name of the Company and to implement any/all relevant policy requirements by this company or customers special requirements

Security Conditions.

All successful applicants will be checked/vetted by various security organisations, by ourselves and by our customers. You must fulfil our security criteria i.e. no criminal record and be a United Kingdom Citizen. There will also be previous employment checks

Renumeration

This role is for a full-time position with a 6 month probation period and includes the following:
Company Van and fuel card provided (full UK driving license required)
Clothing and PPE
Mobile Phone.
28 days paid holiday (includes bank holidays).
Competitive salary starting at 25K per annum plus overtime (depending on skills and experience).
Monday – Friday, 8.00 am – 5.00 pm with out-of-hours on a rota basis.

Contact Details.

Please email Ernie Berry ernie@gateandbarrier.com with your current CV and any information you feel may be pertinent to your application or ring 0115 9635117 for an informal conversation.

Tribology?

Posted by gateandbarrieron August 19, 2016June 28, 2018in TribologyLeave a comment

The Science of Friction and Wear.

So here we are, putting our blogging toes in the water starting on WordPress. To begin the blogging ball rolling we’ve decided to go back in time. We started the company by installing Nato grade security gates and turnstiles back in the day, about 1985, nobody was maintaining this very expensive, highly engineered equipment so we began. Our tribology learning curve started early one very cold morning with a callout for gates not opening, the temperature was having an obvious effect on the viscosity of the hydraulic fluid in the gate drives. After several early and freezing morning callouts, and a fair bit of engineering nouse, we learned how to keep the equipment working to its optimum efficiency and this was the start of our adventure into fluid friction and its ultimate home Tribology*

*Tribology is the study of surfaces moving relative to one another also commonly classed as the study of friction, wear, lubrication and the design of bearings. Friction is the resistance to relative motion, wear is the loss of material due to that motion and lubrication is the use of a fluid (or in some cases a solid) to minimize friction and wear.

Our field of engineering majors in the use of traditional components such as bearings and gears where we need to minimize the resistance to sliding or rolling so that as little energy as possible is lost to friction. With brakes and clutches we want to maximise the sliding resistance in order to limit the relative motions. Imagine it this way: In some cases we want to minimize friction (such as on the bottom of a bobsled) and in others we want to maximise the friction (such as on the soles of our shoes)

The study of tribology is commonly applied in bearing design but extends into almost all other aspects of modern technology, even to such unlikely areas as hair conditioners and cosmetics such as lipstick, powders and lip-gloss, to make skin or hair products that have the right feel. Everywhere tribology is used to improve the products we use and the means of production.

Tribology’s greatest gift will be in energy efficiencies like the energy lost in friction in wind turbines as well as the wear induced failures of parts in passenger cars, planes & trains globally, its industrial reach will be vast and we haven’t even touched on the human side where all the aspects of friction, lubrication and wear can bring new joint designs and improved physio therapy’s.

I hope this brief introduction to tribology has caught your imagination, we think tribology is both technologically-relevant and scientifically-fascinating and it’s definitely an exciting time to discover tribology.

Our thanks for the information above goes to: –
The Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers.
The Leonardo Tribology Centre
Imperial College London, Tribology Group

Brexit and the future of Compliance Standards for Gates and Barriers

Posted by gateandbarrieron November 28, 2018September 10, 2019in Uncategorized

The situation for the future of the BSI and CEN has now been resolved and essentially nothing will change.
The BSI announcement in full is here:

Special Announcement_ Brexit UK membership of CEN and CENELEC

The BSI will continue to produce the standards and remains part of the EC standards organisations and these will continue to be the framework for safety compliance in the UK.

There are, in addition, revised versions of most BS EN Standards but more than one has not been ‘harmonised’ to the Machinery Regulations effectively meaning it cannot be viewed as a legal requirement. However, the ‘catch all’ remains in that any installation must be safe to use in accordance with the original Health and Safety at Work Act and a Risk Assessment undertaken.

The DHF has produced a draft guidance: Revised versions of EN12453-EN12604 that provides a framework for compliance unless or until the standards become harmonised. It should be noted that this now applies to manually operated doors; pedestrian gates and manual swing gates of all types which is unlikely to have been considered by many small fabricators/installers.

From 1^st January 2019 gates must not be capable of dropping more than 300 mm in hinge failure which will probably mean an inspection routine should be adopted for swing gates/doors that are not powered in any way and three hinges instead of two OR some means of preventing potential injuries from hinge failure.

And Yett….

Posted by gateandbarrieron July 13, 2018July 16, 2018in Gate historyLeave a comment

The Oxford English Dictionary definition for the word gate is:

“An opening in a wall, made for the purpose of entrance and exit, and capable of being closed by a movable barrier”.

The word gate is derived from Old and Middle English. Old English or Anglo-Saxon was spoken from roughly the mid-5th Century after the Romans departed, Middle English was roughly 11th to 15th Century when the Normans took control.
In Old English geat, get, meant a hole or opening and corresponds with the Old Dutch / German word for hole, gap or breach. In Old Norse gat corresponded with wanting. We still use lots of Old Norse words like tidings and saga and you can find 137 more here

The original Old English declension was gæt, in the singular, and gatu in the plural. In late Old English, about the 9th Century when King Alfred was being Great, the functional distinction between the two types was already disappearing so that we find such forms as gates, gate (singular) and geatu, geatum (plural).

The etymology of the word gate is obscure with some scholars referring to the root of get to be either ‘receptacle’ (hence ‘cavity’, ‘hole’, ‘opening’) or ‘means of reaching’ (hence ‘way of access’). It’s uncertain whether it’s allied either to get or to gate.

The Middle English meaning of gate was:

(a) A gateway; a gate of a city, castle, house, etc.; also, a doorway; a floodgate;
(b) The movable barrier which closes off a gateway; a portcullis.
(c) A means of stopping idle chatter. Wondering what that would look like? Then find out about the scolds bridle here.


One of the thirty-eight surviving prefatory drawings from The Winchester Psalter this is a vision of the end of time, with an angel locking the door of Hell. Image from the British Library

Since the 16th Century gate has been the sole form in literary English although dialectally the forms with y remain in northern and North-Midland districts and occasionally they are found surviving elsewhere, as in North Devon and at Banbury.

Scottish: Yett. – that’s all, just Yett! No messing. This is a Yett at Greenknowe Tower. Scotland.

Greenknowe tower Yett

A Yett is a gate or grill of latticed bars used for defensive purposes in castles and tower houses and are mostly found in Scotland. There are some great examples here.

The earliest references to yetts date from around the 14th Century and you needed a royal warrant to install one. They were cheaper than a portculis with a simpler construction that was almost impossible to dismantle. If you want to see how one was constructed this website has a great illustration.

With thanks to the Oxford English Dictionary. Thanks also to the Middle English Dictionary of the Regents of the University of Michigan and the Dictionary of Old English Project, University of Toronto and the fabulous: http://www.intriguing-history.com/
The spectacular British Library, especially: http://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2018/07/the-winchester-psalter-an-illustrated-bilingual-psalter.html

Repair Service

Posted by gateandbarrieron June 28, 2017June 28, 2018in UncategorizedLeave a comment

Contact our service staff for any concerns, they may be defects, repairs or accident damage, we can provide you with a fast, competent service: 0115 9635117

We have an extensive inventory of third-party products, which makes for short response times and a smooth service process. As a truly independent organisation, not tied to any particular manufacturer, we source products world-wide for the most competitive solution to our clients problems.
We offer upgrades to power operation for manual equipment and refurbishment of old equipment to bring it into the relevant standards required for safe operation.

Support:
Our service team is available 24 hours a day. Please call the Gate & Barrier Services hotline. 0115 9635117