Special Visitors At The Cokebusters Technology Centre

This week two members of the Cokebusters USA team flew over to the UK from Houston to spend some time with their British colleagues!  Neither Cokebusters USA Workshop Manager Scotty Wilkins, his wife Kristi, nor Decoking Operator/Welder Ryan Zbylot, had visited the UK before.  So it was quite an experience arriving from Texas and exploring their new surroundings in the small Roman city of Chester.

We understand Scotty, sporting his favourite Stetson whilst wandering through the cobbled streets, found himself in demand for selfies from passers by who had “never seen a real life cowboy before!”

As our teams on either side of the Atlantic continue to work together more closely, this visit has been a positive exercise in relationship building and information sharing. Scotty has been pleased to sit in on various meetings, speaking with our Operations Director and Transport Manager on respective workshop protocols and how to better standardise our approach globally.

Ryan even tried his hand at pig-making, which our veteran Pig Manufacturer, Ian Calvin, insisted was actually a “very relaxing” process once you got into it!

One of the Double Pumping Units which had been operating out of Houston was recently repatriated to the UK for a significant refurbishment.  Scotty and Ryan were interested to see what progress had been made in the UK Workshop and were able to contribute to plans to rebuild and update the machine back to ‘state of the art’ condition.

Fleet Manager, Mike Muir, and the Workshop Team involved in the ongoing refurbishment of CB18 have been keen to learn more about Scotty and Ryan’s experience of what worked well and what required improvement, having operated the machine on site in various climates across North America.

Whilst the bleak January weather has taken a bit of getting used to, they’ve both enjoyed their time at the Technology Centre and will leave with a much better understanding of our specialist machinery and tooling manufacturing processes in the UK.

Cokebusters Managing Director, James Phipps, said: “We are fortunate these days to have so many fast and convenient ways to connect with each other digitally, but nothing beats face to face!  Everyone here has thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Scotty and Ryan better and we all wish them a safe journey home.“