International. Boon Edam Inc. announced that Shell Chemical LP, located in Deer Park, Texas, installed seven Boon Edam Swinglane 900 turnstiles to improve access control between its administrative building and production facility.
The decision to install Boon Edam's revenue was made jointly between Shell's real estate group and the company's corporate security division. "We have four Swinglanes at our main entrance, where employees and visitors arrive, and three at the rear entrance, which controls access to the protected area where production is continuous," said John Logan, safety specialist at Shell Chemical LP.
Shell Deer Park facilities are regulated by the Maritime Transport Safety Act 2002 (MTSA). MTSA safety standards focus on those sectors of the maritime industry that are most at risk of being affected by transportation safety incidents, such as tankers, barges, large passenger vessels, cargo ships, tugboats, offshore oil and gas platforms, and port facilities that handle certain types of dangerous cargo or maintain the vessels listed above.
"Under the MTSA act, we have to be able to account for the people who are in the production area, so we need strict traffic control between the administrative building and the production plant," Logan added.
Shell's facilities operate in a "continuous process" production mode, so there is a continuous movement of staff between buildings 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. A refinery has been operating in this location since the 20s. When the turnstiles were installed, Shell carried out a simple training and education campaign on the new entry protocol and the transition went smoothly. Boon Edam turnstiles manage access for approximately 1,600 employees and 1,200 contractors per day.
The Swinglane 900 uses a single glass swing panel to control the flow of authorized users. "If there's an incident of one user trying to get in by closely following another," Logan said, "we can control it in a matter of seconds because the turnstiles emit an alarm and the flow of people coming in and out is constantly monitored across both sets of entrances. Our experience has been that the incidents of attempted unauthorized entry in which we have had to intervene have been unintentional errors."
"We have been very impressed by the reliability of these Boon Edam turnstiles. Since the installation in 2008, we haven't had a single problem with the entrances... Not a single one," Logan reported with satisfaction.
