Boosting plant performance through the power of AI

As HEJ’s editor, Jonathan Baillie reports, with considerable IT expertise – including having on its team a leading world authority on 21st-century communication technology, and using AI, edge computing, and Internet of Things technology – the company is fast developing systems which will not only ensure such equipment’s optimal running remotely, but will even detect small performance reductions before they become more serious, and could, in future, eliminate altogether the need for human intervention in such systems’ running.

SHJ, which is today based in three modern business units in Chesham, was established in 1967 on another, smaller site in the Buckinghamshire town by Ronald Scopes, the father of the company’s current owner and MD, Stafford Scopes. A former head of BOC UK Medical, Ronald Scopes established the business to address a sizeable backlog of hospital medical gas installations at the time; this was largely a result of BOC Medical offering to install such systems at no cost, with hospitals paying only for the gas supplied. Consequently, BOC found itself unable to meet demand for installations as quickly as the hospitals wanted. “On establishing the business,” Stafford Scopes explained, “my father offered the hospitals a simple choice – pay him for a quick, efficient, and professional installation, and get it done straight away, or work with BOC and wait. Many hospitals were happy to pay, and SHJ’s business quickly took off. The first order, worth £3,000, was from Hammersmith Hospital – which is still a customer today – and was sufficient to give my father the confidence to really get the business going.”

A ‘means to an end’