The FGA Feature Most Engineers Don't Know They Have w/ Kieren Carter

If you don't get it serviced every 12 months, the legislation that's been put in place to say that you have to, it's like getting your car MOT'd. You don't get your car MOT'd and something happens, or there's an accident that happens, and it's because of a fault in your car that's caused that accident because of the missed MOT, you're going to get in trouble. And it's the exact same premise with a flue gas analyser. I think the, the main feature that people don't know that they've genuinely got is the Bluetooth feature on the Pro 3 Up. Whether it's they don't know that it's there, or they're not a big fan of it, or whatever it may be, but that's the question I get asked most. It's very— I use the analogy of you're either Apple or Android, effectively. So if you've always had an Apple iPhone, you're always going to use an Apple iPhone and vice versa.

Where do you kind of see the industry going?

I think we're moving into a wireless world where plugging in things is going to be a thing of the past moving forwards very quickly. And I think that's where the FGAs are going to be going.

This is the Gas Engineer Podcast. I'm your host, Tulloch Priest. And today I'm joined by Kieran Carter from Anton by Crowcon, the team behind SprintPro, one of the most widely used flue gas analysers in the UK. Welcome to the show, Ceryn.

Thank you very much for having me.

Every engineer has an FGA. Most have really strong opinions about which one's the best, but very few have thought about what things look like from the manufacturer's side. Ceryn talks to engineers every day, so today we're going to get his perspective on how engineers choose their analyser, what they actually ask for, and how that feedback shapes what gets built next. In a sentence or two, why should people care about this conversation?

I think it'd be a good insight into exactly what they need to be looking for when choosing their next flue gas analyser.

Tell us a little bit about what your role, you know, what does account manager actually do? How much of your time is spent talking directly to engineers?

So account manager, like, it does exactly what it says on the tin, in all honesty. So my— I've got a relatively large area to cover, so I cover everything from Birmingham in the West Midlands all the way down to the bottom of the country, All of Wales and all of the Republic of Ireland. So that's the area that I look after and I manage accounts effectively. So, uh, and at Anton, we don't like to sell direct to the end user, so we use our distribution partners all over the country as well as Wales and obviously Republic of Ireland as well. And it's looking after those guys, making sure that we can, we give them as much information as humanly possible so they're well equipped to sell our product, as well as support them as best as possible, whether that's me going to visit potential customers that are looking at purchasing the analysers, whether it's me going and speaking to fleets of engineers, doing toolbox talks to give them little tips and tricks of how to look after the analyser and get the longevity out of it, and just support them on a day-to-day basis really. Try to do as much of a personal approach as I can.

And are you speaking directly to the engineers themselves, or is it mainly through sort of resellers?

So no, I speak directly to the engineers themselves. So a large proportion of my job is to contact the engineers, whether it be one-man bands, small fleets, or large fleets, go and visit them. And then once they've spoke to us as the manufacturer, then we obviously point them in the right direction of the closest distributor to them where they can purchase them and service them.

And slightly aside, but what actually got you into this side of the industry?

So a friend of mine of 25-ish years was working for Anton at the time. I gave him my CV, in all honesty, found it very interesting. He was an engineer himself. Um, used the product and then went and worked for the manufacturer when it was time for him to come off the tools. And it was, uh, it was a fantastic opportunity and something that I've, uh, I've really enjoyed thus far.

And, um, yeah, kind of engineers do, um, engineers do domestic work, have very kind of different needs from somebody doing commercial jobs. Tell us, how does that kind of shape, uh, what somebody should be looking for in an analyzer?

So the way that would shape it is we have, uh, we have 6 different variations at this moment in time of Sprint Pro. Each one does something different to the last one and will help them along in their journey as they're building their portfolio up, as well as a wide variety of accessories that comes with it. So it all depends on what they want to actually— what they'll be doing on a day-to-day basis, for what analyser they need, and that's where we come in.

Do most engineers buy the right analyser for the work, or do they overspec, underspec? What do you normally kind of find?

I would never say that you could over-spec an analyzer, in all honesty. So like I say, we've got our most popular analyzer, the Sprint Pro 3, is our 8-in-1 analyzer. So that'll do everything that a domestic engineer will require on a day-to-day basis, but it'll also do the basics as well. So I don't ever think you can over-spec. And under-spec, if you do underspec, we have accessories that will help you along with your job anyway. So if the analyzer doesn't do something We will have a piece of equipment that will do that job.

I don't know whether they buy more than they need, but they don't actually use it, but they— because they just— because they don't really know whether it's going to actually— those kind of jobs are going to come up. So like, especially at the beginning, is that a kind of a thing?

Yeah, it can be, to be fair. But again, that's where our job comes into place. Our job isn't to try and sell the most expensive piece of kit that they're never going to use. Our job is to find— is to speak to them, whether it's on behalf of a distributor or direct from ourselves, to find the right piece of equipment that's going to work for them in the long haul. So like from your entry-level analyzer, which your newly qualified engineer will do just for flue gas analysis, if that's all you need, fantastic, buy that one. And then like I say, as you go throughout your career and you start building your portfolio up of what you're actually going to be doing, then you go and buy either a Pro 2, Pro 3, or you, like you say, you can buy the accessories to do them additional jobs.

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Okay, and how does the engineers actually choose the analyzer? Is it kind of brand loyalty, price, reliability, something else?

Um, I think there's a mixture of everything really. So if they've used, if they've used us or if they've used a competitor's analyser at their college where they've been looking for, it's very— I use the analogy of you're either Apple or Android effectively. So if you've always had an Apple iPhone, you're always going to use an Apple iPhone and vice versa. But again, it's— I think a large proportion of it is down to the maintenance cost of the analyser and the turnaround time that you're keeping the engineers on the tools and keep them earning money as quick as possible.

And how does Anton actually do that calibration? How does that service actually work with Anton?

So you can send it to us directly. We have a service center directly at our head office down in Abingdon. Or we do have 19 other service centers dotted around the UK and Ireland. So they're all listed on our website, antonanalysers.com, where you can see which one's the closest to you. And if you don't know which one it is, you can contact us directly. We all work off the same pricing. So whether you send it to us or send it to a third party, They're all on the same price, as well as they're all trained at our head office as well. So nobody's outsourced— we don't outsource our training. Once the service centre wants to be open or has been open, they'll come down to ourselves and we'll train them on how to service and calibrate the analysers. So the way that Anton differentiates itself when it comes to the calibration aspect is our analyser will lock at 12 months. So you've got to have your analyser calibrated on a year-to-year basis. So at 11 months, you will receive a notification on your screen saying your analyzer is coming up for calibration, shall we say. So that's giving you a little bit of a prompt to go and book it in, like I say, whether it's with us or whether it's with one of our service partners. At 12 months, the analyzer, it will lock, so it won't allow you to actually use the analyzer. It will turn on, but it won't lock. The reason we've done that is solely to protect you as the engineer that's using it. Because like you say, you don't want— you could potentially, like I say, without it being checked every 12 months, which is the reason the legislation's put in place, could have false readings or whatever it may be. So yes, we understand that that can be a pain, but it is to protect— it is to protect you as the end user, making sure that you get it calibrated. And anybody who uses an Anton knows that that's coming anyway. So then what you do, you send it— you either, like I say, if you're sending it to us, just hypothetically, you go into our— you go into antonanalysers.com to book a calibration. You'll receive then your delivery form as such. Take it to your local, or you can take it to your local distributor and they will send it directly to us. If they send it to us on a Monday afternoon, we'll receive that on a Monday evening. We'll service, we'll have it for 2 to 3 days at our head office and then send it back. So you'll have it by the Friday.

Is there a replacement one that you can use, or would most engineers have a second one? How does that kind of work during those 2 to 3 days?

Most of our distribution partners, uh, distribution partners, um, will rent a spare analyzer to you for a low cost. So they'll buy them off us and rent them to the engineers whilst their analyzer's being calibrated.

Off the top of your head, what is the actual penalties of not having your device calibrated? So let's say Anton actually let engineers carry on using it, you know, what's the consequences of that?

So effectively, if you go and service a boiler or whatever it may be, and the readings come up, they could be false readings. So the service you work at, at the end of the day, you're working with gases, whether they be deadly or not deadly.

Mm-hmm.

So if you've gone and used a Pro3, for instance, and used the gas sniffer on the Pro3, and the gas sniffer's come up and it's got a false reading on there and saying, oh no, nothing's leaking, or whatever it may be, and but there is a gas leak and somebody gets injured via that, then it'll be not just down to the engineer who's at fault, it'll be down to us as the manufacturer at fault For not making sure that you've had that analyzer serviced, which is the reason why we put the block in place in the first place. You're breaking the law is the honest answer. If you don't get it serviced every 12 months, the legislation that's been put in place to say that you have to— it's like getting your car MOT'd. You've got to get your car MOT'd every 12 months. You don't get your car MOT'd and something happens, or there's an accident that happens, and it's because of a fault in your car that's caused that accident because of the missed MOT, you're going to get in trouble. And it's the exact same premise.

And you hear a lot of feedback from engineers, what they love, what frustrates them, what they wish existed. What kind of things that kind of come up quite regularly, or what's the most kind of common themes?

So we're quite fortunate with Anton, simply for the fact is we have a lot of involvement with our inventor, our lead scientist, Paul Basham, who's one of the cleverest men I've ever met in my entire life. So if I go back to Paul with feedback from the engineers and he genuinely thinks that that's a fantastic idea, he will implement that and he will put that into, he will put that into production, not just for that one person, but for absolutely everybody. Because if it's a genuine improvement that we haven't thought of, at the end of the day, you guys are using them every single day. You guys know what works, you know what don't work, you know what's going to make your life easier, you know what's making your life difficult. If you can tell us and it's a genuinely good idea, We'll put that into practice and we'll get it sorted.

Is there one kind of anything that kind of stands out of like where there was feedback that's actually gone into the product?

100%. So I can't remember who it was now, but when I went to a Toolbox Talk last year, or about 18 months ago, and on our probe we have a depth gauge. It's basically, it looks like a little witch's hat with a screw. And obviously you undo the screw, you move the depth gauge up and down to how deep you want to go into the exhaust of the flue. And then tighten it up. The problem that engineers didn't like about it is brand new, the screw can be quite tight, and if you get some pliers on it, you can snap it, and then you're, you're not getting that depth gauge off without cutting it or sending it back to us. Secondly, if you unscrew it, there's nothing that holds it in place. So if you unscrew it, forget you've unscrewed it, the depth gauge falls off the probe completely. So we went to these engineers and they said they hate that. It's the biggest pain in their backside that they can possibly imagine. So I went back to Paul and told him, is there any way that we can have something that doesn't have the screw that will hold it in place? So we created the O-ring edition depth gauge, which is effectively the same premise. It's a cone shape with an O-ring inside, so now there's no screw and you just manually pull it up and down. And if you turn it upside down and shake it, you can shake it as hard as you want, that thing's not falling off. So that's just a little bit of an example of never thought of that, great idea, we'll implement that.

It's nice to see the actual feedback actually going into the product, definitely.

100%.

Once an engineer's brought their FGA, how much kind of ongoing contact do they actually have with Anton?

It's all down to them. So whether they buy it from our distribution partner or wherever they buy it from, we all say, all of the account managers that work for Anton, give our contact information, whether it be my email, whether it be my telephone number, or contact obviously Anton directly if there's any problems, any questions that you have. There's no such thing as a stupid question, and if we don't know the answer, there's somebody in our organization that definitely will know the answer. So please contact us as much or as little as you want to.

And do you think engineers get the most out of their analyzers, or most just use the basics?

I think it's dependent on how long they've been doing the job, in all honesty. You've got a new apprentice that's, uh, or a newly qualified Gas Safe engineer that's that's just come onto the job. They'll only do what they've been taught how to do. And where you've got a seasoned professional, I think, and they've been using our product for 20, 30 years, they'll know how to get the most out of it. But again, that's where we come into play. Give us a call. Like I say, if you've got any questions, we'll answer it for you. And if you want us to come and visit your fleet of engineers, please give us a shout and we'll come down and we'll go through as much as humanly possible with you.

Is there any kind of features that kind of stand out that, you know, don't get commonly used?

I think the main feature that, whether it doesn't get commonly used, but people don't know that they've genuinely got it, is the Bluetooth feature on the Pro 3 up. So Pro 3, 4, 5, and 6 have Bluetooth that connects to our application, the SprintPro mobile app. Whether it's they don't know that it's there, or they're not a big fan of it, or whatever it may be. But that's the question I get asked most, is, does it have Bluetooth? And if you literally just flip over the analyzer, it'll tell you what analyzer it is. And it'll tell you whether it's got Bluetooth on there as well.

Okay, and then obviously that links to things like Gas Engineer Software. You can send your readings, etc., over.

All on, all on the Sprint mobile app, yeah.

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My background's actually the, the motor industry, and if I'm being honest, I'd probably do the exact same thing as I did when buying a car. I'd find out what it's— how much it costs, what kind of specification it's got, what I like, how reliable it is, and how cheap it is to maintain. And if I'm being completely honest, I think Anton covers all bases with that, which is the reason— that's how I would look, and that's probably the route that I would go down.

Anton sponsors engineers, works with ambassadors, does shows at events. Tell us what you've actually learned from the gas engineering community. from being embedded in it rather than being an engineer yourself?

It's a close-knit community. Everybody knows everybody. I found that out quite quickly. Word of mouth is massively important. They've had a good experience in Scotland, somebody down in London will know. They've had a bad experience in Ireland, somebody up in Scotland, they'll know. Everything is just so— it's professional. It's very professional. Everybody is very good at what they do. They know everything about what they do. And they're happy to have a chat with you. It's not a case of, I'll go and speak to somebody, can I have a chat about Anton? They put their hand in their face like they did when I was selling cars for 9 years. It's, they're like, you're 100%, not a problem whatsoever. How does it benefit me? What can we do here? X, Y, and Z. It's a close-knit community and a good community. I've been doing it for 2 years now, and I can honestly say it's the best professional decision I've ever made.

And has the relationship between kind of manufacturers and engineers, have you noticed any kind of changes over the Those last 2 years?

It's gotten closer. It's, uh, we— it's not distance. They're very, they're very happy to approach us, very happy to have a laugh and a joke with us, have a proper conversation with us. It's gotten a lot, lot, lot closer, and I believe that that's the future of future moving forwards. We want to be as close to as many people as humanly possible, whether you're using our product or not, anybody in the industry, because that's how we learn and that's how we grow and that's how we get better together as a community, because that's effectively what the HVAC industry is, and it is It's a large community all working towards the same goal.

And kind of looking forward, you know, the industry is changing quite a lot— tightness test procedures, digital reporting, heat pumps. Where do FGAs need to go next? Where do you kind of see the industry going?

I think we're moving into a wireless world where plugging in things is going to be a thing of the past moving forwards very quickly, and I think that's where the FGAs are going to be going. I think everything's going to be wireless Bluetooth connected to some form of cloud. And I think that's probably what's going to happen very shortly. It's literally around the corner.

Do you mean that kind of in more than just connecting it to like software, or do you mean kind of like always on?

I mean that in a sense of you'll have your main unit which will be on the front of the boiler, and you won't be having to plug anything into the analyzer. Everything will be connected to that analyzer. So whether it be a probe, temperature clamps, whatever it may be, it'll be connected to the analyzer and you'll be able to walk away from the analyzer and see what's happening on your phone and see what's— I think that's what's coming. Everything's becoming just— it's a wireless world, and I believe that that's what's going to be moving forwards.

So it's going to be more— so you're thinking it's going to be sort of always on, essentially? So you would get continuous reading instead of just a yearly check? Is there anything engineers that you think would be worthwhile paying attention to?

In what regard? Sorry.

Like in the near future, like in the next 2 or 3 years.

What they need to be keeping their eye out for? I think they should probably keep an eye out for anything new that's coming with our products. We've got a lot of things, a lot of stuff in the pipeline that I'm not limited to discuss at this moment in time. It's going to be a very exciting time for any Anton users and any potential Anton users. Very exciting time and things are coming and they are coming quickly.

Okay, well, thank you very much for your coming on the podcast today. I really appreciate your time. And yeah, thank you once again.

No problem. Thank you very much.