This case study, which was very kindly put together by a customer at a large chemical manufacturing site in the midlands, highlights the potential benefits of regularly using an infrared camera on-site.

"On a routine thermal image inspection, both myself and an electrician went into a switchroom. On entry, we could smell that something was hot. We opened up a switch cabinet and used our FLIR E-45 and digital camera to take images of the fuses."

"The report - prepared using the FLIR Reporter 8 software with its image fusion capability - shows our findings. As per the report, action was taken straight away, and the photograph shows what was found."

"The isolator had actually burnt away, so it was impossible to turn off the power. The worst case scenario was that the fuse had failed, the electrician isolates and deadlines only one of the outside fuses and, as that reads as dead, they assume that all is safe. As soon as they touch the centre fuse, well... 440 volts can really upset your day."

"If the centre leg had failed, then the fan it feeds would have stopped. This would cause the shutdown of 8 production lines, each at a cost of £1,000 per hour. You can't just turn these lines back on, either - each one takes an hour to start up and then another hour to settle down before it is producing saleable-quality goods. It also takes a team of 5 people to start a line up, so it could cost in excess of £50,000."