Owens Corning Fibreglas France is a division of Owens Corning Vetrotex that produces Fiber Glass, the production process is continuous; the plant is so designed that the production should never stop.
To avoid downtime for maintenance works and comply with the new safety regulation in its Ardoise plant near Avignon, Owens Corning Fibreglas France decided in the early 2000’s to change the plugs and sockets of its power supply network. Marechal Electric became the obvious choice thanks to the safety features of its technology, Marechal’s decontactor being simultaneously a plug and socket and a load-breaking switch. Among others, the decontactor has a safety shutter that shields the live parts from operator contact. This feature was a key in OCFF’s decision.
Additionally, while Mr. Bouquet, the Ardoise plant’s maintenance manager, was thinking about making his installation compliant with the new regulations, the plant got equipment from its US counterparts with Marechal plugs. This further strengthened his decision in favour of Marechal Electric: “It became possible to set a standard for most of our production equipment, and that was a key point, said Mr. Bouquet. Technical benefits such as ruggedness, automatic IP66/IP67 seal and protection against UVA were also important arguments for these products’ reliability and safety.”
Some parts of the plant are very humid and previous sockets often failed because of corrosion. Corrosion generated overheating of the contacts until destruction of the connection. The decontactor’s solid silver-nickel butt contact was completely corrosion resistant even in such harsh environments; its superior conductivity proved reliable over time.
These features were necessary to connect outdoor equipment too. Marechal offered an interesting modular design, the decontactor comes in coupler socket, wall box mounted socket and inclined socket configurations as standard features while guaranteeing reliability and user safety through its load-break switch capability