Rock Empire International PPE Partners´ Meeting
t the beginning of November 2019, we organized our first-ever International PPE Partners´ Meeting. Our partners from the following countries joined us: Australia, Brazil, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Singapore. We welcomed 16 people from the 9 countries in total. During our time together, we experienced and discussed many things.
The meeting took place at the headquarters of our company in Děčín. The two-day meeting was focused on use of current and new work equipment and revision of PPE. We welcomed most of the participants in the evening on 31.10.2019, where we all met at the Hotel Vyprez in Decin. We sat down, ate, chatted... a typical good Czech evening.
The next morning, we met at the hotel for breakfast, jumped into the vans and headed to Rock Empire. After the official welcome and presentation of the program, the company Director, Jiří Chaloupka took the stage and spoke about the history, present situation and future goals of our company.
Amy Veselá, Export Manager, introduced participants to business results and business plans for the future. A tour of the company followed, where Jiří Chaloupka led the participants through the entire company, stopped in each department and explained what was happening. We visited the design and development, purchasing, stock, production, inspection and shipping departments.
During the tour, we also visited the company, Profi-moto, that is located in our building. Profi-moto is an exclusive dealer of MV Agusta motorcycles for the Czech Republic and an authorized Ducati dealer, and there was a lot of cool motorcycles and mopeds to see.
The rest of the morning was devoted to work: an introduction to our new PPE products and innovations by our PPE manager Martin Riedl.
After lunch, our developers, Zbyněk Homola and Jan Zíma, invited us to our testing room, where they demonstrated how we test the RE equipment to ensure all production is meeting EN norms. We tested our Equip Belt; the first test was according to the sport standard EN12277 - the standard was of course met. Then, we polled the attendees as to how much the Equip would last before it broke. And the Equip finally broke at over 21 kN. The second test was for positioning loop strength, according to EN 358, and the belt lasted over 18 kN.
The program continued with the developers and prepared presentations for participants explaining how the product development process works, from idea to design, selection of sample material, production of the first prototypes for testing, certification and then production and marketing.
Finally, the day finished with PPE inspection training, and the participants received certificates.
The first day was very busy, so we prepared for our clients an excellent evening buffet and wine tasting from the experienced and friendly people at the Baláž Winery. After that (and 10 wine samples), we talked, joked and laughed well into the night.
Saturday morning was a trip to a rescue and ambulance heliport in Ústí nad Labem, where we toured the heliport, saw the helicopter come and go on trips and talked to the rescue team. The Ústí Air Rescue Service is one of our long-term customers and uses not only our products, but also our training services they need for their work.
We ended the event with lunch at the hotel. Most of the participants extended their stay in the Czech Republic for another day, some by visiting our famous city of 100+ spires, Prague, and others for climbing at the Hudy Sport Climbing Hall in Ústí nad Labem.
In conclusion, the feedback from the participants was very positive. They said they gained a lot of knowledge and experience from their visit, and we received recommendations for innovations and advice on how to better cooperate with our partners.
Many thanks to everyone who visited us and all of our Rock Empire staff for their participation! We look forward to seeing you again in Rock Empire and welcoming additional international partners at our next meeting.
Your RE team.