About insightEx.
insightEx is a UK Ex training and compliance company working with manufacturers of equipment for explosive atmospheres. We train the people who design, build and sign off Ex equipment, and we build the quality systems that let them certify it.
Ex competence should not depend on one or two people.
Ex knowledge has always been held by a small number of people and passed on informally. That works until the person holding it retires, or an assessor asks for evidence that the team is competent.
We built insightEx to make that knowledge accessible. Quality training that a whole organisation can access, mapped to the roles people actually hold, backed by the records an auditor wants to see. Then we look at the quality system underneath it, so the certification your products need is a process rather than a mess.
Between us we have worked in the design and manufacture of Ex equipment and systems, and inside an ATEX, IECEx and NRTL certification body. We had seen the same competency problem from both sides, so we built an independent company to close it.
You will be working with us, directly
No account managers, no subcontracted trainers. The people who write the courses are the people who deliver them and answer your technical queries.
Jon Hichens
Jon started his career as an aircraft technician before gaining a first class engineering degree at Plymouth. He has worked across every side of the Ex industry since 2012: commissioning fuel systems on sites in Asia, then Lead Certification Engineer, Certification Manager and Ex Authorised Person for a large Ex manufacturer, and at an ATEX notified body. He now leads course delivery and training operations, and is the person in front of the room on most insightEx courses.
Ben Reynolds
Ben is a chartered engineer who has worked in the design and manufacture of Ex equipment and systems since 2014, and for an ATEX, IECEx and NRTL certification body. He prefers simple, purposeful solutions and honest conversations about what a quality system actually needs. He leads the technical side of the business: technical queries, consultancy, and certification support.
How we work, and what we will not trade away
Community
We give back to the local community and support local businesses wherever we can. We are a North East company and we would rather spend our money here.
Competence
We work in an industry where mistakes cost lives. Safety and good engineering practice come before everything else, including the sale.
Responsibility
We try to behave in a way that is respectful to the planet and to the people we meet, in how we travel, what we buy and how we treat clients.
Authenticity
We hold ourselves to the highest personal and professional standards. If something is outside our expertise we will tell you, and point you at whoever is better placed.
Where equipment meets an explosive atmosphere
Our clients are equipment manufacturers and the engineering teams that install and maintain what they build. What changes between these sectors is not the standard, it is the atmosphere you have to design against.
Oil & gas
Upstream production, refining and offshore installations, onshore and on platforms. Equipment here typically sits in Zone 1 or Zone 2 gas atmospheres with Group IIA and IIB gases, which drives the protection concepts available to you and the temperature classification you have to demonstrate. It is the most mature Ex market and the one with the most demanding client specifications on top of the standards.
Renewables
Hydrogen production and storage, biogas and anaerobic digestion, and battery energy storage. Hydrogen is the difficult one: it is a Group IIC gas with a very low minimum ignition energy, so equipment certified for methane will not do, and a lot of existing designs need requalifying. This is the fastest-growing part of our work and the area where manufacturers most often discover their certification does not cover the application.
Pharmaceutical
Solvent handling, granulation, drying and powder processing. Sites typically have both gas and combustible dust atmospheres in the same building, so equipment often needs dual certification and dust layer temperature assessment alongside the gas rating. Cleanroom and GMP requirements sit on top, which constrains materials and enclosure design.
Chemical
Batch and continuous process plant, from bulk chemicals to speciality manufacture. Wide variation in gas groups and temperature classes across a single site, and equipment frequently has to be corrosion-rated as well as Ex-rated. Process changes are common, which makes keeping certification aligned with actual use a live issue rather than a one-off exercise.
Mining
Underground and surface material handling, conveying and processing. Underground coal mining brings Group I equipment and methane, a separate track from the Group II industrial equipment most manufacturers know. Surface operations deal mainly with combustible dust from ore and coal handling.
Food processing
Milling, drying, sugar and starch handling, and animal feed. Almost entirely a combustible dust problem rather than a gas one, and the one sector where the hazard is routinely underestimated, because flour, sugar and milk powder do not feel dangerous. Dust group and minimum ignition temperature drive equipment selection here.
Infrastructure
Tunnels, water and wastewater treatment, landfill gas and waste handling. Hazards here are often intermittent rather than continuous, which makes zoning the hard part, and equipment frequently sits in wet, buried or confined locations where ingress protection matters as much as the protection concept. We have helped electrical and instrumentation engineers understand the equipment they select for these environments.
Certification bodies, not just consultants
Ex training is delivered in partnership with Element Materials Technology, an IECEx certification body and ATEX notified body. Eutex International bring us in as their Ex authority on technical queries.
See all partnersQuestions about competence
Still not covered? Send us the question. An engineer answers, not a chatbot.
What counts as Ex competence?
Competence is the combination of knowledge, skill and experience that lets someone carry out their Ex role safely and correctly. Under ISO 80079-34 a manufacturer has to identify which roles affect Ex conformity, define what each needs to know, train to that, and keep the records that prove it. Knowing the standard is not enough on its own; it has to be documented and current.
How do I prove my team is competent?
With a competency matrix: every Ex-relevant role mapped against the training and evidence it requires, with completion dates and refresh intervals against each name. Every insightEx one course maps onto that matrix, so the evidence builds itself as your team trains rather than being assembled the week before an audit.
Which roles actually need Ex training?
More than most companies expect. Anyone whose work can affect Ex conformity: design and development engineers, production and assembly staff, quality and inspection, purchasing where they specify components, and the Authorised Person who signs off. Awareness level is enough for some of those roles; others need the full route up to Authorised Person (Ex).
Who will I be working with?
Jon or Ben, directly. The people who write the courses deliver them and answer your technical queries, so you are not passed between an account manager and a subcontracted trainer. Ex training is delivered in partnership with Element Materials Technology, an IECEx certification body and ATEX notified body.
Come and talk to us.
Tell us where you are with Ex competence or certification and we will tell you what we would do next, whether or not that involves us.
Ex training and compliance support for hazardous area equipment manufacturers.
Morpeth
NE61 6JN
Bellingham, Hexham
NE48 2AZ
