Industry firsts
SALLY.
The SALLY (Swivel Action Lock and Lift Yolk) is without doubt one of the biggest contributions to lifting and handling plates and similar items safely and securely. We are proud to have been the very first to have launched it into the U.K market back in 2012 and we remain the number 1 choice for hire and sales to date.
Weekly Off Hire/Collection Reporting – Equipment tracking
We realised from the very beginning that one of the biggest problems for clients was being able to track hired in equipment from a reliable provider with robust and transparent systems. So many times we’ve heard horror stories of equipment that was supposedly ‘missing’ after it was off hired resulting in big bills of questionable integrity from other suppliers.
So from your first enquiry through to your last invoice, you will be dealing with a team that cares about your problems and knows how to solve them.
Because we’ve invested in the best technology available, we can generate ON HIRE reports to schedule or on request. Plus we send you or your management team, a weekly email reporting COLLECTIONS and OFF HIRES. This makes keeping the record straight as easy as possibe.
Supertruck
Proving that our commitment to what we do includes the whole package, we developed the Supertruck concept to give us, and you the client, the ability to deliver and collect equipment that prior to its introduction, simply wasn’t practical.
Ti-Carb
Originally part of our development programme aimed at producing an anti-slip coating that could be used ‘airside’ where jet blast and glare for pilots and control towers are an issue. It has been adopted by BAA in their safe method of works and is the gold standard for friction coatings. We can now offer it on a range of sizes and specifications across our product catalogue.
Journeyman
Morrison Utility Services approached us back in 2007 for a solution to a raft of problems they had on the Southern area gas main renewal programme. We listened and worked with their manager Steve Brown and came up with the ‘Journeyman’ concept. Combining a secure package for both a store and a separate W.C unit, saving space and preventing mess on sites.
Series 38
A last minute change on a major civils project at the Royal Mail logistics centre in Daventry left a potential new client with a big big problem. How, during the day, to carry out substantive remedial action including the relaying of surface drainage and concrete renewal on a quarter kilometre section of a loading dock with a 2.20 m void along its length and attended by 44t GVW artics by night.
The design and production teams swung into action and came up with SERIES 38. It’s superior duties and indexable elements make it a fantastic addition to the core hire fleet.
Aston Mat
How do you produce a resilient bridging unit, capable of coping with enormous traffic cycles for a feeder route for the M6 motorway across a 6 month period, with only limited budget and clearance limits underneath?
Using a composite of toughness and strength steel, with the resilience of a hardwood element. Thus the ‘Aston-Mat’ was born, named after the Aston Expressway where it was first used.
Bridge Plate Inserts
The boffins in design here were presented with the challenge of a safe way of securing a series of plates to the road deck which will then be lifted and laid around 1,000 times. They came up with a stainless steel insert that could be resin fixed into a core drilled hole. Using special tooling, it was inserted with the left hand thread of a profile borrowed from the oil exploration industry. This meant it could never come out by accident and the plates could be bolted down without fear of tearing out the substrate.
Polyroads
There were already a handful of medium and heavy duty temporary road systems available. But none of them had features like the ability to use machinery skates over them, and the ability to transport on lighter vehicles. So we designed and commissioned POLYROAD and ensured it had the universal benefits of the SALLY handling system.
Airside Safelift
Having supplied plates for ‘airside’ projects in the past we were aware of some of the problems faced by these challenging sites. Normal friction treatments were unsuitable for various reasons In the past the issue was sidestepped by specifying uncoated (i.e bare steel) for airside works. Something we and our clients had great concerns about. All of this was handed to the research team who were asked for some deep thinking. It culminated in a airside-anti-glare roadplate coating that is unique to us. It is coated with is part Titanium Carbide. They are now part of BAA’s specification for airport work.
Hardfeet
Due to the masses involved, our hire business brings with it a fair share of transport and logistical issues. One that came up time and time again was the 11.5 tonne per square metre issue when calculating outrigger loadings for lorry loading crane operations. Because quite often outrigger loads can theoretically be upwards of 12 tonnes and standard outrigger pads are significantly less than 1 sq/m in area. To solve this and give real protection to block paving etc we made ‘Hard feet’…even with 16 tonne loadings they only transfer at 10.25 t per sq/m
Early adopter policy
From the items noted above you can already appreciate we embrace innovation wherever we see value and improvements in safety, performance and mitigating our environmental impact.
So even though we weren’t the absolute first ones with the following, we were proud to be in the vanguard of a lot of which is now widely recognised industry best practice…
- FORS Bronze compliance. We were number 619 out of a list of nearly 5,000 at time of print.
- CLOCS and SUDS schemes
- Operator training to CSCS – NVQ and ALLMI standards
- Eco and Hybrid powered Mobile Welfare Units
- Satellite tracking with live traffic and special routing functions… since way back in 2008 !!
- FORS Silver compliance…an even more select few
- Resin aggregate anti skid on all street works plates, Back in 2004 when we started with it, this was a rarity!
And of course all of this is ongoing, We keep a careful eye on industry developments and an ear free to listen to clients problem. At any one time we have ongoing RandD projects of our own as well as regular international trips to get up close and personal to kit and equipment that hasn’t been seen or tried in the U.K.