P F Cusack Ltd Going for Gold

Founded in 1989, P F Cusack (Tool Supplies) Ltd are an independent, owner managed company and have established a reputation as a leading nationwide supplier of personal protection equipment (PPE), small hand tools, consumables, Hi-Vis clothing, First Aid and Road Traffic Management products to the Utility, Construction, Road and Rail industries with annual turnover in excess of £20M. We utilise a state of the art GPS based transport tracking system so that we can pinpoint the precise location of our delivery vehicles at any time in order to provide our customers with up to date delivery details. We’re proud to be apart of FORS and strongly recommend all companies to join the scheme. Ron Harrison, Health, Safety & Compliance Manager is our elected Fuel and Emissions Champion and he explains how important FORS is to our Company.

We came across FORS when tendering for work across London. When we looked at the requirements and benefits of joining the scheme we saw that they fitted in perfectly with our ethos of improving safety whilst complementing our drive to improve fuel efficiency and reduce our environmental impact’

We take compliance and safety very seriously, so we achieved our Bronze and Silver Accreditation first time. FORS did help us by providing training and tools that improved the policies and procedures’

The performance management toolkit really helped us set our targets for reducing our carbon footprint and improving our MPG. FORS has helped us improve our filing systems and procedures’

‘FORS has helped us achieve compliance and safety’ – Ron Harrison – Health, Safety & Compliance Manager

All our drivers have completed their Safe Urban Driving course. We have also invested heavily in vehicle safety systems cameras, nearside proximity sensors and audible alarms for all our vehicles. All our drivers have also completed FORS E-Learning modules.’

‘We have reduced ouir accidents by 100% since our baseline year’ – Ron Harrison – Health, Safety & Compliance Manager

We have managed to keep our accidents/incidents down to zero for the 12 months. And we also reduced our Parking fines and Charges by 10% compared to our baseline year. We achieved this by making sure we always selected the best route possible to all our sites and we plan ahead before leaving the yard

• We get all my drivers to complete a comprehensive Medical Declaration on a annually basis even though the FORS Standard states once every 5 years. It’s also mentioned in the drivers handbook that if they at any point in time start suffering from a medical condition they need to notify the company ASAP as well as if they need to start taking medication prescribed by their GP or over the counter drugs. We will then investigate it to see if it’s still safe for the driver to be driving for the company and we may even ask the driver to get a letter from his doctor informing the company if he is still able to drive for the company. We will then start doing more driver assessments on the driver to make sure he isn’t a risk to the company or anyone on the road.
• We have recently adopted a recruitment policy to try and help us recruit young drivers into the Transport industry.
• We only have 1 Operators yards and it’s in an Industrial Estate. We use this depot to load our lorries with pallets and boxes. We use gas Fork lifts to load/unload all our vehicles. Servicing is done by main dealers at their premises and as we deliver our own goods, we load at our depot go to a site, off load there and then come back to our depot. All our lorries have white noise reversing alarms fitted to them.
• We carry boxes and pallets to and from construction sites across the whole country. As we rely on our customers asking us to deliver our goods from various construction sites across the whole country, we never know where we are going until they need us. Therefore we can’t afford to try and move anything via barge or train as we deliver all the goods to various sites and there is no other method than using a lorry and we then asked to deliver anywhere in the country. So using a Lorry is the most cost effective way of moving our goods. We are replacing all our lorries with Euro 6 engines as and when they are due for renewal. We have looked at electric vehicles and because of the weights we carry and the fact that our lorries have specialist equipment fitted no manufacture have produced an alternative fuelled vehicle that can carry the weight we do and go over the same terrain we do.

We will continue using what FORS has taught us to improve our MPG and reduce any wasted idling we might have and keep trying to reduce all our Parking Fines and Charges until we get to zero and keep I there.’

Gaining FORS Gold Accreditation shows how dedicated we are as a company to improving road safety and the safety of all vulnerable road users in London as well as nationally. We will continuously use what FORS has taught us to help reduce our carbon footprint and make the roads so safer for everyone that uses them. We have also managed to make a significant saving by reducing our fuel usage and improving our MPG.

Please note: All published FORS Gold case studies have been submitted by the accredited company named above and transcribed verbatim.