J A Mackenzie Ltd are a specialist lifting and haulage company based in the South of England. Jimmy Mackenzie, founder and Managing Director of the company gives an insight into how becoming FORS accredited has had a significant impact in all areas of the business.
We’ve been Gold accredited for three years now, and year on year it becomes more apparent how useful this has been for the Company. We spend a lot of our time in Lond
on so having FORS accreditation is essential.
Not only that, but through the auditing process you have to really look at all areas of the business, ensuring it is performing as well as it possibly can. This is a great tool to help improve and progress the business overall.
We were asked to do a job which was contracted by MACE.
We didn’t have the requisite accreditation so it prompted us to find out more about FORS and what it meant. We just went ahead and applied for Bronze the same day.
We passed our Bronze audit fairly easily. As a small company there were some areas that we needed to give some attention, but the auditor was really helpful which made the whole process a lot easier.
Jimmy Mackenzie, Managing Director says,
“This is a great tool to help progress the business overall.”
It soon became apparent that have a full FORS accreditation was going to be useful to us, particularly in our line of work, and with the volume of work we do in London and the larger cities.
Monitoring fuel usage has been a very interesting metric for us – and improvements in fule usage are being made year on year which is in line with our environmental values as a Company.
Susannah Pyne, Operations Manager says,
“…the auditor was really helpful, which made the whole process a lot easier.”
Because we carry out so much of our work in London it quickly became clear that progression through the levels would make a lot of sense to us as a Company. We started on our Silver application within a few months and Gold shortly after.
Since joining FORS we have experienced year on year improvements in fuel consumption and this year is no exception. The figures may not appear to be significant at first glance – but this is an ongoing improvement in fuel efficiency, which is better for the environment, and better for us financially.
| MPG | Incidents per 100,000 Kms | Number of PCNs | |
| March 2016 – April 2017 | 11.30 | 1 | 3 |
| March 2017 – April 2018 | 11.46 | 2 | 5 |
| Percentage improvement | 0.16% | N/A | N/A |
*Annual improvement in MPG
- Driver health and fitness review – all drivers are required to complete an annual declaration and a D4 medical every 5 years.. Being a small company we have the added benefit of being face to face with all our drivers daily and we take a keen interest in their health and well being.
- Drivers this year will all be required to complete the Safety Critical at Work Medical to ensure that they are as fit as they can be for their duties, and that they comply with the more up to date regulations.
- Strategy for recruiting drivers – as a small enterprise turnover of drivers is very low but FORS has made us think about recruitment in the future and we now have policies in place to deal with this.
- Noise assessment – again this is not something that becomes a real issue due to the remote location of our operating centre, however, we remain mindful of our impact on the environment, including noise levels and we have put in place a system of measuring the noise from our vehicles and their accessories which can be monitored and used as a benchmark to attempt to improve upon, year on year.
- Modal shift and alternative vehicles – because of the type of work we do (crane operation) this limits the opportunities for moving away from the more conventional modes of
transport – but FORS means that now we review this annually, and in time we hope that technology can accommodate more of the type of work that we do, and we can make steps to upgrade vehicles accordingly.
We are always in the process of vehicle renewal, and are currently awaiting delivery of bespoke build crane assisted truck, which will be Euro VI. All our vehicles will now move to Euro VI so we can be compliant in London but it also aligns with our environmental policies too.
Becoming Gold accredited has been extremely beneficial. It is an easy way to monitor the important areas of business, operational and drivers alike – but it also means you can set targets and parameters that you can look to improve year on year.
Twitter: @Jamhaulage Linked In: J A Mackenzie Limited, Facebook: J A Mackenzie Limited, Instagram: jamhaulageltd