Kayleigh Plant Hire is a family-run business based in north London operating in London and the South East and providing a wide range of operated and non-operated plant hire options designed to give a comprehensive service from a single point of contact. Jacqueline O’Donovan, our Operations Director, talks about how FORS has helped us advance and improve driver professionalism, minimise road risk, reduce the company’s carbon foot print whilst raising our profile through good networking opportunities.
Initially, we first heard about FORS when we saw the stickers on vehicles and once we found out about the standard, we decided it would be a great fit for our business. We registered for the initial FORS assessment and started the journey towards being a bronze accredited company. We were immediately able to start making the most of the benefits that were and still are available to help us to achieve best practice in our day to day operations.
After the initial Bronze audit, we had all our processes in place to be able to progress. The performance management tool has enabled us to assess various parts of our operation, all within the one FORS database. It allows us to easily examine and benchmark output information against windows of time and how we compare to other industry averages.
As we progressed, our attendance at all the FORS workshops which have been invaluable, there was always new and innovative ideas being discussed that we applied to our fleet which helped improve safety, efficiency and the environment and ultimately awareness within our industry. As part of our advancement, our entire fleet are fitted with nearside blind spot side sensors, reversing cameras, nearside CCTV cameras, forward facing CCTV cameras, “Beware Vehicle Turning Left” and/or “Beware Vehicle Turning Right” alarms, side impact bars, fresnel lenses. The vehicles also carry warning triangles, fire extinguishers and display various warning stickers to advise vulnerable road users. Collaborations and sharing the knowledge outside the organisation and also within the company has been another major advantage. After the workshops we share information with the managers and drivers. Communication is a major focus to us as a company; we get the FORS message out to staff through training, company newsletter, memos, poster campaigns and toolbox talks.
‘The access to training for our drivers has been a huge benefit to the business.’ – Jacqueline O’Donovan, Operations Director
One of the most beneficial things about being a FORS accredited company is the ability to up-skill our drivers through accessing the free Driver Certificate of Professional Competency (CPC) training. Our drivers enjoyed the training as it was relevant to them in their everyday roles. It has made them feel valued and invested in as professionals with recognition for the complex job that they do. Our drivers are more aware of their responsibilities as representatives of our company when completing their duties both on the road and on-site. As a company, we continue to encourage our drivers to aim higher and gain their qualifications.
“Receiving the silver accreditation encouraged the whole company on to go for gold with staff being keener than ever to be seen as professional drivers working for a FORS gold accredited company.”
Our advancement from silver to gold highlights the level of investment in our staff and operations and shows our customers how seriously we take the safety of vulnerable road users and providing our drivers with every available aid to minimise the blind spot, making every journey a safer one. Building relationships is something FORS has really facilitated for us, meeting and working with others from similar and complimentary industries has assisted with progression from Bronze to Silver then to Gold.
Performance data – by adopting and implementing FORS Standards we have increased our MPG achieved by 1.1% and reduced the number of PCNs by 50%. Similarly we have seen reductions in CO2, NOX and PM emissions. This has brought both environmental as well as economical benefits MPG.
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|
Number of PCNs | ||
|
Jun 14 – Jun 15 |
7.31 | 8 | |
| Jun 17 – Jun 18 | 7.39 |
4 |
|
| Percentage improvement | 1.1% |
50% |
|
Driver health and fitness reviews has helped us keep focussed on the health and wellbeing of our drivers and complements our own in-house measures. We are members of the ‘Constructing Better Health’ scheme which helps us manage driver’s health even more thoroughly including through the use of Occupational Health Service Providers.
Noise assessments are carried out on an ongoing basis in order to identify any potential areas where we can reduce any noise generated by our operations. One of the measures we have implemented is to ensure that our reversing alarms are of a ‘white noise’ type meaning that the noise generated is only heard in the immediate vicinity.
Alternative fuel vehicles – Kayleigh Plant Hire has invested in a fully electric van and infrastructure in the form of a charging point. The experience of the electric van has been very positive both in terms of performance and driver satisfaction. We are now turning our attention to see if any other vehicles in the fleet could be changed to alternative fuel vehicles and are planning to trial for example, electric and gas-powered road sweepers.
Our more immediate procurement policy is to focus on upgrading our fleet to Euro VI vehicles and thereby continually improving our environmental impact by reducing emissions. We have made significant investments on this front and have a total of five new EURO VI road sweepers being delivered in 2018.
Kayleigh Plant Hire is very committed to its ongoing involvement with FORS. We will continue to measure our driver performance and make driver welfare and wellbeing a priority.
FORS has contributed to us becoming an employer of choice with a reputation for recognising our drivers as professionals. Our ongoing commitment will be to promote the road safety and best practice message whilst raising awareness of the importance of collaboration with other road users. Our aim is to further encourage our peers to take the same tact and to maintain our standing within the industry as a safe and efficient operator.
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