Section 1 – Introduction

Price Building Services Ltd is a mechanical services company which has been established for 15 years. We provide plumbing and pipefitting to the industrial, commercial and residential sectors. The company has grown from mechanical services to thermal insulation and now includes reactive as well as planned maintenance. I’m John Wickens the fabrication and logistics manager. Our operating and manufacturing base is 1 Kings Way, Croydon CR0 4GE. We have been FORS members for three years and have progressed every year. Using the FORS tool kits, training and guidance we have reduced our van fuel consumption over the last two years by 8.75%. During the last two years we have maintained our road safety and kept our transport related fines to a minimum.

Section 2 – How did you hear about FORS, what prompted the company to join and how long have you been a member?

As the business was developing we decided to operate our own transport. We became aware of the responsibility operating vehicles would mean and wanted a system that would be easy to implement and ensure safety was adhered to. FORS was the perfect solution. FORS has provided us with the Standard to keep our fleet safe and green. We became members in 2017.

Section 3 – What was your experience of the initial FORS Bronze audit?

The initial process of preparing for our Bronze was daunting, making sure we had all the right policy’s and training completed. Here the FORS guidance and toolkits helped us and we passed our Bronze audit first time. This inspired us to look at the FORS progression.

Section 4 – What was your main reason(s) for you progressing (either from Bronze to Silver and then Silver to Gold or straight from Bronze to Gold)?

Once we were Bronze we decided that we should progress to Silver because we felt that the additional training would support our drivers further and the more detailed analysis of the vehicle fleet would help support our environmental policy.

We have benefitted from our membership in many ways, ensuring that all our drivers checks are correct, all training options via FORS are taken up. Logging our fuel usage has helped us to monitor usage and implement changes to reduce emissions. The tool box talks have been invaluable in improving or refreshing our driver’s knowledge. The tool kits have provided guidance for our policies and procedures. The monitoring and managing of the fuel usage has seen a reduction of fuel 8.75% for the van. We expect to see a reduction in the HGV in the next 12 months.

“The company’s commitment to FORS for me is a very good thing as it ensures that all driving standards are monitored and I can drive safely to site knowing that all regulations are adhered to.” James Howe (Driver supervisor)

“Becoming a member of FORS has significantly raised the company profile, ensuring more opportunities for work, expansion and further employment, which has been a very positive experience.” Robert Davies (Director)

Section 6 – What improvements have you made?

• The performance data that we have supplied for the last two years show an improvement in the reduction of fuel usage on our van. The business has grown over the last two years and the HGV has been covering more miles with heavier loads. The comparison for the two years doesn’t show any improvement. We are confident that with the additional Locity classroom training we will improve the driver’s behaviour and reduce fuel usage. Our incident rating has remained constant and this we believe is due to the FORS training especially the safe urban driving course for vulnerable road users.

	KPL	Incidents per 100,000 Kms	CO2	NOx	PM10	Number of PCNs	Proportion of fleet that uses alternative fuels
Year 1 Van	7.39	0	2.02	7.25	0.12	0	0%
Year 2 Van	8.03	0	3.12	12.18	0.20	0	0%
Percentage improvement	8.75%	0%	-54.5%	-68%	-68%	0%	0%
Year 1 HGV	6.9	0	3.86	18.88	0.28	0	0%
Year 2 HGV	5.76	0	7.6	30.99	0.46	1	0%
Percentage improvement	-16.5%	0%	-99%	-64%	-67%	-100%	0%

• Driver health and fitness is an important aspect of the working life of our drivers. We see driver health as an integral part of our drive towards peak performance and the ongoing monitoring of drivers has helped to identify conditions that can be addressed at the earliest opportunity. This supports the drivers in being pro-active towards their own health. We ask the drivers to sign a health and fitness to driver declaration every year and have a very clear policy for health and eyesight. We comply with the Bronze standard of checking eyesight every six months or after an incident.
• Recruitment of drivers – We are a small business with everyone working together. We have a clear strategy for recruitment of new drivers. This includes a referral scheme, advertising on a recruitment website and our own. We advertise at the operating centre to reach out to drivers visiting the centre and passers-by. We are researching ways to encourage new drivers in to our industry with connections with local development company’s and colleges.
• Noise assessment – We have assessed the noise generated in the work place and have sent a memo to the drivers asking them to keep idling to a minimum and to think about their location for the reduction of noise when entering and exiting the vehicle.
• Modal shift and alternative vehicles – We changed the fleet in 2019 and have an all Euro VI fleet. This is part of our long term strategy to reduce pollution and will be developed further with our research into modal shift and alternative fuels.

Section 7 – What are your plans for the future?

We want to reduce pollution within our business and fleet. Noise reduction is one of the environmental aspects that we are currently putting our attention to. The working environment in the construction industry has its challenges, but we are determined to be pro-active in the reduction of noise were ever possible. Our aim is to reduce pollution and have added noise reduction into our requirements for fleet replacement. We changed the fleet in 2019 and have Euro VI fleet. This is part of our strategy to reduce pollution and will develop further with our research into modal shift and alternative fuels.

Section 8 – What evidence do you have of positively promoting FORS at requirement G7?

We are sponsoring Syerus Eslami’s Olympic dream.  He is a Commonwealth Record Holder, in wrestling, and will be competing in wrestling and Greco Wrestling.  We have added our FORS logo to his kit. We promote FORS on our emails and our vehicles.

Section 9 –What FORS Gold accredition means for your organisation/to you?

We started our journey 2017. We progressed to Silver in 2019. We realise how the FORS Standard benefits the Business by promoting best practice and we as a business want to demonstrate our quality of operations and compliance. We saw the progression to Gold as the way to do this. We have invested in our staff, facility and systems which allows us to manage the business as a professional and compliant operator. This has lead the company to adding further accreditation such as International Organisation for Standards (ISO). Achieving and maintaining Gold accreditation, we feel, underlines our commitment to the scheme as well as providing a Gold service to our valued client base.

Section 10 – (Optional) Please provide your social media contact details so we can follow your organisation

Section 11 – FORS members’ feedback questionnaire

Please could you take the time to complete a short questionnaire and provide feedback about FORS. Please note all answers you provide will be strictly confidential and will only be used by FORS to help us to improve the scheme. To access the survey, please click the link here: https://www.snapsurveys.com/wh/s.asp?k=153908006313

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