JPE Holdings Ltd, is based within the heart of the West Midlands. We provide quarry and aggregate delivery solutions for all aspects of the construction industry.
My name is Lindsay Smith and I am the Operations Manager responsible for Fleet Compliance with a target to achieve positive results in ensuring our business is to be at the spearhead of our Industry.
JPE Holdings Ltd. has always prided itself on maintaining the highest standards in monitoring fuel use by both vehicles and drivers. Since joining FORS the yearly independent analysis of our policies and procedures have encouraged us to expand this monitoring to include, and challenge CO2, NOx and particulate matter emissions. Since joining FORS, we have also taken the attitude of constantly challenging ourselves into the realm of driver training within road safety. This attitude has enabled us to reduce accidents, incidents, and transport related fines.
The reason for our initial application to achieve FORS recognition was at customer request, but we soon realised that by achieving the standard it would give us the required principals and targets to stay at the forefront of the Industry and to promote our business with the widely recognised FORS model. Many of our customers now specify suppliers must be FORS accredited.
Before our initial FORS Bronze audit, we were confident that all procedures were already in place. However, it became apparent that there were improvements which needed to be implemented to our systems in order to be fully compliant and the bronze audit process pointed us in the direction of how to achieve this compliance. Once we gained our bronze accreditation, we decided to take this as our base level rather than our final standard.
Upon achieving Bronze accreditation our fleet was immediately adorned with the FORS Logo and we made a conscious effort to ensure all our customers and partners were aware of this achievement. Our Driver CPC Training incorporated the SUD (Safe Urban Driving) module which was embraced by our drivers as a different approach from the usual requirements to gain the CPC qualification. The E-Learning modules have proved an invaluable learning tool which enables our drivers to interact more together. KPI monitoring is now becoming more and more of a requirement with our Industry and since becoming Silver it enables us to focus more proactively on these measures.
Our Transport Director, Stephanie Price, ”The improvements to our business since becoming FORS accredited are evident to both our staff and customers and are a statement to our future ambitions. Morale has improved, and we are all ready to accept the challenge of maintaining our image and standing within our Industry.”
One of the key benefits we have obtained from being a FORS member is the improvement in best practice standards and the constant desire to always enable me to do better and push for more safety and quality procedures through thorough training and available FORS workshops. JPE Holdings Ltd. have benefitted from an improving customer base and more enquiries due to our FORS status. All our drivers now communicate and interact more with each other due to being together during E-Learning and other activities surrounding our improved training modules”.
After achieving FORS Bronze, we inspired to progress though to FORS Silver. With all the benefits achieved with Bronze it was an easy decision to move forward. We found the application system very straight forward and it made me look in further detail at how we implement and record all our operations. The awarding of FORS Silver status provided the company with tangible evidence that we are doing our utmost to keep improving and becoming more efficient both as a company and for the environment.
Our performance data can be see in the table below showing the improvements.
|
|
Fuel | NOx |
Incidents |
| May 2018 -May 2019 | 486,220.44 | 287.69 | 0 |
| May 2019 – May 2020 | 1,476,322.91 | 796.15 | 0 |
| Percentage improvement | 0.67% | 0.1% | 0 |
Driver recruitment has proven to be difficult for us at JPE Holdings Ltd. Due to the specialised nature of our business, we must ensure new recruits are fully trained in our operations which can be very different from General Haulage Operations. The process we have adopted for encouraging new drivers into the Industry is shown below:
We have employed apprentices who work closely with our maintenance team before giving them the opportunity to be trained, at our expense into fully trained drivers in our industry.
Our company recruitment process is to advertise online on Facebook. This will give the opportunity for any driver to apply for the job by seeing the environment they will be working in. Other methods such as word of mouth, displaying notices in different site’s and referrals would also be considered during the recruitment process. We have also verbally instructed our local HGV driving schools to refer any newly passed drivers’ to our company should they be looking to peruse a career within the construction heavy haulage industry. We are also signatories to the Armed Forces Covenant and as such would be more than happy to employ Ex Service personnel (10% of our current workforce are veterans).
Our ongoing project is to reduce noise impact from our Operation, we are sourcing the correct equipment to be placed strategically within our yard to identify any potential problem areas. We are located in a rural area on a specific plot away from other businesses with no housing in the vicinity. Loading and unloading is conducted on our, and customers’, premises which tend to be on developments with no residents. All vehicles are maintained by main dealers at regular legally required intervals. Our fleet are washed on site in a designated environmentally friendly area to maintain the image of our Company.
Our Policy for future Fleet replacement includes the Noise impact and improved economy of vehicles. Our current fleet are already at Euro VI standard.
For JPE Holdings Ltd. to achieve FORS Gold standard would be recognition for all the hard work and effort we have, and continue to strive for, a better, more efficient, more environmentally friendly Operation. With properly trained and monitored drivers and staff and a constant desire to improve all aspects of our Industry, the benefits for us all, and our customers, FORS Gold is the only way to go.
We are active on Facebook and Linkedin:
https://www.facebook.com/jpeaggregates/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/jpe-holdings-ltd/
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