9 out of 10 construction businesses predict a skills crisis by 2030, with 81 percent saying they will introduce robots in the next 10 years, while safety and the environment both catalysts for accelerating investment in robotics A new global survey1 commissioned by ABB of 1900 large and small construction
Insight Workplace Health achieves coveted SEQOHS accreditation Insight Workplace Health, a provider of occupational health services to the construction sector across the UK, is celebrating achieving SEQOHS accreditation. SEQOHS, or Safe Effective Quality Occupational Health Service, is a set of standards and a process of accreditation that aims to help
The upheaval in education due to the pandemic in the past year has only highlighted how damaging the closure of schools has been and the legacy of lost learning. Further unnecessary interruption to education should be avoided, not least when it comes to fire. With hundreds of schools in the
Panattoni, the largest developer in Europe, has announced it has secured the purchase of a key 31-acre corridor site at J28 of the M1. Panattoni Park J28 Central M1 is the latest addition to the developer’s portfolio, having recently announced its commitment to three million sq ft of speculative builds
Located high up above the river, lies a spacious and inviting penthouse apartment that overlooks an entire city – beautifully embellished with bold, striking interiors that encompass modern city living. The Waterside Penthouse, part of The Waterside Apartments development in West Bridgford enjoys expansive views of the tranquil River Trent,
Construction, refurbishment and fit-out company, Chisholm & Winch, has completed the latest phase of a major development programme at Royal Mail’s Mount Pleasant site in London. Once the home of one of the world’s largest sorting offices, Mount Pleasant remains a critical part of Royal Mail’s operational infrastructure in London.
Employees play a very important role when it comes to the success of a business. Good employees can help your business build a good reputation, have loyal customers, and earn more money. Similarly, bad employees could lead to the downfall of a business. While there are many factors to consider
9 out of 10 construction businesses predict a skills crisis by 2030, with 81 percent saying they will introduce robots in the next 10 years, while safety and the environment both catalysts for accelerating investment in robotics A new global survey1 commissioned by ABB of 1900 large and small construction businesses has revealed that 91 percent of companies are facing a growing skills crisis over the next 10 years, with 44 percent saying they struggle to recruit for construction jobs. Improving health and safety on building sites was a priority for 42 percent and the same percentage said the environment is a key driver for industry change. 81 percent of construction businesses said they will introduce or increase the use of robotics and automation in the next decade, while today only a handful of businesses benefit from robotics. In the survey, only 55 percent of construction companies say they use robots, compared with 84 percent in Automotive and 79 percent in Manufacturing. To help address these findings, ABB Robotics will be driving the uptake of automation in the construction industry with new robotic automation solutions to address key challenges, which include the need for more affordable and environmentally friendly housing and a significant reduction in the environmental impact of construction, amidst a labor and skills shortage. Robotic automation offers huge potential to enhance productivity, efficiency and manufacturing flexibility throughout the construction industry, including automating the fabrication of modular homes and building components off-site, robotic welding and material handling on building sites and robot 3D printing of houses and customized structures. As well as making the industry safer and more cost effective, robots are improving sustainability and reducing environmental impact by enhancing quality and cutting waste. Industry forecasts for the total value of the global construction industry predict it will rise by 85 percent to $15.5 trillion worldwide by 20302, while ABB Robotics’ internal analysis of the market potential for robotic automation over the next 10 years is for high double digit growth rate in key sectors of construction including pre-fabrication and 3D printing. “With so few construction businesses using automation today, there’s huge potential for us to transform the industry through robotics. Unlike building cars or assembling electronics, many techniques used in construction haven’t changed for generations, so we are developing new solutions to address key industry challenges,” said Sami Atiya, President of ABB’s Robotics & Discrete Automation Business Area. “This new customer segment will broaden our portfolio as part of a wider strategy to accelerate expansion in high-growth segments including electronics, healthcare, consumer goods, logistics and food and beverage, to meet the growing demand for automation across multiple industries.” ABB’s robotic solutions for construction are already being used in various pilot projects to help improve flexibility, productivity and quality, including the automated fabrication of timber roof supports with Autovol in Canada, the robotic installation of elevators with Schindler Lifts and the robotic automation of Intelligent City’s production of prefabricated modular homes, which has increased production efficiency by 15 percent and speed by 38 percent, while reducing waste by 30 percent. Skanska’s robot welding application has improved quality, employee productivity and safety by automating the fabrication of steel reinforcement baskets on-site. This solution has also reduced the cost and environmental impact of transporting bulky finished reinforcement baskets to building sites. ABB is also working with several leading universities to co-develop new automated construction technologies including ETH Zurich, a leading research university in Switzerland. At ETH, ABB is supporting research in the field of robotics fabrication in architecture and construction and has helped establish the world’s first laboratory for collaborative robotic digital fabrication in architecture, hosted at the ETH’s Institute of Technology in Architecture. This week, the latest large scale ABB robotics 3D printing technology for the construction industry is being showcased by the Austrian architectural bureau MAEID at the 17th International Architecture – La Biennale di Venezia, to inspire architects about the possibilities of automation and 3D printing, driving innovation and enabling new ways of building. For more information, visit the ABB website. An ‘Automation and the Construction Industry’ panel discussion will be available to view on the website from 26 May 2021. 1 ABB Construction Industry Survey May 2021. Conducted by 3Gem Global Market Research & Insights, the ABB construction industry survey of 1900 CEO or Managing Director decision-makers in large and small businesses including residential and commercial construction, component suppliers, contractors and subcontractors, architects and designs and consultants in the USA, Canada, China, UK, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, France & Italy. Conducted April 22, 2021 – May 12, 2021, 3Gem Research & Insights utilize industry-standard panel management systems and adhere to stringent quality control procedures; delivering double opt-in, GDPR-compliant consumer and B2B panels. 2 The Global Construction 2030 report (link)
Insight Workplace Health achieves coveted SEQOHS accreditation Insight Workplace Health, a provider of occupational health services to the construction sector across the UK, is celebrating achieving SEQOHS accreditation. SEQOHS, or Safe Effective Quality Occupational Health Service, is a set of standards and a process of accreditation that aims to help to raise the overall standard of care provided by occupational health services. Insight’s feedback from the assessment described it as having a team who are “clearly well motivated, enthusiastic and supportive of each other and the wider business”. It went on to say: “The assessors were impressed with the commitment and positive attitude of the occupational health team. The team are customer focused and work hard to obtain regular feedback from managers and staff.” Founded in 2009 by twins Liz Terry and Ellie Taylor, Insight has grown in the last 11 years from just two staff (Liz and Ellie) to over 30 employees. It now has bases in Llandarcy, Swansea; Newport, Gwent; and Ruthin, Denbighshire and serves clients across the whole of the UK with its mobile fleet. Key milestones have included its move into larger offices in Llandarcy in 2016 and the launch of its secure occupational health portal in 2015. In 2016 the company opened its purpose-built clinic in Imperial Park, Newport and in 2020 Insight Workplace Health was named as one Wales’ top 50 fastest growing companies on the Fast Growth 50 list. In the past year the company has taken on major contracts with the Welsh Government and Welsh Water and opened its new office in North Wales to facilitate the delivery of these. The company continues to expand in North Wales, most recently winning a contract to provide occupational health services for Conwy Council. Insight Workplace Health co-founder Liz Terry said: “We’re delighted to have achieved this accreditation. Everybody within the company was very involved in the process. Having SEQOHS accreditation assures our customers that we’ve got good clinical governance, our nurses and doctors are engaged in continuous professional development and our clinical standards are as high as they can be. It gives important, independent and impartial recognition that we have demonstrated our competence. “This accreditation opens new avenues for us, because it means we can work with customers who only choose SEQOHS-accredited providers. It will also help us when we are hiring physicians, enabling us to attract the very best people to our team.”
The upheaval in education due to the pandemic in the past year has only highlighted how damaging the closure of schools has been and the legacy of lost learning. Further unnecessary interruption to education should be avoided, not least when it comes to fire. With hundreds of schools in the UK having a fire each year It needs further action. During the past year we have seen major fires in schools across the UK all without sprinklers that could have minimised those incidents. As we enter the NFCC Sprinkler Week, fewer than one-in-six new schools have been built with a sprinkler system installed. It is time we changed that. School fires have a devastating impact on both a school and a community. Three school fires in Derbyshire last year are a painful reminder of the damage, disruption and the costs incurred when they are not fitted with sprinklers. On the morning of Saturday 3rd October, six fire engines and two aerial ladder platforms were called to attend a major blaze at St Mary’s Catholic Voluntary Academy in Darley Abbey, Derby. The fire quickly engulfed the building, which was largely destroyed and reported as a ‘total loss’. Just 48 hours later, in the early hours of Monday 5th October, there was a second severe fire only four miles away, this time at Ravensdale Infant School in Mickleover which required 12 fire engines from the Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service. Whilst the Fire and Rescue service brought the fire under control there was extensive damage to the building. Neither building had sprinklers fitted. The children from the St Mary’s Catholic Voluntary Academy were originally sent to work from home for three weeks before being displaced into two separate local schools. They have now been reunited in temporary accommodation within a refurbished office block over three floors. There is no firm date for the replacement school. The children from the Ravensdale school are being moved to temporary locations and may move again during the £8 million rebuild of their schools which is expected to be completed late in 2022. These two devastating fires come in the wake of a blaze in the same area four months earlier at Harrington Junior School in Long Eaton, Derbyshire. Thankfully, no children were on site and teachers and staff who were working in the building were able to evacuate safely. Despite the efforts of the Fire and Rescue Service, they were unable to save the building. Not only did the fire severely affect the children’s education when they returned to temporary classroom accommodation after lockdown, the school will have to be rebuilt. The temporary classroom accommodation was noted to cost £500,000 and is expected to be in place for two years during the rebuild. The cost of the rebuild was further reported to be £5.5 million and will require central funding. Currently, sprinklers are currently only mandatory in new school buildings in Scotland and centrally funded schools in Wales, but not in England and Northern Ireland. Yet observations on the incidence of fire relative to the population of school buildings, indicate that the rate of fires in England is the same as in Scotland and Wales. According to a 2019 study by Zurich Municipal1, education insurer for half of the schools and universities in the UK, two-thirds of schools have ‘poor’ fire protection and are not properly prepared for a potential damaging fire. It also found that schools in England are ‘twice as likely’ to suffer fires than other school buildings. The insurer has stated that a change to government legislation to make sprinklers mandatory will not only protect children in school, but will also contain a fire to the room it starts when it begins out of school hours. The government is still considering the response to its call for evidence on Building Bulletin 100 (BB100) which closed in May 2019. The BSA has always highlighted that BB100 sets the right expectations around the protection of schools and the continuity of education. It sets an expectation that the school should be fully functional within 24 hours of a fire, apart from the room where the fire occurred. The BSA wants the government to explicitly maintain these objectives and enhance the “sprinkler expectation” in the revised BB100 so that fewer schools are damaged and destroyed by fire. Better still, the government should make property protection a consideration for the fire safety Building Regulations to effectively protect all buildings of significant social and/or economic value from fire. Ensuring the safety of a building’s occupants is considered the minimum under current regulations, but it is clearly not the optimal outcome. A sprinkler system would serve to protect both the occupants and the building, allowing students to return to normality far more rapidly and with considerably less disruption to teachers’ already hectic schedules during this pandemic. Fires in schools must be avoided. How many more fires need to occur before sprinkler installation becomes a prerequisite of school design and safety? 1Schools twice as likely as other buildings to be hit by a blaze
Panattoni, the largest developer in Europe, has announced it has secured the purchase of a key 31-acre corridor site at J28 of the M1. Panattoni Park J28 Central M1 is the latest addition to the developer’s portfolio, having recently announced its commitment to three million sq ft of speculative builds in the UK this year. The corridor site will accommodate two warehouses, a 345,000 sq ft and 230,000 sq ft unit, which are set to be completed in Q4, 2022. Panattoni Park J28 is a significantly recognised leading logistics location within the northern part of the East Midlands. Being less than a mile from J28 of the M1, off the A38, it is just 16 miles and a 19 minute HGV journey to Nottingham, 19 miles to Derby and half an hour from East Midlands Airport. Local occupiers include Amazon, XPO, Alloga UK, Co-op and Eurocell. Alloga UK is a specialist provider of supply chain solutions for healthcare manufactures and already occupies six warehouses near Panattoni’s new site. They were so impressed with the quality of Panattoni’s buildings that they have recently opened a new facility at Panattoni Derby 370 situated on Derby Commercial Park. “We are delighted to announce this acquisition in this established location, which is positioned on the A38 trunk route just a three minutes’ drive to J28 of the M1. We are seeing strong demand for Grade A accommodation across the whole of the Midlands currently, and see Panattoni Park J28 as a perfect fit within our expanding portfolio, which currently includes sites at Derby, Nottingham and EMDC,” said Andy preston, Development Manager at Panattoni. Both buildings at Panattoni Park J28 will be built to a BREEAM rating of ‘Very Good’, an EPC rating of ‘A’ and have 15m clear internal height and 50m yards. Unit 1 will total 343,185 sq ft, while Unit 2 will have 231,068 sq ft of warehouse space. Both will include office and hub spaces. Work is expected to start at the site in Q1, 2022, with over 900 jobs created.
Located high up above the river, lies a spacious and inviting penthouse apartment that overlooks an entire city – beautifully embellished with bold, striking interiors that encompass modern city living. The Waterside Penthouse, part of The Waterside Apartments development in West Bridgford enjoys expansive views of the tranquil River Trent, the historic Trent Bridge, the world-famous Trent Bridge Cricket Ground, and miles of city skyline. Developed by Monk Estates, with interiors by Curious Design, The Waterside penthouse features three- bedrooms, open plan living space and a large balcony with spectacular views. Boasting elevation, large windows and an impressive balcony space means that this property unapologetically allows natural light to pour in, dominating each room and playing a huge part in the overall aesthetic. “Everything in this property revolves around its stunning views, and the design of each room has deliberately maximised and captured as much of the natural light as possible, so your eyes are always drawn towards the outdoors when you walk in. Each room within the penthouse has been thoughtfully designed, with neutral tones interspersed with bold splashes of colour, striking ornaments and wall art to finish,” said Steve Parker, director at FHP Waterside Living. The open plan kitchen and dining space offers a combination of practicality and sleek style – with sharp, straight lines creating a classic look, and shades of Art Deco giving a sense of symmetry and balance. The use of minimal colour here – white, black and grey – means this large open space, is versatile for personalisation, and ideal for family living and entertaining. If the living space is comparatively muted with strong, sharp lines, then the master bedroom is glammed up with sparkle, luxury and different textures. Alongside the sprawling views, the king size bed is the superstar of this room – with its elaborate headboard and plush velvet bench. Contrasting rugs with geometric patterns complement the wallpaper – a jazzy yet understated design which is cleverly broken up by star-shaped wall sculptures. The colours go hand in hand – rich silky green complements charcoal grey, and muted beiges and creams add elegance and grandeur to this room which is a cosy place to rest. The property’s en-suite really makes the most of the natural light and picturesque views. A stand-alone bathtub –the epitome of indulgence and luxury – is perfectly placed to take in the vistas. Wherever you are in this property, you are never far away from beautiful views, offering both serenity and vibrance – with the river flowing beneath you, and the city on your doorstep – the lifestyle of The Waterside Apartments is simply unrivalled.
Construction, refurbishment and fit-out company, Chisholm & Winch, has completed the latest phase of a major development programme at Royal Mail’s Mount Pleasant site in London. Once the home of one of the world’s largest sorting offices, Mount Pleasant remains a critical part of Royal Mail’s operational infrastructure in London. Chisholm & Winch has delivered multiple consecutive phases for construction management company, Blue Sky Building, with a combined value of £9 million. The company’s involvement began in 2018 with upgrades to the main office areas and the latest package includes construction and fit-out of a new gatehouse, new docking bay extensions and the installation of roller shutters. Chisholm & Winch’s scope of works has included fit-out of the office areas, including installation of a new gym, refurbishment of the Collection Hub, upgrades to the parking areas and a three-phase programme to update the site’s North East Dock, which required four of the six docks to remain operational at any given time. Works to the North Road area of the site were carried out over two phases and included the site’s new feature green wall. The project has leveraged Chisholm & Winch’s wide-ranging construction and fit out capabilities, including demolition, steelwork, drylining, blockwork, redecoration, joinery, mechanical and electrical services and firestopping. Julian Daniel, managing director of Blue Sky Building comments: “We have been impressed with the skill and professionalism of the Chisholm & Winch team throughout this project as they have moved from phase to phase across the three-year programme, especially given the varying requirements and the challenges of Covid-19. The quality they have produced, their excellent communication and their positive approach to collaborating and coordinating with others on site have been a big part of the success of this project.” The Mount Pleasant site has remained fully-operational throughout the project and Chisholm & Winch has worked collaboratively with the scheme’s other delivery partners to ensure the sequencing of works enabled efficient progress while allowing business as usual activities for the client and supporting high standards of health and safety for building users and site teams. The project remained live throughout the COVID-19 lockdown, drawing on this collaborative approach from across the delivery partners to enable safety and method statements to be reviewed and safe working practices to be put in place. Darren Godfrey, Chisholm & Winch’s project manager at Mount Pleasant adds: “The operational importance of all phases meant that handover dates remained business critical for the client, so it was essential that we maintained good progress on site. Operational refurbishment is one of our specialisms at Chisholm & Winch so we were able to use that expertise to consider how we could work round social distancing requirements without jeopardising the schedule. We’re delighted to have completed all works, despite the unforeseen challenges of a global pandemic.”
Employees play a very important role when it comes to the success of a business. Good employees can help your business build a good reputation, have loyal customers, and earn more money. Similarly, bad employees could lead to the downfall of a business. While there are many factors to consider when hiring an employee – qualifications, education, etc. – one of the most important factors is whether or not they are trustworthy. If there isn’t trust between an employer and employee, or amongst employees, the business will likely fail. However, if you’re just starting a business, you might not always know which signs to look out for when it comes to telling if an employee is trustworthy or not. Background checks People can change, there’s no denying that. Just because someone has a criminal record doesn’t mean you should automatically not hire them. But it’s still a good idea to know what an employee’s criminal history is, and whether they have any criminal convictions. You can then make an informed decision on whether you trust them to enter your company based on what you know. If you do end up hiring them, you can offer them the support they need to stay on the right track. DBS checks will help you a lot. If you’re asking, “What are DBS checks?”, you’re not alone. To sum it up, it’s a compilation of a person’s criminal convictions. Psychometric testing Psychometric tests are incredibly popular in industries where confidentiality and integrity are of the utmost importance – such as where people work in law enforcement, or with large sums of money. Psychometric tests are tests that test the psychology of possible employees. At the end of the test, you will receive a report detailing things like integrity, level of manipulation, and a whole host of other information, depending on the test itself. This will give you a better idea of how likely an employee is to betray your trust. Reference checks When people go for interviews, they are often on their best behavior. This means that you may not always get an accurate representation of what it would be like to have them work for you. The best way to gain a deeper understanding of this is to do a reference check. Call up their past employers and ask them a few questions. Trust us, this will teach you more about the prospective employee than any interview. Follow your instinct This may sound slightly out there, but if your instinct is telling you that something is wrong, it’s probably right. What we consider instinct is often our brains picking up on a bunch of small details in a very short time. This is why we often can’t pinpoint exactly why something feels wrong, we just know that it’s wrong. We’re not saying you should only follow your instincts and ignore everything else, but it can be a helpful guide if you’re at a crossroads. Still not convinced? You can learn more about why you should trust your gut here.
