Lanes to face water dragons for innovation award

Lanes Group is preparing to face the dragons in the finals of one of the water industry’s most prestigious innovation awards.

SBWWI, the trade association for the UK water industry supply chain, has selected Lanes as a finalist in its annual Water Dragons Award for Innovation. Lanes submitted its What Good Looks Like initiative for the award, which will involve a team presenting evidence to a Dragons’ Den style panel of industry experts on Friday November 8.

The Lanes presentation team is led by Lanes Group Technical Director Andy Brierley. He said:

“We aim to show how What Good Looks Like has had a huge impact on the way we have implemented our wastewater network services contract for Thames Water. This is an excellent opportunity to show how Lanes Group uses innovation strategically to continuously improve all elements of our business, including customer service, operational effectiveness and health and safety.”

What Good Looks Like has already won the 2013 Construction News Award for Health and Safety Initiative of the Year.

It has been created to support the delivery of the UK’s largest WNS contract, valued at up to £330m, from our depot in Slough, Berkshire. Key elements include detailed professionally-created cartoon-style illustrations of key activities and worksite scenarios.

The illustrations include carefully created ‘challenges’ that encourage engineers to think clearly about what they should do in each situation. Each image is augmented with icon tabs or infographics, inspired by icons used by the garment industry for washing and care instructions.

The tabs remind staff of key health and safety, customer service and operational issues relating to each scenario. The images support detailed process maps. Together, they form a What Good Looks Like guide, supporting best practice procedures at the point of works.

What Good Looks Like is supported by other industry leading innovations, including digital systems that allow real-time analysis and management of operations. Andy Brierley said:

“We are seeking to create a new visual communication language for the water industry which drives forward improvements in all area of our business.

“We believe it has been instrumental in excellent operational results for the Thames Water contract, with world class performance for health and safety and customer satisfaction.

“Our aim is to roll out What Good Looks Like across our services, so all our customers can benefit from it.”