Praised for “pulling the industry in the right way” at Construction News Awards

Lanes Group gained Highly Commended at the recent Construction News Awards for their e-PoWRA initiative in Health & Safety.

The national drainage, utilities and maintenance provider impressed the judges with its new industry-leading digital point of works risk assessment tool, which is designed to support a real step change in health and safety culture.

Judges commended Lanes Group for their “immense commitment” stating “it was clear it was developed with the workforce, and that it was very much embedded in the work culture” and recognised Lanes “obvious and significant investment” in Health & Safety. Lanes Group initiative was proclaimed as “pulling the industry in the right way”.

Representatives from the Lanes Utilities Division attended the Construction News Health and Safety Initiative Award 2015 ceremony at the Grosvenor Hotel, in London, on Tuesday 30 June.

Lanes Group won the prestigious award in 2013 for its Essential Standards workplace guide, which uses cartoon-style images to show how worksites should be set up, an initiative also developed by the Lanes Utilities Division.

The ground-breaking e-PoWRA was developed by Lanes Utilities, as part of its industry-leading operational smart phone app, to support its work as the sole wastewater network repair and maintenance provider for Thames Water.

Conrad Ashby, Lanes Utilities Managing Director, said: “Our efforts mirror Thames Water’s desire to continuously improve customer service and utility business efficiencies. Excellence in health and safety is vital to this successful strategy.

“We’re delighted that the contribution made by our whole team in developing and incorporating our e-PoWRA in our daily work processes has been recognised in the Construction News Awards

“This is a stepping stone to even greater effort to protect our workforce, our customers and the wider public. We want our staff to go home each day safe and healthy. Our e-PoWRA is helping us do that.”

Lanes Utilities Director Andy Brierley said:

The e-PoWRA is a core part of our strategy of combining technology with workforce engagement and process management to improve our service. It is designed to support safe working practices, and challenge us all at the same time. Our teams are increasingly proud of our health and safety record. They see it as a sign of their professionalism and achievement.

Lanes Utilities carries out more than 300,000 operational risk assessments every year. Completing them digitally saves vast swathes of paper, and creates powerful new ways to control, monitor and improve health and safety.

The identification, and mitigation, of risks in the field are captured through images and simple drop down menus, which are quick and intuitive to use, banishing the tick-box mentality of paper risk assessment systems.

The e-PoWRA includes a step-by-step process for high risk activities such as confined space entry, with stop instructions and automatic alerts to line managers alerts if variations from safe systems of work are detected.

A Shout About Safety function invites operatives to suggest, at every job, how health and safety could be changed for the better, a function that has led to many improvements across the business.

The system allows real-time monitoring of operational health and safety performance, and intervention where necessary. It also supports the gathering of big data sets for thematic trend analysis.

Analysis shows 100 per cent compliance with e-PoWRA process. Further planned developments include full vehicle management and service strike mitigation functions.