Health and safety Update
SEPTEMBER 2017
BOROUGH GREEN UPGRADE
InSite
Iain Gordon and his Health & Safety team are hard at work in anticipation of the procedural changes that will accompany the new machinery arriving at the Borough Green factory from Germany. As the factory upgrade approaches, it is helpful to remember the sheer scale of the work taking place, and what it will mean for the company. Almost all of the equipment within the Borough Green factory will be stripped out, and replaced with cutting-edge machinery from our partners Wehrhahn. apart from the autoclaves themselves, and part of the packaging equipment, much of the Borough Green equipment will be replaced. Whilst this is incredibly exciting for everyone involved with H+H, there are still a few operational issues to consider to ensure that the upgrade does not have any implication for health and safety.
As the new equipment arrives, we will have to totally reassess our approach to health and safety to ensure that risk is kept to a minimum.
works at the factory, the Health and Safety team will take direct responsibility for some processes which normally sit with shift managers.
Wehrhahn will provide us with their own recommendations, but it will be down to the Health and Safety team to develop the standard operating procedures, as well as updating all of the risk assessments surrounding the machines.
The team will be directly responsible for all contractor inductions, safety inspections, fire coordination etc during this period. In addition, the Permit to work system will remain live until it is taken out. Please continue to follow these InSite editions for any further changes in regular protocol.
Much of this work can only take place once the machines are in-situ, and we expect that the updated procedures will be completed by the end of the installation process. For the duration of the upgrade
The upgrade approaches
But crucially too, the upgrade will provide us with a unique opportunity to improve our already strong culture of health and safety, to ensure we minimise the risk to all employees of the company.
Welcome all to another edition of our InSite newsletter. Suddenly we are in to October and our Works teams are firing on all cylinders to ensure that the upgrade programme at Borough Green is concluded promptly. Upgrading Borough Green represents a vital step for H+H UK as well as the wider International Group. It will help us to meet the growing demand for aircrete amongst our partners whilst helping us open up new areas of the business in the process. The success of our recent collaboration with SIG Offsite, the I-House, using Celcon Elements, is a testament to the fact that H+H still has much to offer to the construction industry and that aircrete will hold its own on some of the most innovative projects currently taking place across the country.
During the last few months the focus at both Borough Green and Pollington, has been on manufacturing high volumes of stock which will allow us to maintain continuity of supply for our partners throughout the upgrade. However, there is a great deal of work being done at the Wehrhahn factory which will ensure that the Borough Green works will begin immediately after the factory closes in December. In this edition of InSite we’ll hear about how our equipment partners have been preparing for the upgrade, as well as providing a health and safety update. Everything is proceeding as planned, so my message to all of you is simple: when we conclude this upgrade process we will be a far stronger company and in a better position to supply our customers. Calum Forsyth, MD.