The Road Safety Markings Association (RSMA) annual awards ceremony this November recognised outstanding achievements across a range of areas. Here’s a full list of the winners:
SMALL CONTRACTOR OF THE YEAR 2018 - SPONSORED BY GEVEKO
Awarded to the organisation with 50 or fewer employees that demonstrated an increased level of success over the last completed business year.
WINNER: QUALITY MARKING SERVICES
RSMA chief executive Stu McInroy said: 'Enjoying an increased portfolio of clients and often achieving "nominated sub-contractor" status, QMS prides itself on the personal development of every member of its staff and being a stalwart supporter of charitable events. With a work ethic based on commitment, motivation, determination, achievement and success, they have continued to innovate and develop new systems for use within the road marking and surface treatment industry and are now accredited to ISO 9001, 14001 and 45001 standard.'
Greg Clark, MD of QMS said: 'Here at QMS we develop individuals from commencement of employment through to management positions. Our client base has continued to increase with many returning customers satisfied with previous site installations wanting to continue the use of QMS as their first choice of contractor. Every business needs core values to focus the continued development of the company. It is through the engagement of staff and our in-house collaboration and open door arrangement that enables our core value statement to be driven through the business. Everyone at QMS is elated to that we have won – it’s a real team effort.’
SUPPLIER OF THE YEAR 2018 – SPONSORED BY QMS
Awarded to the supplier who has demonstrated exceptional service over the last business year.
WINNER: HITEX
Mr McInroy said: 'HITEX understands the key role of road marking products in creating safe and efficient transport infrastructure across the UK. Utilising the highest quality raw materials and manufacturing processes to achieve excellent outputs, they pride themselves on outstanding customer service and comprehensive technical support. Responding to customer needs quickly, HITEX aims to develop tailored solutions to suit the customer’s need in the shortest time possible while at the same time ensuring that no corner is cut.’
Dominic Haynes, group marketing manager, HITEX said: 'We are committed to research and development programmes that deliver innovative road surfacing, road marking and road repair solutions that offer unrivalled efficiencies and quality.
'The Hitex Traffic Safety facility has steadily expanded to become one of the UK’s largest suppliers of road industry solutions and we aim to continue to improve the performance and sustainability of our products, as well as engineering solutions for the differing needs of our global customer market. We are delighted to be named RSMA Supplier of the Year.’
HEALTH AND SAFETY INITIATIVE 2018 – SPONSORED BY WILSON & SCOTT
Awarded to the organisation that has best demonstrated health, safety and welfare, measured against RSMA best practice.
WINNER: WJ SOUTH
Mr McInroy said: 'Manual handling issues are common in most industries and the road marking sector is no different, with a risk of serious injury from regular lifting, the carrying and handling of materials and items of equipment. On large road marking contracts, WJ uses specialist application vehicles supported by 32-tonne "feeder trucks" carrying two large 1.5-tonne capacity thermoplastic heaters. Previously, the pre-heaters would need to be constantly loaded manually, but now this is done automatically by the WJ Automatic Bag Loading Conveyor System.’
Andy Stubbs, managing director, WJ South said: ’We’re thrilled with this award. Prior to the introduction of the WJ Automatic Bag Loading Conveyor System (ABLCS) an operative would have been required to load up to 500 x 20kg bags of material per shift into the pre-heaters. This involved carrying the bags for perhaps the full length of the truck, climbing three steps and lifting the bags above head height to load into the boiler.
’Our aim was to avoid hazardous manual handling operations so far as is reasonably practicable, by increasing automation and mechanisation. This innovation is a step change in operative safety and supports the Highways England aim that no one should be harmed when travelling or working on the strategic road network.’
ROADMARKING INNOVATION OF THE YEAR 2018 - SPONSORED BY CLEARVIEW INTELLIGENCE
Awarded to the organisation that has demonstrated the most innovative approach to either a specific roadmarking project or their business as a whole.
WINNER: WJ PRODUCTS
Mr McInroy said: 'Taking an innovative approach to support contractors, WJ Products has collaborated with a European manufacturer to develop a unique capability. The collaboration has resulted in the introduction of the WJ Robotic Pre-Marker, which has been developed to replace manual pre-marking. Embracing autonomy and utilising GPS technology, this system has already been used to great effect on motorways and has significantly improved risk management for both personnel and plant, in addition to reducing the engineering time involved and as a result, cost.
Garry Duncan, director, WJ Products said: 'We’re very pleased to win the roadmarking innovation award. WJ’s core values are safety, innovation, collaboration and delivery. These core values influence all our decisions and we consistently endeavour to embody them into our business. Based on risk analysis and management, WJ has been exploring automation for many of our traditional processes with the objective of achieving more efficiency while delivering continuous safety improvements.
'Pre-marking for road markings has not changed significantly since its inception; it is a slow and labour-intensive activity. We recognised that automated pre-marking could complete this process more safely, quickly and accurately than it has ever been done before.'
