Category: Awards

We have been recognised for our commitment to sustainability with a coveted Bronze award at the International Green Apple Awards for the Built Environment and Architectural Heritage 2016. This is the second time in 3 years we have received this recognition.

Lining up against some much larger companies, including Kier Construction, Carillion/Morgan Sindall JV and Skanska, the prestigious title was awarded for, “clearly demonstrating a drive towards sustainable development.”

The judges also singled out our management for demonstrating incredible foresight by “choosing to invest and diversify the business during the recession while starting to feel the pinch, resulting in strong financial results during the past six years.”

This enabled us to invest in key areas of the business, including training and apprentices, providing young people with a career path in construction and upskilling current employees by providing them with 3.78 training days on average; and £4.4m in plant and equipment, to push environmental and efficiency savings across projects.

Other areas where we were commended, include our continual investment in management systems audited and validated to ISO14001, ISO9001, OHSAS18001 and Achilles BuildingConfidence (5-star rating) accreditation, which ensures we deliver high standards of quality and compliance in health and safety and the environment.

We achieved this while improving their environmental performance with such measures as:

• Going paperless and greening our fleet.
• Sponsoring a wealth of community support initiatives, including: ILEAP, Warwickshire Road Safety, British Blind for Sport, and The Alzheimer’s Society.
• Investing £220k in GPS technology and developing an earthworks modelling team that prevented 75,000m3 of material from going to landfill.

Peter O’Brien, Managing Director at O’Brien Contractors, said: “This award highlights the benefits we bring to the region and our customers by implementing best practices benchmarked against environmental, quality and health and safety performance. We are thrilled our commitment to sustainable development has been recognised with an award.”

We have scooped our third RoSPA Occupational Health and Safety Gold award.

The RoSPA Awards is celebrating 60 years of presenting highly-regarded and sought after accolades to businesses and organisations which have shown commitment to accident and ill-health prevention.

The prestigious title is awarded for demonstrating overarching occupational health and safety management, including: strategic vision, risk assessment, workforce involvement and training.

Julia Small, RoSPA’s head of awards and events, said: “To win an award at such a highly-regarded event as the RoSPA Awards is a great achievement for O’Brien Contractors. It recognises their commitment to maintaining an excellent health and safety record and raises the bar for other organisations to aspire to. We offer them our congratulations.”

The company, based in Leamington Spa, achieved gold in recognition of the commitment to continuous improvement in protecting its staff, subcontractors and the local public, resulting in:

• Staff receiving an average of 3.78 training days – mainly for health and safety
• 100% of site operatives completing a CSCS safety course and holding a CSCS card
• 80% of site operatives qualified to NVQ 2+ standard

However, the greatest success came from across the eight high profile schemes secured last year, including: New Assay Office, Longbridge Town Centre Phase II, Number One City Locks, New Cross Hospital, Aston Student Villages, Burton Hockey Club, i54 Manufacturing Facility and Lyons Park, all achieving zero accidents spanning 211,786 man hours.

Peter O’Brien, Managing Director, O’Brien Contractors, said: “Winning three straight Gold awards is a real achievement and recognises the commitment and effort applied by our team to ensure high standards are maintained across all of our sites.”

With a long-established track record of delivering expert civil engineering solutions across the Midlands, we are proud to be named SME of the Year at the West Midlands Celebrating Construction Awards 2016.

We scooped the highly acclaimed award for investing in our people, focussing on improving customer satisfaction and adopting industry best practises across all areas of the business. We were also praised for our commitment to sustainability and maintaining an above industry record for health and safety.

Peter O’Brien, Managing Director, said: “A fundamental element of our success has been the commitment we’ve placed to the Midlands. We believe by focussing on the region, we can forge strong and long-lasting relationships with clients and our supply chain facilitating greater collaboration, essential in delivering projects successfully.”

Established in 1958, O’Brien has partnered with the region’s leading industry clients, including: Morgan Sindall, Aston University, John Sisk & Son, Kier Group and University of Birmingham.

Peter added: “It’s not just about consolidating your efforts into one area. We have continually invested back into the business so that we have a highly talented and knowledgeable team, operate the most efficient plant and technology, and benchmark against industry best practices, like Achilles BuildingConfidence – having achieved a 5-star rating in 2014. This regional award recognises the hard work and commitment of the whole O’Brien team.”

We are pleased to announce we have been awarded our second Property and Regeneration award in three years at the 2015 Birmingham Post Business Awards.

The accolade marks a major transition which has seen us adopt a more strategic approach with a number of Midlands-based leading organisations, including: Morgan Sindall, John Sisk & Son, Aston University, Kier Group, Galliford Try, Birmingham City University and Lovell Partnerships, with the aim of providing value for money by delivering the most appropriate economical solution for the particular set of circumstances for each specific project.

This approach has enabled us to deliver the highest standards across projects in Birmingham, including: St. Modwen’s Longbridge Town Centre Phase 2 scheme, Alumno Developments’ Number One City Locks, Aston Student Village scheme and The New Assay Office.

Mick O’Brien, Director, O’Brien Contractors, said: “Our aim for all projects is delivery, on time and with zero defects, zero accidents and zero unexpected costs. The fact that 85% of our customer base is now from repeat business shows that our approach works and does deliver the best value for money.”

The achievements that have resulted in us winning the award for a second time include:

• Turnover increased by 59.98%, from £17.5m to £28.03m.
• Delivered 9 multi-million pound contracts which accounted for our 2014 turnover.
• Recruited 5 apprentices from the Birmingham area.
• Health and Safety: Maintained our accident rates well below industry average.
• Awarded consecutive ROSPA gold accolade.
• Invested £2.4m in plant and equipment.

“We have a strong work ethic and we really do value our employees. We take on board local apprentices, support local people and give to local charities. We’re very much at the heart of the community here.”

We have been shortlisted in the Specialist Contractor of the Year and Sustainable Project of the Year categories for the 2015 Builder and Engineer Awards.

The awards are designed to reward the hard work and creativity of those working in the industry.

The Sustainable Project of the Year accolade is for Nestle’s £200m coffee manufacturing facility, codenamed Project Dove, which saw us deliver an £11m groundworks and civil engineering package.

The judges will be looking for evidence that the winning project has considered the impact on the environment and has contemplated sustainability. With 2012 the wettest year on record, we were presented with a site containing 40,000m3 of spoil not suitable for re-use. The original solution our engineer had designed was no longer viable.

To overcome this, we implemented a soil remediation strategy that subsequently cut costs by £800k, reduced lorry movements by c7,000 saving 15 tonnes CO2, sent no spoil to landfill and reduced imported stone by 70%. We also achieved a zero accident performance with in excess of 90,000 man hours worked and created a safer stable site for ongoing construction work.

The Specialist Contractor of the Year award recognises businesses that have excelled by delivering exceptional performance, increased turnover, invested in innovation, added value to its’ clients and improved health and safety standards. During 2014/2015, we grew turnover by 59.98%, from £17.5m to £28.03m, maintained our accident rates well below industry average, invested £2.4m in new state-of-the-art plant and equipment and delivered 9 multi-million pound contracts which accounted for our 2014 turnover.

The winners will be announced at the Builder and Engineer Awards on Thursday 19^th November at the Emirates Old Trafford, Manchester.

We have been shortlisted in the Property and Regeneration category for the 2015 Birmingham Post Business Awards.

The winner will be the company that has demonstrated exceptional progress over the last year by growing financially and expanding the services they offer to clients. We have achieved a 59.98% increase in turnover and significantly invested in our earthworks service. During 2014/2015, we spent £220k in GPS technology and appointed an Engineering Manager and Assistant Project Manager to provide clients with the most efficient earthworks solutions, helping them reduce waste and cost. Across projects in Birmingham, our solution has prevented 27,000m3 of material from being taken to landfill, equating to:

• Avoided c.3000 of lorry movements across Birmingham.
• Saving 23T CO2 and fuel for 90,000 miles of 20 tonne lorry haulage, leading to less pollution in the atmosphere.

Other criteria that the company will be judged on include job creation, investment in equipment and infrastructure, industry recognition, accreditation, accolades, service innovation, strong commitment to the region and customer satisfaction.

In our submission we have demonstrated excellence and improvements in all of these categories.

Managing Director, Peter O’Brien said: “We are delighted to have been shortlisted in this category. We are a Midlands based company and committed to this geographical area, a strategy that will ensure we continue to deliver excellent projects for our customers and provide them with the best service for the best value.”

The achievements that have resulted in the shortlisting for this award include:

• Turnover increased by 59.98%, from £17.5m to £28.03m.
• Delivered 9 multi-million pound contracts which accounted for our 2014 turnover.
• Recruited 5 apprentices from the Birmingham area.
• Health and Safety: Maintained our accident rates well below industry average.
• Awarded consecutive ROSPA gold accolade.
• Invested £2.4m in plant and equipment.

The winners will be announced at the Birmingham Post Business Awards on Thursday 12^th November at the International Convention Centre, Birmingham.

We are pleased to announce we have been awarded our second Gold award for Occupational Health and Safety from the UK’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA).

The internationally recognised RoSPA Health and Safety Awards provide businesses and organisations of all types and sizes with an opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to continuous improvement in accident and ill health prevention at work.

Mick O’Brien, O’Brien Contractors’ Health and Safety Director, said: “Receiving the Gold award for Occupational Health and Safety from RoSPA is testament to the commitment we place to ensure the safety of our staff by constantly striving to raise awareness of health and safety throughout the business.”

The Gold award follows another successful year which has seen an increase in the size of our projects and workforce, matched by further investment both in new plant and in ongoing training and development programmes so that our employees are competent to work safely.

“We feel it is vital companies, and especially the construction industry, protect their employees by providing healthy and safe working conditions and by minimising the risk of accident or injury to employees and sub-contractors, as well as members of the public that may be affected by their work.”

In addition to our rigorous safety policies, our industry-leading standards have been recognised with occupational health and safety accreditations ranging from OHSAS 18001 to CHAS, Achilles Building Confidence (5 Star Rating) and Achilles Link-Up.

David Rawlins, RoSPA’s awards manager, said: “The RoSPA Awards encourage improvement in occupational health and safety management. Organisations that gain recognition for their health and safety management systems, such as O’Brien Contractors Limited, contribute to raising standards overall and we congratulate them.”

We are proud to announce that we have been named ‘Company of the Year’ and also received the ‘Property and Regeneration’ title at the Coventry Telegraph Business Awards 2015.

Following on from winning Specialist Contractor of the Year in the Construction News Specialist Awards 2015, the accolades provide further recognition for creating a five year strategic plan in response to the recession, a strong investment in training our people, diversifying into new markets and targeting higher value projects.

In 2009, with the recession taking hold and the company retracting by 40%, our directors embarked on developing a strategy to enable the business to see unimaginable growth: with an order book of £18m already secured for 2015, the outlook looks even brighter, with turnover set to increase to £32m for 2015/2016.

Coventry Telegraph editor Keith Perry said: “Judging the Coventry Telegraph Business Awards was really difficult this year because of the strength and depth of the entries we receive gets better every year.

“However, once we had debated long and hard about the winners for each category it was a unanimous decision to choose O’Brien Contractors for the prestigious Company of the Year accolade.

“O’Brien Contractors showed all the qualities we needed to see, with innovation and sustainable growth in a very competitive and challenging sector and a firm commitment to their staff and the region. They are worthy winners.”

Commenting on the award success, Peter O’Brien, Managing Director, O’Brien Contractors said: “Receiving the prestigious Company of the Year and Property and Regeneration awards is credit to everyone who has been involved in the business, from the start of the economic down-turn, when we set out on our diversification journey.”

“We viewed the recession as an opportunity and planned for the subsequent upturn. In a downturn, clients are less active, they are more receptive to changes in their supply chain as they are more focused on value.”

Key to the success has been a focus on building stronger customer relationships by ensuring on every project, a Director has an overseeing role and assists the project delivery team.

In addition to our financial success, we have invested £4 million in new plant, technology and training programmes, delivering on our commitment to improve efficiency and reduce ongoing costs for our clients.

Peter O’Brien added: “We found out what organisations didn’t like about their supply chains and repositioned our business approach, aligned with their requirements. This has enabled us to understand their needs and challenges better, so that we can provide them with tailored solutions, greater operational efficiency and a higher return on investment. In many ways, the recession was good for us.”

“We are naturally delighted to receive the awards and look forward to delivering further projects across the region, based on a commitment of providing the highest customer service and excellent quality work to our clients.”

Established in 1958, we are a trusted name in the Midlands construction industry, providing civil engineering, design and build and groundworks services, as well as turnkey sports pitch solutions.

Key projects and customers include the Nestlé factory with John Sisk; the Longbridge Marks & Spencer store with Morgan Sindall; and the Thunderbird 2 retail distribution centre with Sir Robert McAlpine, Accident and Emergency Centre, New Cross Hospital for Kier Construction and SFA Beacon Barracks (Borona) for Lovell.

Leading groundworks and civil engineering contractor, O’Brien, has been awarded the prestigious Specialist Contractor of the Year (turnover up to £25m) prize at the Construction News Specialists Awards.

The title is awarded for creating an impressive strategic plan in response to the recent economic downturn, diversifying into new work streams and targeting higher value projects.

The Awards judges said, “O’Brien Contractors were able to demonstrate that they are successfully implementing a plan through investment in training and development.”

In 2009, the company’s turnover was £11m with profit only £73k. Its plan to invest, diversify, train, overhaul processes and focus on risks and opportunities has increased average project value from £463,000 to £874,000 during 2014 and turnover up by 68% over 5 years.

The judges were particularly impressed with the level of investment in new and innovative plant and equipment to support the productivity of the business. O’Brien has invested over £4 million in new plant, technology and training programmes, delivering on its commitment to improve efficiency and reduce ongoing costs.

O’Brien were also commended for the results of the strategic plan which led to a strong portfolio of projects and customers as well as an impressive improvement in both top line and bottom line performance – major projects include: Marks and Spencer in Longbridge, Birmingham for Morgan Sindall, New Cross Hospital Emergency Centre in Wolverhampton for Kier Construction and Jaguar Land Rover’s Engineering Facility for Galliford Try in Gaydon.

Peter O’Brien, managing director, O’Brien Contractors, said: “We have always believed that a strong investment in our people and technology are important in helping to stand out from the crowd and be recognised as a leader in our field. This has proven to be a winning approach and this national Award recognises the hard work, commitment and dedication of the whole O’Brien team.”

Read the Construction News Specialist Awards 2015 judges write-up, click here.

Midlands-based O’Brien Contractors has been named ‘Tomorrow’s Company’ at the Construction News Awards 2014. The prestigious title is awarded for providing, “a great example for the industry to follow.” This must include, “growing financially and in the service they provide clients.” The judges singled out O’Brien management foresight in investing in people and diversification at the bottom of the recession.

The Awards judges said, “They clearly have a smart strategy and have had the foresight to implement a succession plan alongside an ambitious growth plan.”

The judges praised the bold, extremely long-term outlook, which put O’Brien in a prime position to take advantage of the recent upturn. They also cited the clear succession plan, focused on improving customer satisfaction and relationships. O’Brien has raised customer satisfaction to 92 per cent by acting directly on feedback and having all clients deal with directors.

Peter O’Brien, managing director, said, “We worked hard to implement a sound business model which has stood up to the challenges of the recession. We have also invested in our people and systems to ensure that we deliver the best possible customer service. This national Award recognises the hard work, commitment and dedication of the whole O’Brien team.”