Category: News

O’Brien has struck gold in recognition of the way it protects its staff from accidents and injury.

O’Brien Contractors, based in Cubbington, has won the Gold Award in the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) Occupational Health and Safety Awards 2014.

The company will be presented with the prize at a ceremony at the Hilton Metropole, at the NEC, on Thursday, May 15.

RoSPA, a national charity, aims to save lives and reduce injuries and in support of that mission, the awards – which date back 58 years – recognise the commitment to continuous improvement in accident and ill health prevention at work.

Through the scheme, which is open to businesses and organisations of all types and sizes from across the UK and overseas, judges consider entrants’ overarching occupational health and safety management systems including practices such as leadership and workforce involvement.

It is the latest in a string of awards for O’Brien Contractors including Contractor of the Year at the Building Awards 2014, a National Chamber Award and the SME Award at the Celebrating Construction Awards.

O’Brien Contractors managing director Peter O’Brien said the RoSPA award was particularly special.

He said: “Any recognition of the company’s qualities and practices is great news but health and safety is such a huge issue in construction and so to achieve gold in the RoSPA Occupational Health and Safety Awards is testament to just how seriously we take it.

“Credit has to go to our management team and all of our staff for ensuring that health and safety is a priority on each and every contract we carry out.

“Health and safety can, sometimes, be given a bad name because people see it as overly bureaucratic or unnecessarily restrictive on businesses but, in our view, it is vital that companies of all sizes and sectors – but especially in construction – do everything they can to protect staff and, indeed, the public.”

O’Brien Contractors was established by Peter’s father, Thomas O’Brien, 55 years ago. Peter and his brother, Michael, got involved around 35 years ago and, in 1995, took it from a partnership to a limited company.

The firm invested heavily during the recession and that has started to pay off with turnover rising and a range of awards.

David Rawlins, RoSPA’s awards manager, said: “The RoSPA Awards encourage the raising of occupational health and safety standards across the board.

“Organisations that gain recognition for their health and safety management systems, such as O’Brien Contractors, contribute to a collective raising of the bar for other organisations to aspire to, and we offer them our congratulations.”

In the latest of a long line of business award successes, O’Brien Contractors has won the 2014 Building Awards Contractor of the Year (up to £300m) prize. The award recognises the company for demonstrating improvements and excellence in all areas of the business.

The judges chose O’Brien as the winners as the firm has been involved in projects over the past year that have delivered outstanding features and innovative solutions. These include a £4m demolition and landscaping project for Aston University; and a £1.3m project for Nightowl Truckstop that saw 82 lorry parking bays installed, along with 10,000m2 of concrete hard standing, storm outfall drainage, CCTV cameras around the perimeter and a 2.4m fence with electrical topping. This project met “Secured by Design” standards and has been awarded a “Park Mark” safety certificate from the police.

Other criteria that the company was considered to have delivered outstanding results in include customer satisfaction, sound management of the difficult economic conditions, sustainability, supply chain management, health and safety improvements, impressive Corporate Social Responsibility approaches, R&D investments and staff satisfaction and development opportunities.

O’Brien has demonstrated excellence and improvements in all of these categories. The four-year, self-funded £1.7m diversification programme that it implemented in 2008 has seen it achieve a 203% increase in profits since 2012. The company has also expanded from just providing civil engineering and groundworks to offering a wider range of services, which include design, levelling, plant hire, sewerage, construction, internal finishing, road/car park installation, maintenance and facilities management.

Managing Director, Peter O’Brien said: “We are all absolutely delighted to have received this prestigious award in recognition of the hardwork and dedication that everyone in the business has put in to help us achieve our goals.”

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

• Productivity increased by 8% (calculated by turnover generated per head)
• Client base increased from 50 to 54
• Repeat business increased from 80% to 85%
• Tender success increased from 19% to 24%
• Turnover increased 2.3%, from £13.8m to £14.1m
• Training hours increased by 21%

The company has also introduced an Apprenticeship programme and fast-track mentoring scheme, supported 15 ex-offenders on leaving prison to gain qualifications, and offers work experience placements to students. It has also partnered with software and machinery specialists Korec to develop the “Sensefly Singlet Cam” aerial camera, which allows photography and land surveys to be conducted from the sky, saving both time and money.

Peter O’Brien said: “We are looking forward to delivering more successful projects throughout 2014 and will continue to pursue our goal of continual improvement so that we can deliver the best possible service for our customers, and remain an employer of choice for the best construction professionals in the industry.”

O’Brien Contractors has been at the heart of the construction for Nestle’s new £200 million coffee manufacturing centre, the project is progressing well in to 2014, below details the success that Sisk, Nestle and O’Brien have seen thorough out the contract.

Overview

Nestle UK is investing £200 million to enhance its soluble coffee manufacturing centre at Tutbury bringing together for the first time, all forms of coffee production on one site, including freeze dried, spray dried and pod technology – an investment that will create around 140 new jobs in the region. This is in addition to recent investments in DOLCE GUSTO manufacturing which has already created an additional 400 jobs over the last few years.

The new factory development will comprise of a series of interlinked blocks of varying height and scale. These include the reception building for coffee beans, roasting, extraction and drier buildings, as well as buildings for packing, storage, utilities and workshops.

Buildings will range in scale from single-storey engineering workshops to the extraction building, which is a concrete framed tower of over 30m in height.

The appearance of the new factory development will be defined by a carefully selected approach to the cladding finish of the buildings. The profile and colour of the cladding will be selected to add interest and break up the apparent mass of the individual building blocks.

The development will appear as a substantial group of new buildings in the local landscape. From many viewpoints, the new buildings will be seen against the backdrop of the existing factory.

However, they will have an edge to open countryside and there is a recognition that there needs to be landscape treatment around the development to act as a transition from the new factory to open agricultural land.

Progress

After one year of construction the buildings are substantially in place. Site clearing started in January 2013 and over the summer the building frames were constructed with cladding commencing in late 2013. Some of the large processing equipment was installed in late 2013 with the majority due for installation in 2014. New electricity, gas and water supplies are being brought to site to support the increased scale of the factory however the new installation is the most energy efficient factory of it’s type to have been built by Nestle.

As the factory is seen as a long term investment in a manufacturing centre, the size and durability of the factory have been designed accordingly. The concrete frames provide significant fire protection compared to steel frames and the cladding is designed to diminish noise emission as well as insulate the building.

Over 300 hundred people are active on the site each day and in 2013 there were no lost time accidents. The project team have strong safety management procedures in place and contractors are selected with a strong emphasis being given to their safety track record.

The new Nescafe building will be fully operational late 2014 and already the first new starters have joined, spending their first fortnight working through the factory induction process and then moving onto the general overview of coffee manufacture before specialising.

Leading midlands groundworks and civil engineering contractor, O’Brien, has secured another contract at Aston University’s Student Village.

The new £214m Student Village is a residential scheme comprising 2350 en-suite bedrooms on the university’s campus in Birmingham City Centre. The scheme provides the highest standards of quality, sustainability and security, at the heart of the campus.

Acting as principal contractor, O’Brien will undertake the hard and soft landscaping around the university grounds following the construction of the Aston Student Villages Development.

Stuart Chamberlain, Director, O’Brien, said: “The new contract is something we are particularly proud to have won, as  it means we have had a regular presence on the £214 million development over the last seven years, from commencement to completion.”

O’Brien cut the first “sod” when they carried out the Phase 1 enabling works in 2008 and they will lay the last slab in Phase 3 landscaping works in 2014.

The 20 week project is valued at £1.25 million and will commence in May 2014.

Leading groundworks and civil engineering contractor, O’Brien, has secured another contract for Lovell, on the Borona SFA Development for the MoD at Stafford. The contracted works consists of the section 278 Works to form the new entrance into the proposed development.

The overall value for the scheme is £6 million and comprises of the ‘design and build’ of circa 360 service family accommodation houses, including soft and hard landscaping, utilities services supplies both on and off site along with onsite infrastructure and section 278 works to complete the project.

We are extremely pleased to have secured further works with Lovell and look forward to assisting them on their upcoming development.

As 2013 draws to a close, O’Brien Contractors is celebrating the most successful year in the company’s 56 year history.

O’Brien’s won numerous prestigious projects, developed important new partnerships, created 23 jobs and grew turnover to its highest ever level.

It was also named as Company of the Year in the 2013 Chamber Awards and won several other awards:

• Celebrating Construction SME Award for the West Midlands
• Diamond Standard for Customer Satisfaction
• International CSR Excellence Award in the Environment Category
• Birmingham Post Business Award for Property including Regeneration and Estate Management
• CSR World Leader 2014 Award

Additionally, Managing Director, Peter O’Brien, received the Outstanding Personal Achievement Award at the National Chamber Awards and was named as Business Person of the Year in the Pride of Warwick Awards.

These awards recognise O’Brien’s has excelled across all areas of the business by increasing efficiency and turnover, providing staff development and improving standards for staff, clients, suppliers, the environment and the wider community.

Peter O’Brien said: “To win these awards is a wonderful endorsement of how hard everyone at O’Brien’s has worked to achieve our goals: to deliver the best service to our customers and to improve the efficiency and environmental impact of construction projects, while also providing opportunities for our staff to realise their potential and making a positive impact on the communities we work in.”

All of these developments are part of the business diversification plan that Peter O’Brien implemented after the business was hit by the global financial crisis and saw profit and turnover drop significantly in 2008.

This approach has seen O’Brien’s involved in multiple projects this year delivering schemes ranging from sports pitches, Olympic standard swimming pools, highways and commercial units to schools, universities, railway stations, hospitals and commercial housing developments.

O’Brien Contractors, a specialist civil engineering firm providing best-practice, cost-effective design and build services for a wide range of construction projects, has been named as Company of the Year in the 2013 National Chamber Awards, and its Managing Director, Peter O’Brien, also received the Outstanding Personal Achievement Award at the ceremony in November.

The Company of the Year Award recognises businesses that have excelled by increasing efficiency and turnover, providing staff development and improving standards for staff, clients, suppliers, the environment and the wider community. As well as creating 23 new jobs in 2013, the company has received several industry awards and accreditations, achieved its highest turnover ever and taken part in community events that have raised over £7000 for charity.

Peter O’Brien said: “To win the Company of the Year award is a wonderful endorsement of how hard everyone at O’Briens has worked to achieve our goals. We are all dedicated to delivering the best service to our customers while also striving to improve the efficiency and environmental impact of construction projects. It’s also very important to us that we provide the opportunities for our staff to realise their potential and that we make a positive impact on the communities we work in.”

The Company of the Year Award comes with a £25,000 cheque, which O’Briens will be investing in its apprenticeship programme to help more young people to enter the construction industry and into the company’s community fund that is used to provide free computer and playground equipment to local schools.

The Outstanding Personal Achievement Award acknowledges an individual who has demonstrated dedication, professionalism and integrity within their role resulting in a positive impact on the business. Peter O’Brien has been instrumental in transforming the business in the past four years – diversifying into new service areas, investing in new technologies and marketing campaigns, and helping the business to recover strongly from the recession.

Mr O’Brien said: “I am overwhelmed and delighted to have been given the Outstanding Personal Achievement Award. However, everyone at O’Briens has worked together to achieve our business transformation and this award really reflects our joint efforts and successes.”

O’Brien Contractors, a leading specialist civil engineering and groundworks firm providing best-practice, cost-effective design and build services for a wide range of construction projects, has won two more awards in a year that has already seen the company, and its Managing Director, Peter O’Brien, win several.

At the Building and Engineering 2013 awards in November O’Briens was named as Contractor of the Year (SME) for the impressive improvements it has made in every area of the business.

These improvements include diversifying into new service areas, such as sports, plant hire, sewerage installations and full design and build services. It is also one of a handful of UK construction contractors to provide full turnkey solutions for sports pitches. At the same time, O’Briens has invested over £900K in new state-of-the-art software and plant and machinery and significantly cut both its accident incidence and frequency rates.

Peter O’Brien said: “We are thrilled to have won this latest award that recognises how much we have done to turn the business around after the global recession. As a company we are dedicated to providing the best service to our customers while also investing in innovations to improve the efficiency and environmental impact of construction projects. It’s also very important to us that we are the best employer for our staff and make a positive impact on the communities where we deliver projects.”

This commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility has been recognised by the CSR Excellence Award which, in addition to awarding O’Brien’s a Silver International CSR Excellence Award in the Building & Construction Category for 2013, has just added the CSR World Leader 2014 award to their accolades.

Mr O’Brien added: “We have been overwhelmed and delighted with the level of our achievements in the industry awards this year. This recognition of our efforts shows that we are doing the right thing for our business, our customers and our staff, and that we are on the right track to achieve all of our goals.”

O’Brien Contractors, a specialist civil engineering firm providing best-practice, cost-effective design and build services for a wide range of construction projects, has won the Birmingham Post 2013 Business Award for Property including Regeneration and Estate Management, beating off prestigious shortlisted competitors such as St. Mowden Properties.

The award recognises O’Brien’s achievements in several key areas:

• Strong financial performance
• Job creation
• Investment in equipment and infrastructure
• Scale and complexity
• Product or service innovation
• Industry recognition, accreditation, accolades and commitment to customer service
• Commitment to the region

Managing Director, Peter O’Brien, said: ‘We are delighted to have received this award. It’s further justification that the decisions we made when the business was facing tough times were the right ones.’

When profits were hit by the 2009 recession O’Brien’s took the brave decision of investing in a £620K diversification initiative, which has paid off and seen 2013 deliver the company’s best year ever.

As well as expanding the services it offers to its customers, O’Brien’s has invested £150K in people development providing progression opportunities and qualifications for existing staff, creating new jobs and starting a new apprenticeship programme.

This award is the latest success in a year that has seen O’Brien’s win several, including:

• Celebrating Construction SME Award for the West Midlands
• Diamond Standard for Customer Satisfaction
• Silver International CSR Excellence Award in the Environment Category

Peter O’Brien was also named as Business Person of Year in the Pride of Warwick District Awards.

Construction News Magazine – SME Spotlight 16/08/2013

The business was established by my father, Tom O’Brien in 1958. I became Managing Director in 1980, aged just 24 and since then the business has grown substantially, with our largest contract now in the region of £8m.

O’Brien Contractors offers a wide range of services, from design and build through to plant hire, in sectors such as healthcare, education and residential. We work collaboratively on projects with our suppliers and a loyal range of clients, including JLR, the National Trust and Aston University. We’ve also delivered numerous contracts involving railway stations, commercial units and Olympic-standard sports facilities.

In 2009, after 50 years as a specialist contractor providing drainage and groundworks, our business started to feel the pinch of the recession. When turnover and profit reduced by £3.3m and £330k, respectively, my Board and I set about developing challenging but realistic objectives to turn things around by the end of 2013. These objectives have enabled the business to see unimaginable growth: Principal Contractor contracts accounting for 40% of sales and £900k worth of secured sports pitch contracts, are just a few of our successes.

The diversification strategy that we developed took considerable planning and analysis with close to £1m of company money being invested in it. But it paid off and 2013 has seen us achieve record-breaking levels of turnover. With an order book of £10m already secure for the coming year our outlook for 2014 looks even brighter, with turnover set to increase by 33% to £18m.

I am most proud of the fact that it allowed us to safeguard the careers of our 97 members of staff; 23 of whom have joined us recently as a result of our growth.

If I was to highlight one area to credit with our success, it would be customer satisfaction. We’ve all worked tirelessly to improve the service to our clients and are now seeing more contracts come through referrals from previous clients, while repeat business has increased from 60% in 2009 to 85% in 2012. .

Although our client base has grown from 35 to 50, I believe today’s market is a challenging place to be. I would encourage other companies to look at core competencies, use the capabilities and resources you already have within your business. Develop your staff, use in-house skills and create your own USP, this has been an invaluable strategy for us.

Over the years this business has seen many ups and downs, with the recent economic downturn being one of the toughest. However, I believe today’s team is the strongest we have ever had and having diversified to reach new markets, we have put ourselves in a very secure position. Never one to rest on our laurels, we will keep listening to our clients to continually improve and aim ever higher.