Two-times award winner discusses entering the LEEA Awards
Justin Powers is the Senior Product Manager for Select Plant Hire Test & Inspection Department as well as technical lead for the group. He deals with all compliance issues with LOLER & PUWER and the company holds a full UKAS (United Kingdom Accreditation Service) accreditation as well as being an independent inspection body that can offer its services externally. Powers manages all the external side of the business, its testing inspection services and is head of new product development.
Select Plant Hire part of Laing O’Rourke won the Health & Safety Award with APP Lifting at the LEEA Awards 2021, which recognises commitment to safety in the lifting equipment industry and Best Digital Innovation, at the LEEA Awards 2022, for the roll-out of its digital LOLER & PUWER Asset Management and Certification System, in collaboration with Motion Kinetic.
“Winning the awards opens up a prestigious platform for us as well as the interest it garners. I'm very passionate about my role within the industry and I share my learnings openly. The end goal is not just to benefit my employer but to work with LEEA and to make the industry a safer place to work as a whole. The LEEA Awards give us a massive opportunity for promoting that. It's not just about winning and the commercial success it brings but on a personal level it helps to get information out there, sharing knowledge and ultimately making the sector a safer place to work,” said Powers.
Select Plant Hire is currently investing in its research & development and has partnered with another LEEA member company, Tensology, to roll out MRT (Magnetic Rope Testing), on tower cranes and crawler cranes and is looking to submit this as an entry for the Innovation Service Award at this year's LEEA Awards.
“We’ve had some very interesting data come back on the MRT testing. It's not very common currently in the construction industry but it’s been used for years in offshore. Development in the equipment and software is now making it more readily available, more cost effective and it's becoming more commonplace within the construction industry. The goal is to correlate all the data and look at rope life and ultimately stop any premature failure of ropes and prolonging rope life on large cranes and equipment,” added Powers.
On partnering with Motion Kinetic to roll-out its digital LOLER & PUWER Asset Management and Certification System he said that the data can be used in many variables in real time trend analysis, showing how often a piece of equipment is being used as well as being able to forecast expenditure in purchasing new equipment.
“The products that we won the awards for is there, it’s being sold and it's helped to secure a lot of big contracts but it's an ongoing development and we will be looking to develop that further in the future.
“We're actually going for three awards this year, the Service Innovation Award, Product Innovation and the Health & Safety Award on positive lifting attachments and positive lifting points.”
The LEEA AWARDS 2023 gives members 10 distinct categories to which they can apply. Winners will be announced during the LEEA Awards Ceremony at the Rum Warehouse in Liverpool on the evening of Tuesday 21st November 2023, with guest speaker Jason Manford. Make your entry at awards.leeaint.com. The deadline to submit entries is 11.59pm on Monday 21st August 2023.
Watch Justin Powers discuss the LEEA Awards on the ‘Be my guest’ video HERE.
