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WINNER

Serious M&E: Crown House Technologies in action

Crown house technologies
This is what Crown House Technologies means by offering a complete package: not only does it drive a project from the research and design of intelligent systems to their off-site manufacture and efficient installation, but the company’s Crown House Communications business offers the latest networking solutions and IT infrastructure. It can, in effect, create a fully operational office for a client, minus the stationery. This approach has attracted a diverse list of clients, ranging from the health and education sectors to commercial property developments and power generation plants.

Crown House Technologies can also be justly proud of its safety performance record. Over the past 10 years, it has been awarded five Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents gold medals, four president’s awards and one highly commended award.

Runners up

Haden young
Turnover at Haden Young reached £218m last year, but its real achievments are in the areas of safety and training. Currently, more than 50 student engineers and 110 craft apprentices are receiving training from the firm, and last year its partnership with Liverpool Community College received a National Training Award. Haden Young has racked up some impressive safety awards as well – this year it was awarded the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents’ Order of Distinction.

Hills electrical & mechanical
Hills has built a healthy reputation on the basic principles of partnering upstream (80% of its projects are for previous clients) and ensuring its supply chain includes the best products on the market. Its primary means of discovering and evaluating suppliers is through the annual products event Hills Preferred Products Awards.

The results of this have been an impressive rise in turnover over the past five years and prestigious contracts including the Birmingham Bullring and Mark & Spencer’s headquarters building in London.

Shepherd engineering services
Shepherd celebrated a 30% increase in turnover to £98m last year by investing in a multimillion pound project to provide a state-of-the-art IT management tool. This should ensure that the firm keeps delivering the high-quality M&E installations that made its name. Most recently, the student populace of Manchester have most reason to be grateful for Shepherd’s continued technical excellence. The firm has just installed the services on the £18m refurbishment of Manchester Metropolitan University’s John Dalton tower.

Skanska rashleigh weatherfoil
Skanska Rashleigh Weatherfoil likes to get things done quickly. The extensive use of off-site prefabrication led to the core installation at the Swiss Re tower to be completed ahead of schedule – and that’s a lot of installing. Likewise, successful partnering with Carillion resulted in a project for Dell Computers in Bracknell, Surrey, being finished four weeks ahead of schedule.

Skanska also likes to get things done safely. Over the past 12 months, the company has introduced a safety management system in accordance with international occupational health specification OHSAS 18001.

Southern electric contracting
It may have grown from a loss-making electrical contractor to a £186m-turnover M&E giant in just over 10 years, but that’s not the most impressive thing about SEC. The statistic that leaps off the page is that more than 90% of the firm’s managers and engineers started as apprentices, as did all the operational directors. That level of retention speaks volumes about the firm’s commitment to staff welfare.