CMB Engineering Case Study

Background

CMB Engineering was founded in 1992 and carries out the design, procurement, installation, testing and commissioning and maintenance of all aspects of Building Services for commercial and industrial premises such as Heating, Ventilation, Domestic Water Services and Sanitary Ware.

The company regularly uses sub-contractor companies to carry out work for them and require those suppliers to demonstrate that they meet their H&S obligations.

The challenges CMB Engineering faced:

The company spent many years conducting H&S prequalification checks internally when onboarding new suppliers. CDM Regulations state that, as a Main Contractor, CMB Engineering was responsible for ensuring that their supply chain had the appropriate H&S systems in place, which meant checking these at prequalification through paper based assessment, as well as conducting an onsite assessment. This represented a resource intensive process which meant that CMB Engineering had to invest considerable man hours in supporting this process.

The requirement for internal H&S checks also meant that the organisation needed to maintain an updated and consistent questionnaire and assessment process and would ask their suppliers to undertake their own specific application each time they wished to conduct work on their behalf.

The Solution they adopted through partnership with SMAS:

CMB Engineering first adopted an SSIP approach to H&S assessments for their sub-contractors in 2013 by requiring all contractors they engaged with to hold a H&S certificate issued by any SSIP Member Scheme.

Holding a third-party accreditation gave them the reassurance that their H&S management systems had been assessed by professionally qualified assessors and reduced the hassle to contractors as they could demonstrate their H&S competence without the need to undertake numerous In-House Pre-Qualification Questionnaires each time they tender for new business with clients. Accepting a SSIP H&S certificate as part of the pre-qualification quickly saved CMB Engineering time and money.

David Williams, H&S Manager, CMB Engineering says:

 

“By adopting an SSIP approach, this saved myself and my team a considerable amount of time that had previously been spent chasing and assessing the documentation provided by contractors. This meant that we could spend more time monitoring site specific H&S activities and concentrating on building a more robust and consistent H&S culture across the business”

 

“Feedback from our sub-contractors (who were required to gain SSIP accreditation) highlighted that the SMAS assessment process was both user friendly and cost effective and that their in-house team of assessors were accessible and willing to provide support and guidance throughout the process -often turning around assessments within a few days. This efficient attitude was reinforced once we approached SMAS to help with the management of our supply chain”

 

CMB Engineering have now benefited from partnering with SMAS for their H&S supply chain management for over 3 years. As the organisation has grown they have also seen an increase on their regular supplier base and so have started using additional parts of the SMAS Contractor portal – including SMAS Site Management, which enables them to allocate suppliers to specific Regions and set up specific ‘virtual’ sites where we can monitor the compliance of contractors ‘real time’.

“SMAS will chase the documentation for new contractors and renewals on our behalf but the live compliance reports available on the system enable us to quickly identify any non-conformance and contact contractors ourselves if required.”

In addition, the company now also uses the SMAS Contractor portal to find new suppliers. They can do this by trade, site location and even current accreditation status.

“Although introduced as a H&S initiative, the SMAS portal now also supports our procurement process, enabling us to search thousands of contractors who are already approved by SMAS.”

The decision to work with SMAS has taken out significant costs from the business, improved CMB Engineering communication with contractors and raised the quality of H&S processes across the business.

David Williams remarks “SMAS are a key strategic partner and we continue to work with them to explore ways they can help us improve the management of our supply chain”