New pallet racking at Medway
Joseph Ash Medway has recently commissioned the first phase of pallet racking in our goods in / despatch yard. This is a significant investment at our Kent plant by Hill & Smith (parent company).
The new racking improves the safety, operational efficiency, and organisation of the site’s warehousing activities by reducing the double handling of materials and congestion in this part of the yard.
The storage includes three aisles of three-tier racking, creating 151 pallet storage spaces for finished products before despatch.
Tim Palmer, General Manager at Medway, commented: “The health and safety of our teams are paramount at all Joseph Ash sites. The new racking helps us create space and improve organisation and safety in this critical business area.”
Palmer added: “The new racking will also improve our customers’ service. For example, eliminating additional handling reduces the risk of mechanical damage to customers’ valuable work. Also, the improved visibility of all work will help our loading teams ensure items do not miss a delivery run.”
Great news! Joseph Ash Galvanizing has been awarded ISO14001, the international standard for designing and implementing an environmental management system.
The award has been granted to Head Office, as well as five of the plants: Joseph Ash Bilston, Joseph Ash Bridgend, Joseph Ash Chesterfield, Joseph Ash Telford, and Joseph Ash Walsall.
An environmental management system, often called an EMS, comprises the policies, processes, plans, practices, and records that define the rules governing how a company interacts with the environment.
Preventing companies from causing negative impacts on the environment are two of the most critical challenges facing businesses today. Achieving the ISO14001 standard shows we’re amongst the world’s businesses that care enough about the background to reduce our environmental footprint.
Congratulations to all our team members for achieving this latest standard!
Michael Worth, Head of Technical and ESG at Joseph Ash Galvanizing said “Everyone should be incredibly proud of their contributions to this achievement. This clearly demonstrates that our approach to managing our environmental impacts and our strategy to maximise environmental opportunities are on the right trajectory to delivering continual improvement in this area.”
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See some of the steps we take to minimise our impact on the environment in our Green Future plan.
The Easter bank holidays will soon be upon us, which means our plants will be closed for the long weekend, giving our team members a well-deserved break.
If you have projects that need completing around this time, book the work in early so that we can complete it for you.
All Joseph Ash and Premier Galvanizing plants will be closed from Friday 15 April to Monday 18 April 2022.
We hope you have a great bank holiday weekend too!
Last week, our Bilston plant had a visit from Pat McFadden, Labour MP for Wolverhampton South East and Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Lucy Foster-Bowen (Commercial Manager) and Robert Nelson (Divisional Manager) showed him around the Bilston plant. Pat was impressed the variety of steel we process at Joseph Ash, including – in this photo – vine pickets for vineyards across Europe.
Bilston is proud of the plant and the work carried out there, so it’s always great to welcome new visitors.
At the beginning of the month, Lucy Foster-Bowen, Commercial Manager at Joseph Ash Bilston, showed Dr Greig Campbell around the plant. Greig is a Bilston born historian whose PhD focused on the campaign to save Bilston Steelworks in the late 1970s. The steelworks was located on the site of Joseph Ash Bilston and produced more than 275,000t of metal per year in its heyday.
Working together, Bilston and Greig plan to build a permanent exhibition of the site which will incorporate the past, the present and the future of Joseph Ash Bilston. Watch this space for more information! In the meantime, if you’d like to know more about the old steelworks:
2022 marks the dawn of a good year for Joseph Ash Bilston. Not only have they opened a new office building at the plant, but they’ve also become ISO 14001 certified. Find out more!
New office building
Joseph Ash Bilston has been going from strength to strength over the last few years, and growth meant the need for a new office building.
The office building houses our team members who look after sales, the management of the plant, and accounts. But unfortunately, they had outgrown the space, and the facilities were dated.
When the plant drew up plans for a new office, it was also an excellent opportunity to ensure a new build would be as green as possible. As a result, a state-of-the-art environmentally friendly building was designed. The building work took place in the second half of 2021, finishing just before Christmas.
Joseph Ash team members moved in at the beginning of January and are pleased with the new facilities. Not only do they have more space, but there are also some environmental features to be proud of:
Solar PV array with an output of 29087kWh
The building now has fantastic solar panels that will harness greener energy. PV means photovoltaic – a way to convert sunlight into electricity.
1 phase 10kW battery storage from the solar PV array
Solar panels are great, but it’s not always sunny in Bilston! Not a problem, though, as there are solar storage systems in place to provide energy on even the greyest days. Not only a green initiative but also cost-saving for heating costs.
Heating/cooling with air source heat pump and radiant ceiling grid panels
Traditional radiators may soon be a thing of the past, as they primarily heat the air in a space. Instead, Bilston’s new radiant heating panels radiate, heating the solid objects in areas such as people and furniture. In addition, zero gas is required to heat the building, and there’s a supplementary electric boiler supplied from solar power when needed.
SunGuard eXtraSelective – SNX 60 double glazed window glass
Bilston’s new windows further reduce energy costs by delivering thermal insulation and lowering the demand for artificial lighting, air conditioning and heating.
The environmental initiatives have ensured the new office building is carbon neutral, helping Bilston maintain its status as the greenest Galvanizer in the UK.
Our environmental initiatives continue with ISO 14001 certification
We’re pleased to announce that Joseph Ash Bilston has recently become ISO 14001 Environmental Management certified. ISO 14001 certifies that Bilston has:
- Minimised how processes etc., negatively affect the environment.
- Complies with environmental laws and regulations.
- Continually improves in all these areas.
Joseph Ash Bilston and the entire Joseph Ash Group is delighted with the certification as part of our sustainability mission. Bilston is also proud to claim that they are now the greenest galvanizer in the UK.
As the steel construction industry moves to net-zero carbon by 2050, embracing the ideals expressed at COP26, Joseph Ash is playing its part.
Some of our decarbonisation initiatives include minimising energy usage, reusing waste heat to warm pre-treatment tanks, and improving burner efficiency. Plant emissions are also carefully controlled to ensure neighbouring communities are not adversely affected.
Our latest carbon reduction project has changed the lighting at all plants and our Head Office to be more energy efficient.
In late 2021 we engaged MODO to replace all the high-powered traditional lighting at three sites with LED fittings and motion sensors.
For example, at our Chesterfield plant, MODO replaced over 300 light fittings. The company also installed motion sensors in low traffic areas, which power the lights on immediately when motion is detected, dimming down when the site is inactive and then powering off.
The switch to Modo LED also reduced the CO2 emissions by a massive 117 metric tonnes, equivalent to the average car driving 286,867 miles!
MODO carried out the same project at Premier Galvanizing Hull, plus our Head Office. (Other Joseph Ash Group plants were updated earlier.)
Please get in touch to find out more about carbon efficiency projects at Joseph Ash Galvanizing.
You can also see how we are committed to preventing pollution and minimising environmental impacts by viewing our Green Plan interactive infographic, newly published on our website.
An end of year message from Steven Hopkins, MD, Joseph Ash Ltd
To all our dear customers,
Another challenging year approaches its end! I have come to the view that you, our fabricator customers, and ourselves are sharing the same boat. We all had a dose of uncertainty from the start of 2021, then struggled with labour, then suffered from wage pressure from the driver sector of the workforce, then started to see material supply issues followed by considerable cost increases in just about every bought-in material and chemical. And then, to cap it all, massive increases in energy costs! Oh yes, going full circle, we come back currently to severe pressure on manufacturing wages.
So, I guess we will all be grateful to get 2021 behind us but, hang on, here we go again with possibly another destructive round of Covid! I fear that many Brits have become a bit complacent about it and have begun to ignore the high daily infection numbers, whilst we feel (perhaps with too much confidence) reasonably secured by our double or triple jabs. So caution has gone out of much of our behaviours in public. Not so, though, at Joseph Ash Group – we have never relaxed our Covid defence rules and we have kept up the mask-wearing, distancing, cleaning and detailed investigation of the movements and contacts at work of anyone testing positive for the few days before doing so. Therefore I believe that any of your drivers visiting our sites will continue to be safe, but will, of course, be asked to carry on respecting our rules.
It is difficult to predict the year ahead. Some further restrictions seem highly likely, with maybe even a short lockdown, with lessons learned from 2020 and an acceptance that the economy must continue to function. I doubt if material supply will get any easier for a while yet, and the ongoing, now routine, self-isolation of employees will keep us all several per cent short in labour. On the plus side, demand appears to be holding up. There seems to be plenty of money to fund investment in steel capital goods and projects, with many still awaiting associated materials to allow completion.
So, I wish us all luck in this manufacturing partnership boat of ours, and pray that the seas will remain reasonably calm. But, most of all, I wish that together, our staff and yours will stay healthy and content, starting with a very Happy Christmas for all, followed by a successful, safe and prosperous New Year.
Take very, very good care,
Steven
Lucy Foster-Bowen from Joseph Ash Bilston explains why in a podcast hosted by MIDFIX.
For products and solutions supporting mechanical and electrical services, the finish of the supports matter. Galvanizing is important as it plays a primary role in the protection of steel supports. Lucy Foster-Bowen from Joseph Ash Galvanizing explains why when she was invited to take part in a podcast hosted by MIDFIX.
Lucy covers topics such as:
- What is galvanizing?
- The history of galvanizing?
- The process of galvanizing steel
- The life expectancy of a product with galvanized steel
- Venting and drainage
- A pre-galvanized finish
- The environmental impacts of galvanizing
- How galvanizing impacts M&E supports.
Watch the podcast here. It was a great session!
Thanks for inviting us MIDFIX!
(MIDFIX are experts in onsite and offsite supports for the mechanical and electrical industries, delivered through design, engineering, fabrication and industry training.)
Two new joiners have joined the Sales Team at Joseph Ash Walsall. Please meet Jordan Sanders and Lesley Elcock.
Jordan Sanders – Sales and Customer Service Advisor
Jordan has a flair for sales and all things customer-related and is a whizz with IT. We’re sure she has a great future ahead of her with Joseph Ash.
jordans@josephash.co.uk
DDI: 01922 709 982
Lesley Elcock – Sales and Customer Service Advisor
Lesley joins us with a wealth of experience in sales and customer service. Her enthusiasm and experience will be a great asset to the Division.
Lesleye@josephash.co.uk
DDI: 01922 709 997
Please join us in welcoming both Jordan and Lesley to the Joseph Ash Sales family. Good luck to them both in their new and exciting roles.