Background

Founded in 2016, Breeze Environmental was initially an asbestos surveying company. Managing director Chris Jelfs had previously worked as a surveyor and site manager for another licensed contractor, and brought that experience to building Breeze from the ground up.

The business soon expanded into non-licensed removal work, and by early 2021 – having applied for its licence just as the COVID-19 pandemic hit – Breeze became a licensed asbestos removal contractor in its own right. Today the company offers both surveying and removal, working from its base in Salisbury across the south and south-west of England.

Breeze now operates with three supervisors and a team of operatives, alongside a growing office and contracts management function. Chris’ focus has shifted to running the business and overseeing licensed work, while building out a senior team to manage on-site standards.

Challenge

Since gaining its licence, Breeze had been using an alternative digital platform to help manage its jobs. While it was a step up from paper, the system was far from ideal: every form, page and layout had to be built from scratch, with no ready-made structure to work from. Meanwhile site diaries had to be built manually, meaning that in practice they remained paper bound and time-consuming. The software depended on a considerable amount of manual input for relatively little return, consuming time that Chris could better spend on managing the business and its work.

The catalyst for change came during Breeze’s licence renewal process, when questions were raised about how the company tracked equipment testing and calibration. Reviewing the existing system’s capability in this area highlighted that it fell short of what was needed. Around the same time, Chris was introduced to Assure360.

Results

Breeze made the switch to Assure360, drawn in particular by the platform’s ready-built, traffic-light-style workflow and its drop-down data entry – a stark contrast to the effort required to build and maintain forms on the previous system. Onboarding included unlimited training for the whole team, delivered as needed rather than booked and paid for separately.

The impact has been felt across the business. Supervisors now move through the start and finish of a project more quickly and with fewer errors. This frees up more of their time for supervision and support, helping support higher quality and safety standards.

Because hold points, certificates and photographic evidence are now logged in real time, Chris can see exactly where a job stands without needing to be on site. Moreover, he can time the visits he does make to points in the project when they add the most value.

That same site visibility has become a useful management tool to ensure the business is delivering not just in line with the regulations, but to the high standards Chris expects. Any inconsistencies in a supervisor’s records – for example photos that don’t match the sequence of works, or hold points completed out of order – now stand out clearly, helping Chris identify where additional training or support may be needed.

Assure360 has also opened up new ways of working with clients. On contaminated-property projects, supervisors now use the platform to photograph and catalogue affected contents directly on site, replacing what was previously a manual process of uploading images into a Word document. The resulting record can be shared with clients and their insurers as a ready-made inventory.

The platform’s record-keeping has proved valuable beyond day-to-day operations too. When the HSE raised a query about a job completed six months earlier, Breeze was able to draw on time-stamped site diary photographs to demonstrate the area had been correctly sheeted during the works, and left clean at the time of clearance – resolving the query with clear evidence.

Assure360’s automated exposure record-keeping has also been a game changer. Previously a manual and time-consuming regulatory requirement, exposure data is now generated automatically from the supervisors’ paperless app – giving Breeze accurate records for staff without extra administrative effort.

What the client said

“If you’re not happy with whatever you’re using now, definitely ring Nick and Chris – have a conversation and ask for a trial. As soon as you see the product, that’s exactly how you’d want to go. For example, we did a recent project for a demolitions business and they carried out an audit on us, saw us using Assure360 on the tablet, and just couldn’t believe how good it was.

“Assure360 is so much cleaner and quicker than what we had before. Everything’s already there – the dropdowns, the layout – so the guys can just get on with it. I can see live that hold points have been done, so instead of guessing when to turn up on site, I know exactly the right time to go. And when the HSE asked us a question about a job from six months earlier, the evidence was all there – not stuck in a batch of scanned paperwork. That’s the difference it makes.”

Client name

• Chris Jelfs
• Managing director

Related links

Website: breezeenvironmentalservices.co.uk
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/breeze-environmental-consultants-ltd/

Facebook: www.facebook.com/breezeenvironmentalconsultants.co.uk

 

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