After a well deserved festive week off, followed by the usual slow first week back, construction sites are starting to make noises again and 2011 is underway, and at pace!
Without having given any serious thought to our new years resolutions, we packed up our van full of literature, pretty pictures and the famous diorama model and set off to Rotterdam on the overnight boat where we are currently hosting our stand at Infratech 2011 at the Ahoy exhibition centre, which is where I sit at the moment, helping myself to the complimentary bowl of mint imperials on offer at the stand. Entry to all of the days is completely free so there is a wide range of people attending , from students, who are there to collect as many freebies as possible, to industry professionals that have a genuine interest in the products on show. We are one of 550 exhibitors who are entertaining over 18,000 pre-registered visitors over the course of the 4 days. With the hydraulic shoring products being something new to the Dutch, we have had a lot of talking to do. Thankfully most Dutch people speak excellent English. This has been hard work at times but has reaped the inevitable benefits of meeting a range very useful contacts, potential suppliers and more importantly, potential customers. All we need now is a job or two on the back of this to wrap up a successful trip.
The main news back at Technical HQ is the arrival of the new multi storey office cabins which will alleviate the current cramped conditions in the technical office. The cabins were craned into position a few days before Christmas, and are now having the necessary light, power and IT fitted, ready for our return to the UK next week. This will see the added facilities of a separate major projects office, meeting room, easiform formwork office and a load monitoring calibration “laboratory”. Staff numbers have been on the rise for some time now and this expansion will hopefully allow those individuals that need that little bit of quiet time and space to concentrate on complex design work, the ability to do so. And with the division always expanding, who knows how long it will be before the next extension will be required!
With all this going on you wouldn`t think there was much more that could be crammed into the first two weeks, but you would be wrong. We are putting the final touches to our online load monitoring service and will be ready for release in the next week or so. This will give our customers complete flexibility in terms of viewing any data collected on their sites. We don`t only intend to tell you about this, we want you to try it for yourselves. We hope to get a test site set up and running in the next few weeks and we will provide a login username and password so you can play around with the interface and get a real feel for how it works. Watch this space!
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