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William O'Brien Plant Hire Avoids Working in Silos

31 March 2017
William O’Brien Plant Hire shares their experience of working with NQA and how they achieved integrated certification.
With integrated management systems becoming increasingly more popular William O’Brien Plant Hire have become the first crane company in the Republic of Ireland to be awarded recertification in ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 14001:2015.

William O’Brien Plant Hire comprises of William O’Brien Crane Hire and William O’Brien Energy Services. With an advertising slogan of “Where O’Brien goes Prosperity follows” and “Don’t Risk it, let O’Brien Lift it” their company believes in integrating standards to help avoid working in silos. 

The group’s headquarters are in Cork, Ireland where the team consists of almost 100 people and has been servicing the Irish construction industry for over 6 decades.

Their journey with NQA started in 2004 when they first gained certification for OHSAS 18001. Thirteen years later the company have embraced the requirements of ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 and successfully undergone transition audits to the 2015 standards as an integrated management system.

Using the principles of the standard, WOB identify the external and internal risks and opportunities associated with its business. On identifying these areas, WOB then have a clear idea on what its objectives should be, in order to reduce risks and ensure compliance. The standards have helped to provide WOB with the structure needed to organise this in an efficient and logical order and WOB constantly strive to involve all employees in the certification journey.

For WOB the main objective of implementing a management system in line with the above standards was to provide structure, identify and mitigate company risks, gain efficiencies and ensure customer satisfaction.

Implementing OSHAS 18001:2007, ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 14001:2015 has helped WOB embrace efficiencies, reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction. It also supports the development of a positive culture across 3 different disciplines: safety, quality and environment.

WOB have found that integrating all 3 standards has helped to avoid working in silos and by operating an integrated management system it has allowed processes to be developed and rolled in to one complete framework, enabling WOB to work as a single unit with unified objectives.

WOB has built a reputation on solution based problem solving and both engineering and execution excellence.  Its reputation is further enhanced by directly employing its own experienced and trusted installation teams; these teams strive to deliver top quality projects.

When asked why they continue to choose to work with NQA, Stephen Lyons, the Head of Health, Safety, Environment and Quality, said:

“NQA is a great supporter of enterprises like ourselves. As they are UKAS accredited it ensures WOB get a robust and impartial audit. NQA auditors were both competent and helpful throughout the auditing process and are clearly supporting WOB to continue to improve”.

Congratulations go to the William O’Brien team on a successful transition to the new standards.