The UK permanent perimeter protection solutions arm of Heras has appointed Janet Shelley MBE as a Business Development Manager (BDM) for the company’s servicing and maintenance department.
Janet will cover the south of the UK and will target the owners and landlords of public spaces, manufacturing plants, engineering sites, sports stadia and distribution hubs to encourage them to get their access control systems – such as gates and barriers – serviced on a regular basis.
She is keen to get the message to the market about the importance of regular servicing and maintenance to both meet regulatory requirements and standards (such as the mandatory European NEN-EN 13241-1 standard and the Machinery Directive) and minimise the downtime on sites should faults or malfunctions occur.
“Servicing and maintenance of elements of perimeter protection systems – such as turnstiles and bollards – are often overlooked at the point of purchase because of the assumption that they will last for years before they break down,” said Janet. “But we always use the analogy of buying a brand-new car and driving it for years without servicing it. Yes, it will go for miles and miles, but at some point it will break down – and that will probably prove very costly.
“It’s a simple ‘prevention is better than cure’ message to point out that if a sliding gate, swing gate or bi-fold gate, for example, stops working, an entire site’s operations can quickly come to a grinding halt because people can’t enter or leave the site. And for logistics hubs, as an example, this could be disastrous, as such sites have to run like clockwork.”
Janet – who received her MBE for services to the construction industry after founding a company that provided training and skills pathways for women into the building industry – is keen to point out that Heras doesn’t just cover its own products: as an industry leader, it can also provide servicing and maintenance solutions for other systems.
Her appointment comes hot on the heels of Jacqui Walker and Phil Lafone recently joining Heras as Key Account Managers for the Doncaster-based company, which is Europe’s leading end-to-end supplier of permanent and mobile perimeter protection solutions.
Speaking about the raft of new appointments, Heras’s Managing Director for the UK, David Owen, said that Heras now has a team in place that can help the company as it plans for growth.
“Heras has been very proactive in putting the right building blocks in place as part of our plan for growth in a challenging marketplace,” he said. “Having the right blend of people in our team is essential, and Janet, Jacqui and Phil have all hit the ground running and added a new dynamic to our UK team.
“And progress is on track constructing our new €10M state-of-the-art manufacturing facility at our head office in the Netherlands – which will initially produce sliding, swing and bi-fold gates that will be bound for the UK market as early as autumn this year.”
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