Premier Technical Services Group Ltd (PTSG) is celebrating victory at the CBRE Supplier Partner Innovations Challenge, which took place at CBRE’s flagship London offices at 61 Southwark Street on 9th February 2023.
PTSG’s winning entry was in the Best Safety Innovation category for its Lateral Access System. It beat 133 entrants and 15 other finalists. This system was devised by the team from Pendrich – a company of steeplejack and rope access specialists based in Edinburgh, comprising an integral part of PTSG Building Access Specialists Ltd, one of the Group’s five business divisions.
Mark Perfect, Pendrich’s Managing Director, presented the concept behind his company’s innovative access system to a full room of industry specialists, alongside Tanya Matthews – PTSG’s Business Development Director, and Andrew Dack – PTSG’s Group Sales Director.
Mark gave a captivating account of how he saw a rope access system used in a busy street when on holiday in Las Vegas. Noticing the speed and ease with which people used the system on the underside of the canopy – and the absolute safety for people in the street below – Mark wanted to know more. He spoke to the manager to find out how it works and was inspired to transfer the system from a leisure application to an industrial application.
He assembled a team of his own IRATA trained Level 3 rope access engineers to devise the lateral access system using two nylon ropes and weights to test the strength and effectiveness. Nylon ropes were then upgraded to steel ropes for optimum strength for all industrial applications.
PTSG is asked by an increasing number of customers to undertake specialist services such as painting, repairing or cleaning the underside of roofs for a variety of structures such as sports stadia, airport hangars, manufacturing sites and hospitals. The lateral access system is ideal to gain easy and effective access to the roofs of these buildings. Crucially, this system can be used in situations that are unsuitable for scaffolding or mobile work elevating platforms (MEWPs), thereby offering a clear advantage over other access systems.
The system has been used successfully at numerous sites, notably at Celtic Park, home of Celtic Football club. Following on from a successful 2021 project on the West Stand at Celtic Park, Pendrich returned during the off-season break (before the start of the 2022/23 season) to carry out the structural inspections and painting of the steel support purlins to the underside of the East stand. Using their lateral access system, Pendrich’s engineers carried out the works within the timescale of the closed season to the delight of the club.
PTSG has a successful history of working with CBRE. The first contract between the two organisations saw PTSG’s engineers provide a single specialist service for Norland, before its acquisition by CBRE. Over a number of years, many further contracts have been completed for a range of services from all five of the Group’s divisions.
