Kier : triumphs at Highways England Supplier Recognition Awards

The prestigious awards recognise the vital contribution made by Highways England's suppliers and road contractors, which help the government-owned company modernise, maintain and operate England's network of motorways and major A roads. This year's awards attracted 40% more entries than in 2015, with 166 submissions across seven categories.

Kier won three awards - one each in the Supply Chain Management and Delivering Sustainable Value categories - and a Special Award. A further two entries were highly commended in the Supply Chain Management and Safety, Health and Well-being categories.

The Special Award is issued at the judges' discretion for a project's specific achievements. Highways England felt Kier's recruitment partnership with First Military was a 'small idea with a big impact' - helping Highways England to change mind-sets around diversity of talent and inclusion.

Dave Wright, Kier executive director for highways, said: 'We are delighted to have achieved such success at this year's Highways England Supplier Recognition Scheme. The winning entries clearly demonstrate how, through collaboration, the supply chain can actively support the forward strategy of Highways England. We are proud to have our forward-thinking initiatives recognised in this manner and we will continue to work closely with Highways England and our supply chain to deliver further innovations in the years to come.'

Jim O'Sullivan, chief executive of Highways England, said of the award scheme: 'To have surpassed last year's success is tremendous and it's a credit to our suppliers, who are demonstrating they can continuously improve to provide even better working practices and more innovative solutions.

'As we place even more emphasis on safety and customer service for all who use our network, my message to suppliers is thanks and let's continue to improve together. This is good progress and we must make sure that by 2020 we can be proud of the delivery of the first Road Investment Strategy and well placed to deliver the next one.'

Kier's winning entries:

Special Award

Area 3 and First Military Recruitment

An initiative involving the recruitment of ex-services personnel to fill skilled roles as well as seeing beyond disability. Kier works closely with Highways England to promote diversity in the highways industry and so far, through this particular initiative, 11 ex-servicemen have been placed in its Area 3 contract. Kier has also shared and promoted this recruitment partnership to its subcontractors, one of which is now also working with First Military.

Kier supply chain partners - First Military Recruitment

Supply Chain Management category - awarded to suppliers that demonstrate Highways England's strategic agenda, values and principles through supply chains.

Area 9 Day One Achievers

For collaboratively preparing and managing to start work on two multi-million pound schemes on day one of a new area contract.

Kier supply chain partners - Chevron Traffic Management, Towey Duffy, Aggregate Industries, Tripod Quest and WJ Group

Kier would also like to thank the following additional members of the Area 9 Delivery Community for their significant contributions:

CLM, USL, Roocroft, Tarmac, Crown Highways, CRL, Carnell, R&C Williams, Jackson Civil Engineering

Delivering Sustainable Value and Solutions category - awarded to suppliers that have integrated environmental, social, economic and management aspects of sustainable development into the delivery of Highways England contracts.

Area 1 i-Tree EcoSystem

An innovative project to record tree species in the south west and quantify their benefits as part of sustainability reporting.

Kier supply chain partners - Treeconomics, Evans Associates

Kier's highly commended entries:

Safety, Health & Well-being category - for suppliers showing industry leading commitment to improving organisational, workforce and road user health & safety.

Area 13 M6 White Lining Scheme

Enhanced road user safety during the delivery of a £2m road marking scheme in Cumbria by using a new high performance and durable marking material with higher retro-reflectivity and skid resistance properties known as 'Weatherline Plus', and the use of the innovative WJ Jet Dryer.

Kier supply chain partners - Roadmarkings

Supply Chain Management category - awarded to suppliers that demonstrate Highways England's strategic agenda, values and principles through supply chains.

Area 3 Behaviour and Correlation Model

The development of this model, along with new collaborative processes and changed behaviours, has enabled the degree of collaboration between partners to be measured, and the cultural change journey to be mapped, to demonstrate how aligned the supply chain is with the Highways England forward strategy.

Kier supply chain partners - Towey Duffy