WET News

8 WET NEWS FEBRUARY 2015 "We need to create job security and show the water industry that we are capable of moving forward. Maybe we can bring ideas that they can take on..." A s the water industry continues to ramp up for the arrival of AMP6, Hardys Services' managing director, Paul Hardy, is pleased to report that the family- owned business is "very busy". He says: "We've seen a huge increase in enquiries and leads so at this moment in time it's looking positive." Hardy Services serves the water treatment, construction and engineering sectors through- out UK, Ireland and Europe, offering civil, electrical, mechanical, utility engineers, and scaffolding solutions and training. It has Tier1 frameworks with United Utilities (UU) and Severn Trent Services, as well as Tier 2 contracts with other water utilities such as Yorkshire Water. The company was set up 35 years ago by Hardy's father, who grew Hardys into a £500k turnover business. Today, its turnover is around £2M. "It's growing quite nicely," says Hardy. Even so, he has ambitions to grow the business further – and to be a bit less depend- ent on the water sector and the five-yearly regulated cycles. He explains: "Hardys specialises in the water sector as it was the skillset that dad brought through from the early days of mechanical, electrical, the civils side and the fabrication. That fitted very well with the water industry at the time and that's where we've concentrated. It's very up and down but that's where our skills were. "We have looked at our strategy moving forward and a lot of what is used for the water industry can be transferred to electric, gas, rail even. The same principles of mechanical, electrical, civil. Ups and downs Hardy would like to grow the non-water sector business by 40-50% over the next five years while expanding the water side at the same time. Outside of the water sector, Hardys does electrical work for Schneider and a lot of work on flood defences, which has just had a massive increase from the government. These are areas that Hardy is keen to develop and the utilities sector. The 'ups and downs' relate to the negative impact caused by the cyclical nature of the five-yearly AMP cycles but Hardy says that with the water companies moving from a capex / opex environment to a totex culture there are signs of spending now. "It will calm down and, hopefully, create a nice revenue for us rather than ramping up and ramping down all the time," says Hardy. Two years ago, Hardys introduced a new system into the business that records every- thing from a new enquiry coming in through to job costing, resource scheduling, quality control and invoicing. This has allowed the company to track a lot of trends on how work comes in and out. "We can see about six months earlier little nudges that allow us to see what's going to happen in the future, so we can start ramping down more securely and create secure jobs down through the cycle." Diversifying into new markets will also help level this 'boom and bust' cycle. Moving forward Hardy believes the move to totex will be good for companies of Hardys' size. "It's going to create better organisation within the utility companies and allow them to plan a lot earlier and hopefully pass that information down to us contractors. There's a responsibility for them to give their supply chain fair warning of boom and bust." Hardy continues: "We're a small company and we're learning all the time. We work from the bottom up so ideas and technology coming from the ground staff. Small and medium- sized companies need to be moving forward all the time or else they get left behind. "We need to create job security and show the water industry that we are capable of moving forward. Maybe we can bring ideas that they can take on rather than always coming the other way round." He says that at UU, for instance, there are regular appraisal meetings that allows feedback on where improvements can be made. "We have seen some of our suggestions go into UU and be passed out to some of the other contractors. So they have taken that on board and I hope they keep doing that." Hardys has a staff of around 32 employees, and Hardy has a future aspiration to build a small training facility to provide hands-on experience. "As our older generation of engineers are coming up to retirement," says Hardy, "we want them to pass on their knowledge. It's very importance for us to bring young lads on and keep that knowledge. "The training facility will allow young lads to take a pump apart or a valve to bits and put them back together again. You can't beat hands-on experience." And what keeps Hardy awake at night? Organisation. I'm very OCD. I do like things to be running smoothly which is not an easy feat in contracting." Paul Hardy Managing director, Hardy Services WHAT YOU DIDN'T KNOW! My favourite TV programme is... Breaking Bad My greatest weakness is... Lager! I drive... A Mitsubishi L200 It's not good for my image but I like... Strictly Come Dancing I'm currently reading... Delivering Happiness, by Tony Hsieh INTERVIEW INTERVIEW

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