WET News

Turner & Townsend buys lean managment based consultancy • The acquisitions allows clients embarking on capital programmes to incorporate tried and tested lean techniques from the start. T urner & Townsend has announced the acquisition of UK-based operational excellence consultancy Suiko for an undisclosed sum. The integration of Suiko's cross- industry experts into Turner & Townsend will position the company as the first independent construction consultancy to offer lean expertise at all stages of capital project delivery and operations. Bath-based Suiko is a pioneer in lean management and has helped global retail, manufacturing and con- struction companies to cut waste and boost efficiency. Turner & Townsend said the acquisition will broaden its programme management expertise, and help its clients to embed lean thinking in both the delivery of their capital projects and their ongoing operations. The integration of Suiko's cross-industry experts into News+ july 2016 WET NEWS 7 CMA sets out rther steps in water tank cartel case T he Competition and Markets Authority has presented further details of its case against five galvanised steel tank suppliers which have been accused of operating a cartel in breach of competition law. The firms are suppliers of tanks used for water storage in larger buildings, such as schools, hospitals and other commercial and public premises, and supply the water used in fire sprinkler systems. Previously in a settlement announced in March 2016, three of the five suppliers – Franklin Hodge Industries Ltd, Galglass Ltd and KW Supplies Ltd (formerly Kondea Water Supplies Ltd) – admitted to having agreed with each other, and with a fourth supplier, CST Industries (UK) Ltd, to share the market between them, to fix prices and to rig bids for contracts between 2005 and 2012. The aim of these actions was to improve profit margins on the tanks by avoiding customers being able to 'play' the competitors off against each other. These companies have agreed to pay fines totalling more than £2.6M. CST Industries (UK) Ltd, which brought these arrangements to the authorities' attention, will as a result benefit from immunity from fines, provided that it continues to co-operate with the CMA. In a separate allegation, the CMA has also provisionally concluded that some of the suppliers exchanged com- petitively-sensitive pricing information at (or shortly ašer) a meeting in July 2012. This involved three of the suppliers involved in the main cartel arrangement who have already admitted the conduct (Franklin Hodge Industries Ltd, Galglass Ltd and KW Supplies Ltd), plus another supplier, Balmoral Tanks Ltd. A new case decision group will now hear representations on this information exchange allegation from Balmoral Tanks, which has neither settled nor admitted any wrongdoing. The CMA said that no conclusion should be drawn that Balmoral has infringed competition law pending the outcome of that process. Stephen Blake, Senior Director of the CMA's Cartels and Criminal Group, said: "Strong competition between businesses has clear benefits for customers, who benefit from lower prices, better quality and more choice. "Any weakening of competition that maintains or increases prices will ultimately be at the expense of consumers or tax payers. "In March, we announced a settlement with the participants in the main cartel and the issue of today's statement represents the next stage in the process." Anglian Water continues to slug it out over metaldehyde A nglian Water has expanded its m e t a l d e h y d e - f r e e farming trial ašer successful first year results achieved a 60% drop in levels of the chemical detected in reservoir tributaries. Year two of the Slug It Out campaign will see it extended to include Rutland - the largest natural catchment in the UK for a reservoir at 7,500 hectares, doubling the trial's hectarage. The trial will continue for a second year in the natural catchments for six reservoirs in Northamptonshire, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire. Farmers in these areas will be asked to agree to use alternative slug control options to metaldehyde on their land. Last year, Anglian's team of advisors worked with 89 individual farmers – a 100% uptake – and removed an estimated 1,613kg of metaldehyde from the farmed landscape, bringing the average levels in reservoir tributaries down by 60%. The Slug It Out campaign was launched to look at how levels of metaldehyde in rivers and reservoirs could be brought below the strict European standard of 0.1 micrograms per litre (or parts per billion) in treated water. In the past, levels in reservoirs in the region regularly exceed this and removing metaldehyde through treatment is currently not possible. Metaldehyde is not harmful to humans at current concentrations but its presence at the levels found means UK drinking water breaches quality standards. Lucinda Gilfoyle, catchment strategy manager for Anglian Water, commented: "Extending Slug It Out for a second year and expanding it to include Rutland will now allow us to verify our findings over an even larger farmed area and timeframe, building on that evidence base and helping to identify the package of measures needed." SWW gets to work on Mayflower pipeline S outh West Water (SWW) has started work to lay the pipes needed to transfer treated drinking water from its new £60M Mayflower water treatment works into Plymouth's water distribution system. The new pipeline will run from the new treatment works, currently under construction at Roborough, just north of Plymouth, to Coombe Lane, near Tamerton Foliot. Later in the project more pipes will need to be laid between Coombe Lane and Plymouth. SWW said 570, 7m pipes will be laid 2m deep along the 4km route. Each pipe is 80cm in diameter, and weighs 1.4 tonnes. The pipeline will cross under the A386 just north of the junction with New Road. A tunnelling machine will be brought in to burrow the 60m long section during this month, enabling the main Plymouth to Tavistock road to remain open. Most of the rest of the pipeline will be under fields, but two brief road closures are planned. Construction on South West Water's new Mayflower treatment works started in May. It will serve Plymouth and the surrounding area, and around 150 people will be employed in its construction Mayflower Water Treatment Works will replace the outdated treatment works at Crownhill in Plymouth, which was built in the 1950s and is reaching the end of its useful life. South West Water said it will meet the needs of Plymouth's growing population and provide a secure, high-quality drinking water supply for the wider Plymouth area for generations to come. The treatment works will feature cutting-edge treatment processes, designed and developed by Dutch water technology company PWN Technologies, and tested at a prototype facility at Crownhill between June 2013 and June 2015. The new technology uses suspended ion exchange, inline coagulation and ceramic membrane microfiltration. It is the first time that this technology has been used in the UK. South West Water said that the construction phase is scheduled to finish by end of March 2018. Mayflower will become operational in September 2018, with the existing Crownhill works retiring from service a few months later. Around 150 people are expected to be employed during construction. Turner & Townsend will create a "unique proposition" and allow clients embarking on capital programmes to incorporate tried and tested lean techniques right from the start. Vincent Clancy, chief executive officer of Turner & Townsend, said: "The acquisition of Suiko is a step- change for both Turner & Townsend and the construction industry. The integration of lean expertise into our business strengthens and differentiates our offering, and will also drive progress in how capital programmes are delivered. "With UK government figures revealing in April that levels of productivity in construction have improved by just 1.4% in the past two decades, best practice has taken the industry only so far. We believe now is the time to embed lean techniques into the way things are done in construction." Clancy said Suiko's track record in implementing lean, coupled with its reputation for helping its clients build their internal capability to drive sustainable results, made it a perfect cultural fit with Turner & Townsend. "Our combined expertise will enable our clients to reap the benefits offered by lean in both their operations and capital projects," he said. Andy Marsh, managing director of Suiko, added: "Suiko and Turner & Townsend have a history of working together successfully, which shows the compatibility of our organi- sations and confirms the appeal of our combined expertise. Our decision to join forces now is about the right fit, the right product and at the right time. We're hugely looking forward to becoming part of Turner & Townsend and building on our combined strengths to deliver better outcomes for more clients across more sectors." The route that the pipeline will take, connecting to the new Mayflower treatment works

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