ATS Upgrade Lighting at Himbleton Village Hall

By: Adam Westbury

Date: 1st February 2021

As part of our emerging Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy, an opportunity arose within our local community to give back. We have replaced the outdated fluorescent lighting with modern LED fittings. These fittings will last much longer and give significant energy savings. Thanks to all involved with completing the work and if you have any ideas about how we can do more work like this to help in our local communities please let us know. We will be publishing more details in relation to our CSR Strategy during this year and ways we can improve our company contributions to the environment, the local community and improving our procurement strategies by buying more locally and ethically.

St Mary’s Hospice Support

By: Adam Westbury

Date: 3rd July 2020

ATS featured in the internal newsletter of St Mary’s Hospice following the charity work we did on their ventilation system.

A huge thank you to Graham (a retired heating, ventilation and air conditioning engineer), along with Scott and Miles (engineers from Air Technology Systems) who voluntarily came in one Saturday morning to undertake works on our roof.

The Corporate Services Team are incredibly thankful for their kind support and it’s fantastic to see local people offering their expertise to support the Hospice – thank you!

Great Audit Results

By: Adam Westbury

Date: 9th June 2020

During May we faced 2 external audits; our annual Achilles audit & our continuing BSI ISO:9001 audits.

Normally we are assessed in each case by an external auditor attending the office where our operating procedures are reviewed and checked and the paperwork on various projects sampled, along with a visit to a nearby site.

This year looked very different with the Achilles audit undertaken remotely via MS Teams with the team answering questions and presenting evidence. We are pleased to report that we scored 100% on this audit. The site visit element was postponed until a later stage.

For this audit we sampled work from the recent DHL project and were able to demonstrate great compliance with the questions asked. The Achilles audit / assessment is a requirement of many of our clients in the utilities and nuclear sectors, with specific questions asked by their board, with the board being assembled through various stakeholders in the industries so really focusses on what matters to them. This is a fantastic result and a good improvement on last year’s score.

The BSI audit was done using WebEx, this is important to demonstrate that the systems we use and high standards are distributed amongst our teams and the auditor likes to hear from a range of people across the business. The BSI audit is a lot more in-depth – we have 2 per year, across a total 3-year cycle with each audit focussing on a different area of the business.

This audit focussed on:

· How the business is faring through Covid-19 & Business Continuity.
· Our internal audit process.
· Progress of the Maintenance department/improvements
· The Approved Vendor process.
· Sampling of project work against process within Team JETFLO.

The audit went really smoothly and the auditor was very complimentary in all of the sampled areas and gave special mention as to how resilient our business is proving to be during the current pandemic.

Overall a fantastic result, special thanks to all those involved.

The Big Move (Towards Collaboration)

By: Adam Westbury

Date: 13th January 2020

ATS’s recent office move at the end of October has allowed us to bring together the design department with project delivery to improve communication and collaboration on the projects and offer smoother delivery for our clients.

With an ongoing remit to put the customer at the centre of what we do, we hope this change goes some way to ensuring this is the case. As well as bringing our designers downstairs we have also endeavoured to seat people amongst or close to the people they are working with on the projects. We are confident this will result in better decision making, earlier involvement of the project teams and a more efficient delivery for our customers.

This is just the first step towards implementing world-class project management and customer service. Other improvements to the office include a larger downstairs meeting room with a fit-out of the second upstairs office which will become a wellbeing space. We also have laid a new gym style floor which has been put to good use already for our in-house yoga classes.

UK Pharmaceutical Warehousing Shortage – An Opportunity?

By: Adam Westbury

Date: 3rd October 2019

The Government is continuing to work closely with pharmaceutical manufacturers, wholesalers, trade associations, the NHS and others to try and meet the demand for pharmaceutical warehousing storage in the UK, ahead of a potential no-deal Brexit.

However, procuring extra warehousing to stockpile medicines is no easy task right now. Peter Ward of the United Kingdom Warehousing Association (UKWA) told the BBC Newsnight programme “the market, as represented by our members is full.”

According to warehouse data compiled by Savills and seen by the BBC Newsnight team, the estimated vacancy rate across the UK for warehouses over 100,000 sq ft is just 6.8% with the highest vacancy rate (10.6%) in the West Midlands and the lowest (2.1%) in the East of England. For comparison, in 2009 the UK-wide average was around 23%.

With warehouse supply clearly falling short of demand, there’s a big opportunity for any organisation with the potential wherewithal to convert existing buildings, to realise excellent Government-guaranteed returns.

Obviously, storing pharmaceuticals is not as straightforward as storing non-perishable goods. There are strict temperature control and monitoring standards needed, to meet the regulations and requirements of the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency), as well as those of the manufacturers. But this shouldn’t put anyone off exploring the opportunity.

HVAC expertise in this sector is a necessity and that is exactly what ATS offers its clients. We specialise in the design and installation of high quality, cost-effective temperature control solutions for pharmaceutical warehouses of all shapes and sizes.

If you’d like to explore this opportunity and talk to one of our experts, please contact Kevin Gillen or Ryan Walsh on 01527 833383 or email kevin.gillen@atsclimate.com or ryan.walsh@atsclimate.com.

Six reasons to choose Gas Heat Pumps for your next HVAC project

By: Adam Westbury

Date: 1st October 2019

Increased market awareness in the technology of Gas Heat Pumps (GHP) has meant we’re now seeing more and more of our clients choose Gas Heat Pumps (GHP) over Electric Heat Pumps, for their HVAC projects. Here are 6 compelling reasons why:

1. Lower running costs with up to 70% reductions
2. Higher efficiency with waste heat recovery able to provide an additional heat source, which can be used to heat the water supply, for instance
3. Massive reduction in peak demand energy requirements for more stabilised levels over any period
4. No electricity upgrades required, providing significant cost and time savings for your project
5. Smaller footprint and quieter operation means GHPs can be installed in a wider variety of locations
6. Environmentally friendly with reduced NOx, SOx and CO2 emissions

ATS is a UK distributor, installer and maintainer of Yanmar’s specialist Gas Heat Pumps, which we can seamlessly integrate into our HVAC systems, when they are the best option.

Yanmar Gas Heat Pumps are ideal solutions for pharmaceutical warehousing, restaurants, hotels, shops, showrooms, hotels, schools, hospitals, care centres, sports clubs, recreational facilities, office buildings, factories and a multitude of other applications.

For more information about the benefits of Gas Heat Pumps or to talk to one of our experts about your forthcoming project, please call Kevin Gillen or Ryan Walsh on 01527 833383 or email kevin.gillen@atsclimate.com or ryan.walsh@atsclimate.com

First Class degrees for Jon Holtom and Craig Shaw!

By: Adam Westbury

Date: 19th July 2019

We are incredibly pleased to announce that Jon Holtom and Craig Shaw have achieved First Class Honours Degrees. We spoke to both about their excellent results. Jon Holtom

Jon’s BEng Professional Engineering degree was a 2-year, part time course of distance learning that required a great deal of self-motivation. Happily, Jon had that in abundance, studying evenings and weekends.

The course modules were varied, but most consisted of an exam, a work-based project and a reflective logbook to keep track of learning. The work-based project module was essentially Jon’s dissertation.

While Jon has missed out on a few pints over the last couple of years, he enjoyed celebrating his success with family and friends. What next? Jon’s looking forward to his imminent holiday and is already considering starting a master’s degree!

Craig Shaw

Craig’s Building Services Engineering degree was a 3-year course, which included modules on fire engineering, refrigeration, thermodynamics and thermal modelling software to name just a few.

Craig particularly enjoyed the course laboratory work, checking theory against experiments to see how results vary and compare.

Craig would like to thank his friends and colleagues at ATS, who helped massively with his research by answering questionnaires and he would like to give a special mention to Amanda Jennings, who helped enormously by checking and proofreading his work.

With more free time on his hands now, Craig is looking forward to organising some holidays and taking up a few sports again, including badminton.

Well done both of you!

Congratulations Miles, you’ll go far!

By: Adam Westbury

Date: 18th July 2019

We’re delighted to report that Junior Project Engineer Miles Winwood has successfully completed his 2-year, level 4 Apprenticeship in Project Management. AN ATS FIRST!

This is the first project management-specific qualification within ATS and will be part of a wider review and improvement of our work in this area over the coming months and beyond.

CAREER CHOICES

After finishing his education at North Bromsgrove High School and Sixth Form, Miles decided against going to university, opting instead to kick-start his career, and join ATS.

When Miles joined the company he was able to consider a number of possible career specialisms to pursue. An electrical apprenticeship was a strong contender but seeing the work of our project management team helped Miles decide that an apprenticeship in project management mwas the path he wanted to follow.

TWO YEARS HARD WORK

Miles began his apprenticeship in January 2017 and within a few months he had passed the academic/theory foundation module. From there, it was all about building his portfolio of hands-on experience, while being continuously assessed by an outside panel and his in-house mentor, Jon Moore.

The final hurdle for Miles, which took place in our offices on 15th May, was a written exam followed by discussion panel of external assessors and Jon Moore.

MUTUAL APPRECIATION

Miles would like to thank Jon for all of his help, advice and guidance and he would also like to thank everyone else who has supported him in various ways over the last two years or so.

As his mentor, Jon is rightly proud of Miles’s achievement, telling us:

“Miles has worked extremely hard, balancing his ATS responsibilities of working on our live projects in the water industry, with his personal development responsibilities to produce the work and assignments required for his apprenticeship. I’m very pleased and proud of everything he’s learned and achieved, especially at a young age. I’m sure he’ll be celebrating in the usual way and so he should, it’s well deserved!”

Aloha Summer Party

By: Adam Westbury

Date: 16th July 2019

The invitations to this year’s summer party promised food, games, drinks and dancing…and a Hawaiian theme – and we had the lot and plenty more too!

The party began with people jumping on to a coach at ATS, which whisked us away to The Crown at Hallow, where we were greeted with a glass of Pimms and a Hawaiian lei (garland).

After a couple of drinks and with everyone settled in, Steve and Becky took centre stage to acknowledge the contribution members of staff make to the business and to tell us their plans for the continued evolvement of the business and how it will move forward and operate in the near future. It all sounded very exciting and we will all hear more details soon.

Following Steve and Becky’s speech, the ‘Quiz Master’, Dave Castle put us into random teams for the quiz. With picture rounds, category rounds and general knowledge, it was great fun and very competitive! In the end, Team 2 (Laura Baker, Abbeygale Parkin, Rebecca Clissett, Sean Mayall and Simon Boon) & Team 3 (Steve Boon, Scott Bannister, David Nokes, Graham Cox, Ashton Greenwood and Josh Guinan) couldn’t be separated, coming in joint-first! Well done you guys!

The enjoyment continued for the rest of the day and night with food, drink and more games keeping the party buzzing at The Hallow. Another highlight was Louie Keen’s turn at the flamingo Piñata, which brought the house down – well the fairy lights in the tepee at least! It was hilarious and we’re delighted to report that the Piñata survived Louie’s assault, completely unscathed!

ATS mixed netball in aid of Dementia UK

By: Adam Westbury

Date: 23rd May 2019

Yesterday lunchtime, the ATS mixed netball team played out a thrilling 9-9 draw against our neighbours Johnson Fleming Limited.

While the two teams couldn’t be separated on the scoreboard, the match-winners were Dementia UK and Mental Health UK our chosen charities for the event.

Special mentions on the ATS team must go to Jon Higgins, the ‘ATS Player of the Match’ as voted for by the opposition and also to Tom Sutton, who was the ATS top scorer.

If you would like to donate to our cause, please do so here: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/ats-50