Back in 2019, Keltbray embraced the principles of gamification and applied it to our operations.

This involved launching a fuel saving tournament within our haulage department where the driver with the biggest efficiency gain was awarded a prize.

The results exceeded everyone’s expectations. The competition ran for three months and in the 12 months running, the business saved £65k of fuel, and also gained the longest period of zero caused accidents.

This really proved that we can invest in the most efficient technology, but if not used in the most efficient manner there will always be opportunities to improve.

Keltbray therefore set the objective to apply this novel but effective approach to engage with our teams, and save fuel and carbon emissions from our excavators.

Assessing and reporting the performance of excavators is not as straight forward as that of HGVs, therefore, a bespoke database and report had to be made before we were able to quantify and challenge the efficiency of our on-site operations.

In March we launched the first fuel saving tournament at our UCL Institute of Neurology Project at Kings Cross. This involved 5 excavators varying from 13T to 50T, which idled on average for 30% of the time.

We engaged the drivers and presented to them on the importance of becoming more efficient, not only from a carbon and air quality point of view, but also from a cost perspective due to red diesel prices doubling in April 2022.

In the first month of this exercise we saw a reduction in idling of almost 50% across the 5 machines, and the driver with the biggest improvement reduced the machines idling by 62%.

The feedback from the team was very positive and it allowed an open conversation about what actions can be taken in order to make it easier for our drivers to idle less.

Reducing idling of on-site plant is an industry wide problem, but we have demonstrated that when the different arms of a business collaborate and the project management team support such initiatives, real change can be achieved.

Congratulations to Donatas Barstys, Plant Operator in our Structures division, who reduced his idling by 62%. Thank you must also go to the UCL Project Management Team and Keltbray’s Plant Department for supporting this initiative.