News

2021 Annual Round Up

It’s been another unusual year for everyone as the ever-evolving situation with COVID has been more up and down than even the year before. As we began 2021 entering into England’s 3^rd national lockdown, months later restrictions were eased off as the nation focused on vaccinations, allowing society and business to emerge from the imposed isolation of 2020 and begin to get back to something that resembles normality.

Despite this, things for most people will never be the same again. The same can be said for many businesses, who have had to continue to adapt to COVID-safe working environments, economic changes and of course changes to the way that all businesses operate. As a group, MVIS and Bartco UK underwent significant changes in 2021, but these changes have been ones that have allowed us to not only continue to deliver the excellent service that our customers expect, but to actually exceed the standards that we have set for ourselves.

We started 2021 as we were throughout 2020, still on the front line of COVID messaging, with public information delivery being an important part of keeping people safe. The nationwide deployment our units in town and city centres followed the same crowd control model more regularly seen by us when providing portable VMS for events. The adaptable nature of our service and our products provided a smooth transition into this realm of public notice, wayfinding and assistance for local authorities.

Ensuring that all our team were COVID Health and Safety qualified with CITB, we were taking no chances when it came to the safety and mental well-being of our employees, allowing us to continue to deliver our safety solutions for the safety and benefit of the general public.

When the restrictions were lifted, we did not just sit back. We maintained our strong focus on training and development. We have always been dedicated to the principles of safety, quality and best practice – accreditations help to underscore this focus. Our team are consistently training and looking for ways to improve on areas of skill levels and qualifications.

In the face of the global pandemic, we have been working hard in the background to ensure that we have the right accreditations to guide this dedication and focus, helping us to maintain our industry leading reputation during a time of uncertainty and instability. In this sense, not only did we put our focus on training, but also in maintaining the standards of a trusted and stable supplier of solar powered intelligent transport systems.

To enforce our ISO accreditations in the standards of quality (9001:2015), environmental management (14001:2015) and health & safety (45001:2018), we have earned other accreditations, memberships and recertifications this year that help to further our dedication and focus to these aspects.

Constructionline Gold, Gold status with the Supply Chain Sustainability School, recertification with Achilles Building Confidence, Cyber Essentials membership and the work we are doing through our membership of Forest Carbon’s Carbon Club are just some of the achievements we have worked on this year that allows us to continuously develop our commitment to safety, quality and the environment.

But our service is more than just these aspects. Indeed, focus on our products remains stronger than ever. 2021 brought a number of exciting product developments that we have already launched or will be launching soon. The ITS Environmental Sensor, for example offers clients a low-cost air quality monitoring solution that can be integrated with any of our ITS products. We have also made some significant upgrades to our Works Egress Safety Solution, making it simpler and more effective for site safety egress applications.

As 2022 comes around, we will be launching other new products that have been in development throughout 2021 that will bring new levels of safety and security to our customers.

Later in the year in 2021, we made a substantial change to the way we inform customers about our products and solutions at trade shows. At Highways UK, we launched a new method of sharing our product spec and info sheets with customers and visitors to our stands. In keeping with our commitment to the environment, we made the switch to using QR code triggered emails instead of handing sheets of literature out.

Not only has this helped the environment by reducing the paper, ink and the potential waste involved in the production and distribution of our literature, but it even reduced the fuel needed to transport the weight of our packs, which have now been swapped for a cutting-edge digital system that is both easy and convenient to use.

As our commitments extend further than the environment and safety, we also have commitments to improving our local community, especially in these times of difficulty. We have expanded our charity and sponsorship activities this year to be even more focused on our local community, including new sponsorship of the Derby Mountain Rescue Team, a voluntary emergency service who attend callouts in response to requests from Derbyshire Police, East Midlands Ambulance Service, and West Midlands Ambulance Service.

We have also remained committed to local charities. Throughout the year, we have been raising money for Ashgate Hospicecare, a local charity who provide palliative and end-of-life care free of charge, caring for people living with a life-limiting illness, including cancer, neurological diseases, and end-stage heart, kidney and lung diseases. We have taken part in a number of our own fundraising activities in 2021 for Ashgate, as well as supporting them with signs for their own fundraising events such as the Sparkle Walk, the value of which being over £8,000 during the course of the year, taking the total amount raised for Ashgate this year to over £11,000.

For Christmas 2021, as well as continuing to support Ashgate with their Light up a Life Ceremony and Treecycle fundraisers, we also donated 2 signs to Blythe House Hospicecare’s Jingle Bell Jog too to help with wayfinding and promotion. The team at MVIS have also offered very generous donations to Clay Cross Foodbank to help local families who are in need of support have a nice Christmas.

It’s been a busy year at MVIS and Bartco UK whilst we continue to navigate our way through a world blighted by COVID. As commerce and industry wake up to the stark concerns over the environment, we have been joined by businesses all over the world this year as we also continue along our 10-year journey towards being carbon friendly, which started right back to basics with our solar powered ITS solutions.

Whilst we said good-bye to some team members last year, we welcomed several new ones too. New team members help to bring new perspectives, new ideas and new qualifications to the group, allowing everyone to benefit and grow as the company does.

We are all looking forward to the developments that 2022 will bring for us, as we launch new products as well as continue to develop our never-ending focus on safety, quality and customer service.