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.

Since our last check-in in December 2020, a lot has changed within the companies. With the restrictions easing, we wanted to round-up the last 6 months of life at MVIS and sister company Bartco, to highlight the changes we have made internally.

During the last year, we have been able to use our products and solutions to help keep the nation safe with messaging and important notices. Not only have we been working hard to help towards safety for the nation, but we have also been hard at work in the background.  We are always looking to see if there is room for improvement of the service that we provide our customers and our community, from upskilling our team, to achieving the best in the industry standards and raising accreditations.

One of the achievements that we are proud to have earned is Gold status in the Constructionline Program, which offers a platform for thousands of buyers in the construction industry that enforces an ethos of trust and quality amongst its members. Our credentials were assessed for environmental management, quality management, equal opportunities, modern slavery act adherence and anti-bribery and corruption policies.

Whilst achieving Gold status may seem like a high climb for many businesses, for us here at MVIS, it was very achievable. Already having an integrated ISO management accreditation, which we recertified for in April 2021 along with Achilles Building Confidence it was an easy move for the team to obtain Gold Constructionline status.

Achilles Building Confidence is a UK construction industry accreditation and risk management scheme that aims to help organisations identify, assess, qualify, and monitor suppliers throughout the supply chain, reducing operating costs. Achilles enables communities of buyers and suppliers to build better business relationships through a more open, trusting and proactive approach. Sharing knowledge, standards and best practice leads to buyers and suppliers sharing success.

Not stopping there, we have also achieved Gold status in the Supply Chain Sustainability School, a platform that offers businesses extensive training around various sustainability, offsite, digital, procurement, lean and management topics relevant to the business environment.

The accreditations take their place alongside our team’s Highways England Passports and the list of reasons why you should ‘choose MVIS’. The Highways England passport database offers a smartcard for each worker – giving them a single, transferable record and confirms worker’s authority to work in real-time in areas of Highways England’s responsibility, enforcing safety standards across the board.

During the last 6 months we have also looked at the IT systems we use and remote working, this lead to us upping our game in security of our systems and gaining the Cyber Essentials Certificate of Assurance with the assistance of Sheffield based company Resolve.

It is not just in areas of accreditations where we have seen changes. After a long year of lockdowns, restrictions and daily updates from the Government, we have come to realise how truly vital our ITS solutions have been in directing and keeping the public up to date in the seemingly unpredictable future. Whether it be delivering information to shopping centre visitors about overflow car parks or directing delivery drivers to the correct unit on an industrial park, the original 5-colour Bartco portable VMS has been serving on the front line from day one of the pandemic.  Regularly seeing our units on the news headlines giving out information in high areas of Covid, helping to reduce the spread of the infection.

Following the same crowd control model more commonly seen when providing portable VMS for events, the adaptable nature of both Bartco web studio system and the products that we provide meant that when it came to displaying government slogans, we were able to adapt smoothly into the transition of a public notice, wayfinding and assistance for retailers and other industries. 

In the last 6 months, we have also been working on preparing the launch of new solutions that we have been developing since before and during the pandemic, allowing us to help solve new and existing safety issues within society. With this being said, a company is more than just its products and accreditations, especially MVIS and Bartco.

Our responsibilities as a business in today’s world have only increased since the pandemic, with such a serious event in all our lives, we have to step up to our commitment as an employer across the UK to better support the lives of our team and our community.

At the end of 2020, we introduced a service offered by Peninsula called the Employee Assistance Program (EAP). Already having a well-rounded approach to our team’s wellbeing thanks to other services that Peninsula have to offer, we understand that when it comes to Mental Health, there is never too much that you can do to support and provide stability within your team.

This EAP service is in place to help our staff with challenges and obstacles in everyday life. With their 24/7 advice line, face to face counselling and a suite of online tools, we want our team to be able to have all of the support to live a rich and fulfilled lifestyle so that we know we are getting the very best from them in day to day life and challenges.

But we haven’t stopped there – in early 2021, we mandated our whole team to sit the COVID-19 Site Safety Plus course accredited by CITB, a course that has an expiration of 5 years from completion that attests to the quality of information and learning received for participants.  We wanted the team in the office to understand the dangers out on site of transmission, by everyone undertaking the course we could support each other more safely.

Keeping staff morale high and maintaining a healthy work-home relationship during the last year has meant that we have had to get creative with our team-building exercises. Before COVID, we partook in regular social events which we believe is the key to our incredible bond between departments and is what makes MVIS and Bartco outshine our competitors in the customer service department.

Since this kind of social activity has been impossible during the pandemic, we have had numerous online social events and parties to maintain our in-house relationships and celebrated birthdays, anniversaries or just to catch up on a Friday evening.

Another area we have improved is in our commitment to our community. We are always seeking ways that we can assist local charities and causes, which has never been more important than it is now, having been dealing with the impact of COVID for over a year now. Three charities who have of course been impacted by this are Ashgate Hospicecare, Blythe House Hospicecare and Helen’s Trust, who are not only continuing to do their great work in supporting patients and their families needing end of life care but are also playing a vital role in our community’s fight out of the current pandemic,  despite the limitations placed on their activities.

MVIS are proud to support #challengeDerbyshire with our continued membership throughout 2021, as well as going towards helping our latest company charity, Ashgate Hospicecare, in line with our commitment to them, our local community and our corporate social responsibility.  To support the charity, we held a car boot sale that took place in early June 2021, raising a whopping £312.05 for Ashgate Hospice and also reducing unwanted household items being thrown away as the easier option. 

An additional aspect of corporate responsibility that we have been addressing head-on recently is our local environment. Partaking in litter picks, ensuring our local wildlife system is thriving around our Matlock HQ and also having energy-efficient lighting and heating installed within the business are a few ways that we keep on top of to give back to our community.

Anne Ashman, UK Group Commercial and Operations Director, commented “The first half of 2021 has set the tone and direction for our way out of this pandemic. As with 2020, this has been an eventful period of great change for not just us but the whole of society. We proved last year that the MVIS team are made of robust stuff, weathering the storm that hit us all with hard work and commitment, which is what you can expect from us coming out of it as well.”

The next 6 months will hopefully see us easing back into our typically normal day to day life, with businesses re-opening, it is exciting to see our local areas thriving as before. With our 9^th year anniversary around the corner, we are proud to have such a wonderful team and support behind us.

With Christmas right around the corner, Local Authorities are left with a big responsibility in helping to keep order and safety in communities, with the festive holiday presenting a vast risk in the spread of the virus.

As we emerge from another UK lockdown, our Portable Variable Message Signs (VMS) have been heavily relied upon by Local Authorities to help with the spread of information and the right message. Indeed, we have not only seen a huge increase in deployments for COVID applications, but the media too have also identified the power our signs can have, resulting in their use for photos in international news media ranging from the BBC to CNN.

The reason for this is clear; our signs are an effective and useful way to help get messages across, even in photographs, as the media can attest to. Available in 3 different sizes depending on requirements and with the largest fleet of portable VMS in the UK, MVIS can supply units for a wide range of applications within a COVID-19 setting, especially in areas that are likely to be busy during the Christmas period.

These applications include-

• Communicating Tier specific rules
• Blocking streets off
• Staggering footfall
• Traffic management
• Pedestrian marshalling
• Social distancing safety notices
• Building opening & closing announcements
• Queueing systems

Our signs are solar powered too, making them environmentally friendly. Requiring no fixed power source, our portable VMS can be deployed in highly targeted locations in your area, allowing Local Authorities the opportunity to concentrate resources in high risk areas to help combat the further spread of the virus.

What’s more is that all messages are programmed remotely without the need to attend site, using a mobile device or web browser which can be done by yourselves or our team. Once updated, our units display changes within seconds, and even the scope of what sort of message that can be displayed is incredibly vast, being ideal for text or pictograms, with multiple colour options available to help with emphasis and impact.

MVIS have an incredible service record when it comes to delivering solutions for major highways projects, high profile events and for Local Authority traffic management applications, not to mention the COVID deployments we have seen this year. As a result, we have built on a range of experiences and skills that makes us perfectly equipped with the right training and credentials to deliver a premium level service to all of our customers, no matter how big or small the project, which is especially important when it comes to the safety for our team and the general public.

This experience, gained over more than 8 years of service in the industry, has allowed us to develop a keen ability to understand the needs of our customers, boasting a reputation for ‘platinum level service’ that we always look to improve with customer feedback and an extremely high priority on training, safety and compliance.

With our strategically located depots, we can deploy our signs at short notice, and we support our customers with a 24/7 support line. Our installation teams work alone, they do not come in to contact with members of the public and risk assessments are completed to ensure their full safety and social distancing.

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To learn more about how MVIS can help you spread the right information in your community rather than the virus in the lead up to the Christmas period, please contact us via our contact form.

Alternatively, you can email us via sales@m-vis.co.uk.