Putting the foundations in place for a thriving business
Engineering specialist Yellow Rail (part of Buckland Rail) is on a continuous journey to improve. Gemma Gibson, Head of Quality, Health, Safety and Environment (QHSE), explains what that means from a QHSE perspective
Quality, health and safety, and environment management are the three real cornerstones of a business. If they’re mishandled, it can spell disaster.
You can face financial challenges and recover from them, but you can’t run a successful business if your people are not safe and well, or repair the environment once serious damage has been done. And once you’ve lost the customer’s confidence, it can be very difficult to regain.
It’s all connected. If you’re making things better for your workforce, they will be happier, healthier and more efficient; if you’re making improvements in the environment the chances are you’re using fewer hazardous materials, which positively impacts the workforce’s health and safety; and if everybody is safe and well looked after they will be doing a better job for the customer.
When I joined Yellow Rail eight months ago, the quality management system was already in place. A lot of the practice around health and safety and environment management was also established. In recent months, my team and I have been working to build on these foundations – clarifying practices and introducing procedures to allow for sustainable growth.
Looking to the future, it is about continuing to develop the business’s culture, which is particularly important as it grows. We want to ensure Yellow Rail is a forerunner and looked up to for the processes it has in place – processes that are embedded across all levels of the business.
Because good management systems help an organisation to develop a framework to support the customer, to support the workforce and to support the environment.
It’s less about those accreditations, and more about the framework they give you – key checkpoints to ensure you stop, reflect, and consider how you can make further improvements. It must be an iterative process; you should aim to make every day a bit better than the day before.
Food for thought
I began my career as a chemist, having studied pharmaceutical sciences and chemistry at university. I then went into food manufacturing; the company I worked for produced food colouring, so it was technically a chemical plant.
My work in health and safety started with DuPont. During that time, I worked with some really influential names, people at the real forefront of safety management, moving away from what was part of the manufacturing process.
Rail is a new industry for me. But I’m drawing on my experience of working for major organisations, where I helped to implement quality, health and safety, and environment management systems that have been well embedded. I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t, and I’ll be bringing that learning to Yellow Rail, to ensure it can grow sustainably without outgrowing its processes.
There are fundamental differences between the rail and food industries, but similarities too, because the processes work in the same way. In food manufacturing, things just move at a much quicker pace. In both industries, the focus is on producing a quality product for the customer – putting them at the forefront. That is what we’re doing this for; we’re striving to give customers the best experience, something that can be achieved by ensuring the right processes are in place and the product going out of the door is first class.
One team approach
Over the last six months, we’ve been working to implement a combined QHSE competency framework. The goal is to ensure the three companies working together as Buckland Rail (Yellow Rail, WH Davis, and Davis Wagon Services) have aligned competency standards.
We’ve got a close QHSE team throughout Buckland Rail and Buckland Group and meet regularly to discuss and align best practice. We share our learnings, both with our sister companies and at group level.
And the three companies share similar values, centred around customer focus and safety first. Ultimately, it’s about ensuring that we support the customer, look after the employees, and protect the environment. The rest will follow.
Yellow Rail is an ISO 14001 accredited supplier, and a 5* rated RISQS Qualified by Audit rail supplier with ISO9001:2015 certification for its Quality Management System, via RIQC (UKAS Accredited). Visit www.yellow-group.com for more details.
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