Innovative Safety at Sellafield

We have worked closely with DSD Construction, a family run company in Carlisle for over 20 years. During this time, the team has built a long-term, strategic partnership delivering equipment to support the vital nuclear, civil and surfacing services provided by DSD across the UK.

Customer Name
DSD Construction
Project and Location
Sellafield, West Cumbria
Sector
Nuclear

The Challenge

In 2017, DSD was awarded a major project on the Sellafield site for all the major construction works on a high security upgrade project. It was crucial a high quality, effective service was delivered within the timeframes set.

The Solution

Sunbelt and DSD Construction began planning at the early procurement stage of the project. The team collaboratively mapped out predicted timelines for what items of equipment would be required and when. The aim was to ensure the proactive placement of all machinery and tools to remove the risk of plant and equipment not being available, which would lead to extra cost and lost time from the demanding schedule.

Both Sellafied and DSD Construction share Sunbelt’s drive for introducing the latest techniques to the construction industry to improve safety, operational effectiveness and reduce costs. For this project, Sunbelt was set the challenge by its customer to bring innovation to site.

The Sunbelt team used its product knowledge, expertise and industry links to ensure the latest equipment was available and innovation was at the forefront of service delivery. Much of the equipment supplied was industry leading, brand new models, packed full of innovative features. For example, Sunbelt was one of the first in the UK to purchase the innovative Dual View dumper trucks and provided them on the Sellafield site. Launched in early 2019 by Wacker Neuson, they enable the seat to rotate 190-degrees, giving the operator a perfect view of the direction of travel. This reduces collision risks and significantly enhances site safety.

Security was also a major factor for Sellafield and Sunbelt worked with DSD to devise a solution to protect the workforce and other members of site around the construction areas. Sunbelt proposed the red and white security heras panel system that was new to the market. Due to logistical issues for delivery on the secure site, the Sunbelt team went above and beyond to find a solution suitable for DSD which involved delivering to another location, preparing the equipment and reducing it to a pallet-based delivery.

Results

Sunbelt was instrumental to DSD Construction in the highly successful delivery of the high security upgrade project.

The Sunbelt team was a breath of fresh air to work with from the start and still continue to provide this level of service to DSD today. The range of equipment that was offered to us was exceptional. All of it was brand new, or within a couple of months old. This led to no down time, minimal breakdowns, lower environmental emissions and kept my workforce happy as they had the luxury of utilising brand-new equipment, making it easier to carry out their daily tasks. A huge personal success was that Sunbelt and DSD Construction were the first companies on Sellafield to provide the new state of the art duel view Wacker Neuson Dumper. This has since prompted all leading contractors on Sellafield to follow suit. Also, the security barrier system we used has now been adopted by all the major contractors on site. I would personally like to thank Sharon Carruthers for all the hard work and great friendly service that she and her team at Whitehaven provide and look forward to continuing these successes - keep up the good work.
Russ Henderson, Nuclear Contracts Manager, DSD Construction