Grontmij makes a splash with Polish utility firm
Posted: Thursday 27th November 2008
Leading European engineering consultancy, Grontmij has won a major international commission to deliver expertise in water consultancy and asset management to Polish utility firm Aquanet.
Working alongside colleagues in Poland, professionals from the UK’s water consultancy business will perform an assessment to benchmark the business processes of water and sewage utility company Aquanet for compliance with Publicly Available Standard (PAS) 55, the international asset management standard. Services provided will include a benchmarking review of Aquanet’s existing performance and business processes, the development of best practice options and an action plan for implementation of leading edge asset management practices by Aquanet.
The benchmarking review will use a specialist tool developed in house by Grontmij using their experience of PAS55 and OFWAT’s AMPAM assessment. The project, which is expected to be completed by the end of the year, will see a team of experts from the UK, currently identified as the Grontmij centre of excellence for the provision of asset management and strategic consulting services, delivering skills and knowledge to Europe for the first time.
Jason Jones, Grontmij’s UK and Ireland operations director heading up water consultancy and water environment, said: “The combined expertise and knowledge of the UK and Poland arms of Grontmij’s business meant that we were the only consultancy sufficiently equipped to deliver the necessary services and implement best practice for the customer.
“PAS 55 is a joint measure of Asset Management and British Standards Institute publication defining international best practice in asset management and is used by major utility companies across the UK and mainland Europe. Our UK team has considerable experience in providing services of this kind, and so we’ve worked alongside our colleagues in Poland to ensure the seamless transfer of skills, technologies and resources to benefit their client. Just as our customers in Britain can benefit from the cutting edge expertise of Grontmij’s 8,000 employees worldwide, our overseas colleagues can also utilise our home-grown skills.”
Aquanet is one of Poland’s largest water and sewage utility companies, serving more than one million people in Poznan and its surrounding areas.
Andrez Kazirod, Aquanet’s infrastructure development department director, said: “We’re delighted to be working with Grontmij on this project. The consultancy’s unrivalled skills from across Europe separate it from competitors and we are pleased to have use of the UK’s advanced skills in water asset management, alongside our existing long-term relationships with the engineers in Poland.”
Grontmij is a Dutch owned engineering consultancy employing over 8,000 professional consultants worldwide working across six main disciplines of water, transportation, energy, building, environment and industry. In the UK and Ireland, Grontmij is also complimented by recent acquisitions, landscape architects Whitelaw Turkington, contract dispute specialists Trett Consulting and building services specialists Roger Preston and Partners, which continue to operate under their existing brand names.
The UK and Ireland group employs more than 1,350 people worldwide and has established offices in various locations, including Leeds, Bristol, Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Peterborough, Reading, Solihull, Wrexham, Warrington, Maidenhead and London, as well as across the world in mainland Europe, the Middle East, the Asia Pacific region and USA.
