This civil engineering firm has developed a portal to 'revolutionise' the UK's construction industry

Seymour Civil Engineering, one of the North East’s biggest civil engineering firms, has launched its own company training portal set to revolutionise how construction sites are run.

The portal focuses on the training and staffing side of projects allowing any site manager or client to have a clear snapshot of staff-on-site and training credentials.

Martin Russell, training systems administrator, said: “We set out looking for a cloud-based system that would manage our training needs and be accessible from a multitude of devices across all our sites for all user levels, whether it be a site manager or a client.

“Seymour is always thinking about ways in which technology can be used to make employees jobs easier and departments more productive.

“We wanted an intelligent system that would automatically present the training team with the information they needed on a daily basis, improving the efficiency of the whole process.”

The portal uses a QR code format which allows users to see what certifications each employee has all in one place, by clicking a button from any location.

An important aspect of the portal’s development has said to have been its ‘mobile-friendly functionality’, so all users working on site have access to the portal via their mobile device.

Martin added: “Our clients will soon be able to request access to the platform, which will allow them to see what qualifications each employee on site has, along with their certificates which are all uploaded to the platform.

“The intelligent search function within the new portal will allow the site managers, as well as users from other departments across the business, to quickly find out this information for themselves. We can already see that through this system we are streamlining operations.”

The smart, automated system has worked to simplify the management of the training for the company’s 210 team members.

Martin continued: “Seymour Civil Engineering carries out the majority of their staff training in house, and as a responsible employer we’re taking the initiative to upskill our workforce, constantly investing in training and retraining to ensure their competency.

“The system shows pending training, what training groups are currently booked in, and automates three-month warnings for upcoming training expiry dates.”

Seymour made the decision to build a unique platform from scratch, due to the lack of suitable alternatives on the market.

Although the portal is still in its infancy, the business has identified ways to improve functions following user feedback. The tech is also said to be beneficial to the civil engineering sector.

Karl Brennan, pre-construction director, commented: “Seymour recognises the importance of sustainability and the role our industry has to play.

“By investing in technology and significantly reducing the amount of environmental resource consumed each year by the business, we are able to make year on year contributions toward achieving sustainable development goals.”