In 2018, the business launched two specialised niche services, to complement existing capability and help create a point of difference in the highly competitive infrastructure market place. Simon Griffin was appointed to head up a new Subsurface Utility Engineering Division (SUE), while Craig McPhillips, working with Structures Director Tim Down, developed a new division specialising in concrete rehabilitation.
The establishment of the two new workstreams not only resulted in greater agility in servicing existing Pensar clients, but triggered a reduction in the amount of work the business outsourced. The other upside is the quality of the work – the ‘in house’ capability provides strong assurance that works will be carried out by skilled operatives, as opposed to contracted ‘subbies’ who may or may not be fully committed. Concrete rehabilitation in particular is seen as a massive longer-term opportunity, not just in Queensland but right across Australia. Concrete structures deteriorate over time, and without the financial resources to rebuild or replace them, the owner operators have no choice but to undertake extensive maintenance programs with skilled operatives.
Over the past 12 months, the concrete rehabilitation team has worked on dam walls, bridges, and in water towers and reservoirs across Australia. In a similar sense, Simon Griffin’s SUE offering is also subject to ambitious growth targets in both the short and medium term. Through the use of state-of-the-art equipment and technologies, the SUE team has already helped many project owners, managers, engineers, designers and utility providers mitigate risk and avoid unnecessary and costly utility relocation. The end result for clients has been a faster turnaround on projects, and the avoidance of unforeseen and incremental costs. While the specialty SUE capability currently sits within Dave Brown’s Power Division, the longer-term plan is to streamline the offering across all divisions.
2018 – Pensar’s Concrete Rehabilitation Capability Established
2018 – Pensar’s Subsurface Utility Engineering Capability Established