Leading mechanical engineering contractor MSL Engineering Ltd. has always placed a keen emphasis on Health & Safety and the company’s commitment to ensuring the safety, health and welfare of its employees and other parties at its places of work was recognised when the Cork-headquartered operation was honoured with the Construction – Building Services Award at the 2017 NISO Awards night. We touched base with EHS Manager Pat O’Flynn to learn more.
At the 26th annual National Irish Safety Organisation (NISO) Safety Awards ceremony in Galway on October 13th, 2017, MSL Engineering Ltd. was announced as the winner of the prestigious Construction – Building Services safety award, having previously scooped Commended and Highly Commended NISO awards.
MSL Engineering takes the safety, health and welfare of its 200+ staff and subcontractors extremely seriously and the award is recognition of the efforts made on a daily basis to ensure that the highest standards are implemented and maintained across the board.
“We’re very happy to have received this award,” Environmental, Health & Safety Manager Pat O’Flynn confirms. “We are members and big supporters of NISO and we enjoy participating in the awards every year. The award means a lot to us as it is recognition from the industry that we work in and it will certainly stand to us when we are tendering for work in the future.”
Indeed, garnering this award is nothing new to MSL Engineering as they have won numerous NISO Safety Awards over the years including Commended and Highly Commended Awards in 2011 and 2013 respectively as well as Regional South Safety Awards in 2016. The company has also been recognised with safety awards from clients, is a member of Engineers Ireland (IEI), Cork Chamber of Commerce and the Construction Industry Federation (CIF), and has a Safe T Cert (Grade A) accredited Safety Management System in place across its entire operations – all of which are of paramount importance for a company synonymous with the pharmaceutical and petrochemical industries amongst others.
A leading mechanical engineering contractor dedicated to delivering a service that incorporates the highest standards of workmanship, safety, quality and reliability to exceed clients’ expectations, MSL Engineering also has an ISO 9001:2008 accredited Quality Management System in operation companywide.
The company has an unwavering policy of complying with all Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Acts and add-ons to ensure so far is reasonably practicable the safety, health and welfare of all employees and others on site. MSL also commits to providing such information, training and supervision as is necessary to achieve safety on all its work sites as well as ensuring that individuals who are not employees of the company are protected and not exposed to risks to their safety, health and welfare resulting from any activities undertaken by the company.
Safety is clearly not an afterthought at MSL Engineering, where a proactive approach is taken to the protection of personnel and property. “Attitudes to safety in Ireland have come a long way,” says Pat. “Around the late ‘90s a couple of big projects started here in pharma and there was a big drive to get compliant – that was probably the start of it. Industry started to participate and construction really embraced it. In some ways, construction has passed out a lot of other industries. Particularly in the industry we are in – petrochemical, pharma and biopharma – there was a big drive for safety.”
As EHS Manager, Pat oversees the development and improvement of MSL’s safety management system. “You are constantly seeking to improve your performance and the NISO Awards are very helpful in this respect as you have to up your game year on year if you want to compete for an award,” he notes.
MSL Engineering Ltd. specialises in fabrication, installation, commissioning and testing of process, utilities, and high purity pipework as well as process and heavy equipment installation. MSL manages multi-discipline subcontractors as part of many of its projects including HVAC, scaffold, craneage, insulation, painting, NDT, etc. MSL’s business encompasses one-off construction contracts in addition to ongoing maintenance and term service contracts.
The ability to deliver quality, timely projects and responsive maintenance has seen MSL become regarded by its clients as an integral link in their supply chain. This reputation is vital to the company’s ongoing success.
Reflecting strong growth within Ireland, the greater part of the company’s work is with pharmaceutical and biopharma companies, oil and gas companies, power generation businesses and agriculture/dairy industries, while MSL has also undertaken a number of large distillery and data centre projects.
In recent years MSL Engineering Ltd. has expanded its area of operation to include the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden and Switzerland.
Established in 1979, MSL Engineering Ltd. boasts almost four decades of excellence in mechanical engineering, delivering mission critical projects to some of the world’s leading companies, including Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly, BGE, ESB, GE, Stryker, Glanbia and Irish Distillers (part of the Pernod Ricard Group). The company has built up gradually from an initial small scale fabrication yard to its position today as a large, multi-skilled contractor.
Engaged in the mechanical engineering contracting industry, it has successfully grown to emerge as one of the leading mechanical engineering contractors in Ireland in the delivery of both large mechanical construction projects and responsive maintenance support contracts.
The range of services professionally provided on time and within budget incorporates Maintenance; Pipe Fabrication & Installation; Modular Assemblies; Heavy and Process Equipment; Platforms and Steelwork; Process Drainage; Mechanical and Design Solutions; Commissioning and Testing; Personnel Secondment; and Fire Protection Services
In addition to its existing 17,000sq.ft. fabrication facility, MSL Engineering Ltd. has recently added a 5,000sq.ft. clean piping fabrication facility complete with a 1,500sq.ft. clean room for Water work is one area of expertise the company are involved inorbital welding in a temperature controlled clean environment.
Pat O’Flynn has been in construction for 25 years, with a background in the construction, pharmaceutical and aviation industries. As EHS Manager with MSL Engineering, he says there’s a huge focus on the welfare of staff: “That’s a big part of it. We’re forever looking at our systems of work and how we can improve working conditions. We provide the necessary resources for training and we are constantly looking to improve in all areas to make sure all our staff go home safely in the evening.
“We have a strong presence on major pharmaceutical plants in Dublin and Cork and we like to think we are right up there with the best of them – the NISO award is recognition of that. It’s the highest award we’ve received so far and it shows that we are moving in the right direction when it comes to safety.
“The NISO Awards are great because next year we are going to have to look at it and work out how we can improve things. We’ll be aiming to get a step higher again and to continue to improve the welfare and working conditions of our employees and subcontractors,” Pat concludes. “It keeps us on our toes, constantly looking at ways to up our game.
“With over 200 employees, 22,000sq.ft. of modern fabrication facilities, an ISO9001:2008 accredited Quality Management System and a Safe-T-Cert accredited Safety Management System we continue to challenge ourselves at MSL to deliver the highest standard of service that is deserved and expected by our clients.”
MSL Engineering Ltd.,
Unit 8,
Watergrasshill Business Park,
Watergrasshill, County Cork.
Tel. 021 4513550
Email: [email protected]
Taken from Building Ireland Magazine, February 2018, Vol 4 No 2
