Freyssinet was awarded the prestigious Grand Prize at the United Kingdom and Ireland regional round of the VINCI 2015 Innovation Awards, which took place in London on 8 September.
The Grand Prize rewards innovation that improves the group’s technical, environmental or economic performance, and was awarded to Freyssinet for its unprecedented application of cable stay technology, used to stabilise the Dong Siri oil platform in the North Sea, 220km off the coast of Denmark.
VINCI Innovation Awards Grand Prize winners: Project leader Paul Bottomley (far left) pictured with Guillaume Black, David Arribe, Leon Oneill, Fabien Tesson and Ivica Zivanovic and VINCI Construction chairman Jérôme Stubler (far right) who presented the award.
Freyssinet was also delighted to receive the Equipment and Tools award for its blister lifting tool, a precision device that was custom-made to replace the post-tensioning system of the Hammersmith Flyover and reduced blister installation time from 15 days to just three hours.
The awards, which take place every two years, recognise and reward innovative ideas and solutions devised by VINCI’s teams and partners on projects across the world. The international competition is open to all companies in the VINCI group, with the aim of ensuring that innovations are capitalised on and disseminated throughout the group.
Equipment and Tools award winners: Project leader Donatien Piffard pictured with Boris Cousin and Alain Bobier
Companies from 12 regions around the world participated in the competition, submitting entries that demonstrate exceptional examples of development, design and invention, within five categories:
– Processes and Techniques
– Management
– Equipment and Tools
– Marketing and Services
– Dissemination
Selected by a panel of company representatives and local personalities, the winning regional innovations will go on to compete at group level in the grand final in December.
The UK and Ireland regional prize-giving ceremony celebrated 11 winners selected from 202 projects and was opened by chairman and chief executive of VINCI PLC and VINCI Construction UK, Bruno Dupety, who said: “We are not only a company of engineers – we are entrepreneurs. Innovation has a tangible effect on our competitiveness and profitability and is a key part of our business strategy.”
Freyssinet’s winning innovations will now go on to compete in the grand final ceremony in Paris on 10 December.
Click here to see more on the Siri oil platform innovation.
Click here to see more on Hammersmith Flyover innovation.