The UK’s largest specialist safety equipment provider is celebrating 30 years in business by securing a record sales boost and drawing up plans for a new facility.
Spillard Safety Systems, which was founded by Vic Spillard in his garage in 1992, has just completed its best-ever 12 months, with the launch of the pioneering Spillard Live platform driving orders past the £7m mark. The intuitive cloud-based platform captures and streams real time video and analytics simultaneously from multiple cameras fitted to plant equipment and commercial vehicles, reducing risks, protecting lives, and saving industry millions of pounds.
AF Blakemore, Lomas Distribution, Carlsberg Marston’s, Flannery Plant Hire and Severn Trent have already signed up to the technology, joining over 300 other companies and 12,000 vehicles connected to Spillard Live. The surge in demand has seen the company take on ten new people across all areas of the business and put in place plans to expand into an additional 27,000 sq ft site later this year.
“2022 was always going to be a big year for the business and what a fantastic way to celebrate three decades of trade by achieving record sales and, most importantly, rolling-out technology that will save lives and help customers across the plant, mining, quarry and transport sectors,” explained Pete Spillard, Managing Director of Spillard Safety Systems.
“Looking back there’s been some big and important milestones, from our father Vic setting up the business at home and looking at a seat belt safety option for Redlands, to our first mirrors being fitted to Wimpey Mining equipment a few months later.
“We also led the sector in making ‘blind spot’ maps for 60+ vehicles available online, our first cameras went on to vehicles in 1996 and we were one of the first companies in the UK to install mobile digital video recorders, supplying LDV for installation on police vehicles in 2003.”
He continued: “The move to our current home took place in 2008, which really set us up for the growth that followed and, today, we are seen as the UK’s leading specialist safety equipment provider and ‘Spillard Live’ is the next big milestone for our business.”
‘Spillard Live’ is based on an award-winning Internet of Things (IoT) platform that can track a vehicle in real-time with live video and analytics. It captures, processes, and learns from multiple sources and has been designed so that it is compatible with any device capable of transmitting datasets. The data received is analysed using complex algorithms to improve driver behaviour, so much so that audible alerts can be sent to notify employees that their actions are being recorded – a feature that has been proven to have a positive effect on their behaviour. This all helps companies with their compliance and accountability, two increasingly important features of doing business.
Craig Spillard, Finance Director at Spillard Safety Systems, concluded: “Our dad Vic was a problem solver and that’s essentially what we are still doing now, some 30 years on.
“Back then it wasn’t a case of just providing a product, we took time to look at what the issue was and how we could help overcome it. This was drummed into us, and we have hopefully carried this on, firstly with the mirrors, then the cameras and now an overarching live platform.
“The technology has and will continue to accelerate. However, we are still very much a people business and a lot of our staff have been with us for ten years or more – they understand what makes us different and we want to build on this with the eight new positions we will be making available shortly.”
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