During the year, the Group launched Project Horizon, our new digitisation project. This is a long-term business initiative that will support our strategy and help shape our future as we develop and enhance our systems and processes, to ensure we remain at the forefront of technology and innovation as market leader in the industry.

The objective is to maximise the automation of our estimating, design, production and contract delivery processes to improve customer service and deliver efficiency and capacity benefits in the future.

The overall project is made up of around 100 individual projects and initiatives designed to modernise and further standardise processes and systems across the Group. We currently have 14 dedicated colleagues working on the project under the direction of Richard Davies, our Group IT Director. The project list is dynamic and will evolve as new opportunities and technologies present themselves through the programme.

The project is initially self funding through annual savings, with further benefits expected to be realised as more of the individual projects and initiatives are implemented.

During the period, as part of Project Horizon, we have made good progress with our innovative approach to drawing and design, including the automation of repetitive tasks and the optimisation of engineering software (including the use of engineering apps), which is now being used on an increasing number of construction projects across the Group. Other ongoing initiatives include the digitalisation of construction resource tracking and the automation of the quality assurance certification process.