Case study – hand sanitation stations

As soon as the lockdown was announced in the UK, we began planning for when buildings would reopen. Specifically, we knew that various measures would need to be in place to minimise the risk of infection and transmission.

Viruses can travel fast in an office environment. A 2019 survey found that only 60 per cent of office workers wash their hands after using the toilet. Research from the University of Arizona identified high-touch areas such as drawer handles, coffee pots and push-out exit doors as having the highest concentration of germs.

It doesn’t take much for virus transmission to take place, especially as more people return to the workplace.

Therefore, one of our key areas of focus was sanitation stations. We wanted to do more than suggest to clients that they place hand sanitiser around a workplace – we wanted to deliver a solution that was highly visual, easy to use, compatible with a range of sanitiser bottles and aesthetically pleasing.

We tasked Construct-It to come up with a design that met that brief. Construct-It is an engineering group that designs, fabricates and installs temporary works for major projects in the construction industry. The majority of its business activity is lifting solutions that involves tying tower cranes to high rise structures, or designing a support structure for the crane to be founded upon.

The sanitiser station project was a departure from the usual projects that Construct-It worked on. The team were able to adapt their skills to meet the requirements for the project, while we were able to support a business that was experiencing a downturn in work because of the pandemic.

This was a fast-paced project as we didn’t know when the lockdown would end, and it was our objective to ensure clients were fully prepared for when they were able to reopen their buildings. In addition, there were still industries that remained operational throughout lockdown and we wanted to help ensure the safety of their workforces as soon as possible.

Construct-It came back after a week with two different prototypes, both of which we approved. Following agreement over the design, 200 units were fully assembled within the next fortnight.

Hand sanitation will continue to be absolutely critical in the fight against the pandemic and we are delighted to have delivered so many units to our clients.

As we learn more about Covid-19 and how to protect against infection we’ll continue to provide agile solutions to help businesses protect their employees and customers.