People, Product and Performance.
2024 was exceptional for Prefect Controls. But which criteria should a company use to measure its success?
There are the obvious metrics of turnover and profitability, but these only tell the economic story. At the heart of every great company are great people. After all it’s their dedication and hard work that generates the financial success.
The major ‘people’ story at Prefect this year was Glen and Sue’s retirement. Having founded the company in 1997 they have stepped back from the frontline and are enjoying the newfound time this is affording them, while keeping an arm’s length interest as Chair and Vice-Chair of the business.
Will Mills (Managing Director) and Nicole Howard (Financial Controller) found a couple of large pairs of shoes to fill! Tracy Drummond took over as Office Manager and Danny Golding became Technical Director.
With the changes came growth. January saw the arrival of Craig Donnelly into the Project Management Team, and Tom McAndrew’s promotion to Senior Project Manager. In October Sam Osborne joined the company to ably assist Project and Sales departments as our Customer Services and Sales Coordinator.
The meticulous planning for the transformation, and that the world outside Prefect were only aware of the changes through press releases and personal conversations, is testament to the smoothness of the transition. To all intents and purposes, It’s business as usual!
And what a year of business it has been.
We have managed the installation of 30 irus projects and commissioned a further 8 sites, which in total has added upwards of 13,500 nodes to the Irus Portal. This includes 12,729 bedrooms, SMART Tank hot water cylinders and infrastructure controls.
An internal survey carried out by our largest customer resulted in Prefect attaining 10/10, across their projects team, in terms of satisfaction, performance and quality.
It has also been a busy year regarding product development. EcoStat3, the new generation of the highly successful intelligent thermostats, was delivered along with the all-new infrared programming handset. This combination provides an alternative to Irus, where central control is unnecessary. It provides similar heat load savings and more than 4,000 have gone into PBSA, HMOs and other locations.
Almost 3,000 kitchens across the UKs student estate are safer because HobSensus and HobSafe. They are taking care of cookers that have been left switched on when the person preparing food forgets to turn them off.
We have managed the installation of 30 irus projects and commissioned a further 8 sites, which in total has added upwards of 13,500 nodes to the Irus Portal. This includes 12,729 bedrooms, SMART Tank hot water cylinders and infrastructure controls.
Software tools on our Irus system have been unveiled this year that are helping customers maximise efficiencies across their estates.
‘Optimiser’ provides a prioritised list of the most pressing issues hindering efficiency in buildings. ‘Quick wins’ are identified, and recommendations given to resolve problems.
‘Investigator’ visualises the data generated from properties and draws a real time plan view of the building, enabling accurate pinpointing of where issues may be occurring.
Our green credentials have also been enhanced this year. The installation of solar panels and electric vehicle charging points, at our Sudbury headquarters, are generating and distributing energy to power our ever-increasing EV fleet. While the customisation of reusable pallets to safely transport our larger products between production processes means we are cutting wood and cardboard packaging waste considerably.
The ‘cherry on top’ of 2024 was winning the Water Saving Commercial Product of the year for SMART Tank, at the Energy Saving Awards, and the Sustainable project, and Overall Project of the Year at the ECN Awards.
A review of the year is a great way for companies to take stock of progress, before taking a deep breath… and doing it all over again!
