Services & Products
In March, our monthly focus moved to the Midlands.
Our lift engineers maintain lifts from Stafford to Oxford and Kettering to across the Welsh border. See below what tehy got up to throutghout the month.
Andrew accumulated lots of engineering experience and qualifications whilst rebuilding automatic gearboxes and remanufacturing torque converters for high spec cars. This included machining, setting to tight tolerances, welding and balancing. He then moved into manufacturing car shredders and other heavy recycling equipment for sites around the world. Before his role moved him into designing lifts and their components.
Andrew joined Pickerings over 20 years ago and he loves his current role as our Midlands Regional Manager. He enjoys the daily challenges, solving customers problems and developing his team; he’s particularly proud of having helped 10 trainees become fully-qualified engineers and others to achieve higher level NVQ 4.
Andrew is also a keen racquetball player so you know he’ll always give it his best shot and ace any challenge.
We joined our Midlands team for their Toolbox Talk. Every month each of our regional teams get together to explore safety topics such as managing fatigue, responsibly disposing of environmental waste, and locking off & tagging off procedures.
It’s also a great opportunity for our engineers to catch up with one another and raise points of discussion with management in an open forum. It was wonderful to join such a positive meeting, ensuring we all stay sharp on safety procedures and having some really productive conversations.
It’s so pleasing when satisfied customers return with new business – testament to the quality service we deliver!
Having previously managed the lift maintenance contract at a prestigious university in Oxford, Steve was delighted with the work our Midlands team delivered to maintain the 51 lifts across their campus since 2013, and we continue to deliver to this day.
When Steve moved roles to head up site maintenance at the University of Oxford’s Keble College, he knew just who to call for his lift requirements. He invited our Regional Manager Andrew for a tour of the impressive buildings and discuss his challenges.
Established in 1870, Keble College almost has a history as long as ours and is one of Oxford’s biggest colleges, educating over 1,000 students.
We have since delivered a full lift refurbishment to a very happy new customer, who has also signed a service contract with Pickerings for this lift with more to come. We currently are in the final stages of commissioning a second specialist lift that has been out of action for over 5 years.
Thanks for being a trusted partner Steve and we look forward to supporting you on other projects in the future.
Our Midlands Apprentice Luke loves learning a “job for life”, spending time with qualified colleagues and carrying out practical tasks to achieve his NVQ3 in Lift Servicing.
Luke said: “It’s really satisfying when I can use what I’ve learnt to fix a lift, a lift that an actual customer relies on, not just a training unit.”
Everyday is different, attending different jobs with different engineers to gain hands-on experience with only a small number of online courses to supplement his practical training.
Luke is coming towards the end of his three-year course with Elevated Knowledge and looks forward to becoming a fully-qualified engineer, as he builds his confidence with the support of his experienced colleagues.
When we received an evening call from a passenger trapped in a lift at a hospital in Oxford, our engineer Jason stepped up despite not being on call himself.
As he was local to the site, Jason arrived as fast as he could to find the Fire Brigade already working on the lift.
Jason supported their rescue, lending his expertise to find the fault and ultimately coordinate a manual lift of the car, so the passenger could exit via the doors, shaken but safe.
The lift was left safe and secure. We rearranged our schedule so that Jason and fellow engineer Robert could attend early the next morning to troubleshoot the UPS battery and successfully return the lift to service. A great display of solid teamwork from all those involved from Pickerings, the Fire Brigade and hospital staff.
Our Midlands team has donated vital supplies to Friends of Isaac Food Bank; including food, toiletries, nappies and 50 Easter Eggs.
12-year-old Isaac set up the Food Bank in Redditch in 2020 to support those experiencing food insecurity. When the team heard Isaac’s story they were really keen to support, and colleagues were quick to bring donations in.
Senior Administrator Rachel dropped their first delivery off alongside Regional Manager Andrew, declaring “It is very rewarding to help a local charity like this.”
Ryan is not only a fully-qualified NVQ3 lift engineer but he was also a member of the Magic Circle, for a spell.
We joined our elevator illusionist at a clothing store in The Bullring in Birmingham, where he was attending a job to repair a failing call button.
With a click of his fingers (and a troubleshooting exercise to identify the button itself was faulty, safely removing the broken part and expertly installing a replacement) the lift was back in operation.
Dealing cards or dealing with problematic lifts, Ryan’s always got a trick up his sleeve
Lift services in Stockton-On-Tees, Sunderland, Durham and Northallerton
Lift services across Taunton, Devizes, Wiltshire, Bournemouth and Bristol
