17 11月 2020

Babcock celebrates after winning APM Inspiration Award

Babcock International Group (Babcock) is celebrating after winning the Association for Project Management’s (APM) award for Inspiration for its work during the pandemic.

The UK Government set industry a challenge to design and build ventilators to support the NHS at the height of the Covid-19 crisis.  Despite having no prior experience in the medical field, the Babcock team rapidly established a supply chain from scratch and a prototype within a week.

The team found out they had won the APM’s Mike Nichols Award for Inspiration on Monday. The accolade recognises inspirational individuals, projects, programmes and organisations that have made contributions to successful transformational change in the world, society and for the project management community

Whilst the country was in a national lockdown due to Covid-19, a team of Babcock engineers and specialists worked night and day to design and build the prototype, enlisting a number of UK manufacturers to help establish a brand new supply chain in parallel. The Zephyr Plus ventilator was created in under 100 days.

Jon Hall, Chief Innovation & Technology Officer for Babcock said: “The success of this team is testament to the fact that we put innovation at the heart of everything we do. They worked tirelessly from day one to design, create and build a product they had no prior experience of from scratch, and turned it around in under 100 days.

“That’s true innovation. It goes to show what can be achieved from a single idea, a great team and engineering ingenuity.”

Chris Spicer, who headed up the project for Babcock along with Andrew Howard, added: “This project changed the lives of everyone involved. We collaborated with suppliers across the country and knowing that all the medical supply chains were maxed out, we really had to come together and think outside the box.

“Everyone who has worked on the Zephyr Plus has made sacrifices along the way, as the challenge was at the height of the pandemic. Thankfully the NHS was in a position where it didn’t need further ventilators but we all know now, that when we come together as a team, we are capable of absolutely anything.”

“I’m really proud of what we have done, and that Babcock supported us every step of the way.”