THE Lochside Hotel in New Cumnock was the venue for a construction event with a difference recently.
Kilmarnock-based scaffolding specialist MJR Group invited guests to witness a helicopter landing on a specially designed cantilevered Layher scaffold helipad. The purpose of the day was to celebrate MJR’s new partnership with Layher and showcase some of the products and innovations available to customers.
MJR has moved to exclusively use Layher scaffolding on all contracting work.
Founder and MD Ryan Orr told Project Scotland, “The Layher product is lightweight; it’s the best system out there in the market. The staff love working with it. The growth plans are really big for this company. We have several million pounds of work outstanding currently and have been winning more contracts since the alliance with Layher.
“The helipad is something different, it catches the eye.”
MJR Group is in the process of expanding to a second site in Livingston to be near to Layher’s Scottish base and is aggressively looking to increase its client base across all industries. With a growing contracting team working with a number of main contractors and large clients across the UK, MJR works in sectors including housebuilding, commercial and industrial.
Sean Pike, Layher UK’s MD, was among those in attendance at the New Cumnock showcase.
Prior to making a presentation to invited guests, Sean spoke to Project Scotland about the importance of events such as this. It’s exposure of the company, the product and the support services we provide to all of our customers,” he explained. “We’ve just had our own open day. As a company we’re always innovating. We bring out a lot of new products, which is great, but you’ve got to find a springboard to launch them.”
Sean described the Scottish market as “very important” to Layher. “It’s an almost exclusively 100% systems scaffold market of various types and we want to be part of that. We’ve had our depot in Livingston now for 15 years and we’re always keen and eager to grow.
“We’re working with this company (MJR) because they have an aspiration to be a rental provider of our product. You’ve got to be flexible. There are newer customers out there who would use the product if it was readily available on rent. With MJR Group, that’s an interesting opportunity for us.”
Sean added that many of the Layher products introduced over the years have been customer driven.
“The best way to innovate is to sit and listen to your customer and really analyse what (their) problem is, and then go away and solve it for them. It becomes a partnership. That is important and we are in the unique position of being able to do that.”
