The History Of The SiteStak System - Celebrating Five Years

RYAN: Hey I'm Ryan the Content Creator here at Drainfast. I'm joined today by Marketing Manager Mark Chambers. And welcome to In the Pipeline. This brand-new show. Brand new format. Brand new style. Is a more relaxed approach where we have discussion points and talk about topics relating to underground drainage and groundworks. Thank you Mark for joining us.

MARK: No worries yeah, good to be here.

RYAN: Could you tell us more about the inception of the SiteStak System?

MARK: Yeah sure, I think SiteStak came about really with looking at some of the sites out there. And starting to see our drainage products in a bit of a mess. And asking our customers in the groundworks industry as to, you know, why that is? And the feedback we got from customers was that drainage was always a problem to keep in a mess and it did leave a lot of wastage because different drainage materials would get lost on site, and maybe get damaged by moving plants and equipment. That would lead to a lot of wasted materials but also wasted time because the actual site operatives would end up searching for maybe the 15-degree bends, and the couplers and they couldn't find them because they were in a pile of other materials or they've been misplaced somewhere else on a site, some of these sites are huge. So that’s where it came about, we were trying to find a solution and solve a problem that faces the groundworks industry. Which is one of our values here at Drainfast, is solving problems. There are a lot of exciting products in the range now, a lot more than what we had to start with.

RYAN: Well it's been building quite well for the last five years.

MARK: Yeah, it's been a really exciting journey, and the groundworks industry has really picked up on it, really adopted it quickly. We've been impressed with how well the industry took it up, the take-off has been fantastic, and the support from everyone out on site. It's a great product but it's wider than the product itself, it's like a newer way of working on-site. It's like a mindset, a tidy site is a safe site. There are a lot of forward-thinking groundwork companies out there that have become customers of it who want to embed that on their sites and want their teams to make sure the site is kept tidy and they use the SiteStak as a part of a wider program to do that. Keeping the drainage materials neat and tidy, it's quick and easy to move them from one place to another. And even at the end of the job move the whole SiteStak and drainage onto the next job.

RYAN: How does the SiteStak Storage System work?

MARK: Yeah so it's quite a simple concept. It's got an open storage area at the back for your longer length of drainage pipes, whether they are 3 metres or 6 metres. And that's quite important because you get, particularly when it's sunny and summer, the pipes get a bit more flexible in the sun as they heat up and you end up with pipes warping and then they can't be used as a full-length, they have to be cut down. So that's quite important that we've got good storage there for the pipes to be kept nice and flat. But then along the front, you've got 8 separate bins for your drainage fittings, all your different components. And that allows you to store each one in a different bin. You can therefore see stock control at a glance, so each one of those little things saves a lot of time on site. Other than that the SiteStak also allows you to move it easily, as I mentioned. So, you can get a forklift over, and lift it, whether that's an excavator fork or a telehandler. You can have lifting eyes, optional lifting eyes. In addition to that, there's a cutting bay, where you can cut rocker pipes or any length of pipe you need to. And we've recently added a saw guide and a clamp, which makes it a lot easier if you're just working on your own and you want to cut. Along with Chamfered tools and the things guys use now, that makes it a very safe and quick process out there.

RYAN: The practicality of it, the manoeuvrability of it, keeps the sites clean, tidy, and safer, and obviously, by using it you're cutting pipe safer. Would you say that's the reason why it's been taken on so well by the construction industry?

MARK: Yeah, I think safety's part of it. I think the main driver has been saving money, so I like the commercial aspect. A lot of these companies are spending thousands of pounds on drainage materials. And a lot of companies tell us that they estimate, before having SiteStak, that around 10% of their drainage materials are going to waste, so if you start doing the sums. It's a lot of materials that are going to waste and you add onto that the waste of time of operatives searching around for the bends. Guys jumping on a dumper, or a telehandler driving across the site to go and get some more bends that they've run out of. Because the whole job grinds to a halt if you haven't got the materials there that you need. So it's been efficiency that's been the key driver and then, the safety aspect is a great bonus on top of that.

RYAN: No 100%, know the efficiency health and safety is big in the industry, but you know efficiency, timesaving, and money-saving, they seem very much like key factors...

MARK: Definitely!

RYAN: ...for the reasons why they're so popular?

MARK: Yeah, and it's just doing the right thing. I think companies want to do the right thing. The guys on site want to do the right thing as well. You just need to give them the right tools to do the job and that's what SiteStak is.

RYAN: The SiteStak System, the slogan, the saying, the value of what the product is, is that it's breaking new ground.

MARK: Changing groundwork for good. The whole groundworks industry is changing, and you've got forward-thinking companies that are changing the game. They're making things tidier, neater, and more efficient and SiteStak is a big part of that.

RYAN: How important would you say the SiteStak Storage System has been for Drainfast?

MARK: Yeah, I think it's a key product for Drainfast, it's one of the first innovative products that we're doing, where it's our own products. So Drainfast traditionally is a merchant model, where we're buying and selling other people’s products and we do that very successfully with our FAST delivery model. But SiteStak's our own product. It's an innovative product and it's something that the industry has taken on board. So, I think it’s a key product line for Drainfast and obviously, now we've got the innovation side, where we got the MuckStopper coming in and the whole MuckStopper range. And that's going to be another great aspect where we can start adding these innovative products. That we've come up with, so we're now solving problems. We're more than a merchant, we're problem solvers.

RYAN: I can see how proud Drainfast is of the SiteStak System. You know it's a very eye-catching product as well. You have so many different colours you can bring, you can really customise it.

MARK: That's right. We are proud of it as a company, but also, we want our customers to be proud of it. And that’s why we paint it in our customer’s colours, we put their logo on the end. That helps the guys on site treat it with more respect. The thing that one customer told me once, it's actually Brandwells, a great construction groundworks company down in the Bristol area. And one of the site managers there told me that one of the most important things with SiteStak was that it boosted morale on the site. And it's really helped the guys, kind of, get freshly behind what they were doing on-site and keeping the site tidy. And really motivated them to do that and I never really thought of that. A SiteStak product could actually motivate guys to keep the site tidy like that, but it really did.

RYAN: What is next for the SiteStak Storage System?

MARK: We got a lot of other innovative products coming, things like the MuckStopper our great new product that we are launching and we have got a lot more innovations in the pipeline, so following the success of SiteStak we're now looking to become more problem solvers.

RYAN: What would you say is your favourite colour when being used on the SiteStak System?

MARK: Yeah, I've given this a bit of thought, it should probably be red because that’s our kind of corporate colour. There is actually one, which we'll pop a picture on the screen of, which was a dark blue and that actually looked really good out on site. It might have just been the fact it was a nice sunny day when I went and saw it. But yeah, I did like that one. We've done lots of different colours, one customer had one in pink. We had a real sort of turquoise green one, we can do any paint colour that you want really. So, if your corporate colours are important to you and you want your brand on the end let us know and we'll make sure that’s on there.

RYAN: Very customisable and I think it’s very nice that the storage system can be customised to your customer’s needs.

MARK: Yeah exactly. And we got all the different sizes now, so if you're a smaller site we got smaller SiteStaks that just take three-metre pipes, which works for some people. And other guys want the bigger SiteStak, so we recently launched the extra wide one where you forklift in a full pack of pipe.