Dorton Demolition might be one of the NFDC's newer members, but it has had a year of rapid progress. Many might baulk at tackling some of the ISO standards, but the firm has gone full tilt, achieving ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, and is about to be audited for OHSAS 18001 -all in just over a year. The move is all part of what Dorton director Terry Quarmby sees as the growing professionalism of the demolition industry - but he is quick to point out that many outside the sector don't yet regard it that way. "I've been in this industry for 40 years and seen the advancement that has been made on all fronts. It encompasses the whole thing. Some industries you have to take forward kicking and screaming, but not demolition - we're more proactive than construction, despite the fact we are regulated against quite heavily." Demolition, believes Quarmby, is still regarded as a "black art", often by its construction counterparts. "There is a tendency for the industry not to be regarded as being scientific, but the reality is very different. We need to think about the science of demolition engineering when we are taking things down, especially as the buildings we are working on today are far more complex than those we tackled 20 to 30 years ago - we have to be scientific, but I don't think there is a big appreciation of that, though attitudes are changing. "A lot of companies are now beginning to be aware of the fact that it's not good enough to be good at your job - you have to prove an awful lot of other things. That includes proving that all your working systems are robust and you need tangible audited systems to prove that."
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