Case Studies

A world leader in industrial plastics, they realised that in order to maintain a competitive manufacturing position in Australia they needed to manage and explore options of developing a facility service solution that was all-encompassing.

Even though a few long-term service contracts were in place, the majority of the service agreements had never been properly analysed for cost efficiency. Due to the competitive nature of the plastic industry, this company needed to develop initiatives internally and outsource many of the non-core services that were bogging down the administration of core tasks.

After careful analysis, the company decided to seek external partners with the qualifications, credibility and experience service their facility. Their major ask was that emphasis be placed on cost reduction and performance improvements.

Solutions

Spree was engaged to manage eight different service contracts for the company. A strategy was developed and an analysis conducted on all the current service structures and supplier channels. Automating the entire process through stringent planning and analysis of third party suppliers and selection was critical to the project. Spree established a framework aimed at leveraging its service offering and contract bundling across all office and factory areas. This was completed alongside a lighting maintenance, washroom, gardening and window cleaning solution that helped the company save 20.89% on its facility management in the first year of operation.

Second Case Study.

A leading commercial CBD building achieved significant savings by bundling their cleaning, hygiene and washroom services, waste management and lighting maintenance into a single contract package.

Situation:

The above building’s property managers were having on-going problems with existing service providers and were faced with the daunting task of having to manage multiple single services contracts — a situation that was due to the limited capabilities of the each contractor in its ability to service more than one area of facility maintenance. This was adding multiple layers of complexity, problems, costs and was crippling their ability manage the asset and allow it to attract the right calibre tenants. The non-standardised processes and reporting procedures they were involved with were also proving to be a major problem.

Solution:

The property management company moved to make Spree their official cleaning and facility service partner. This meant implementing a service package that identified areas of cost savings and had a quantified capacity to produce predictable outcomes. Spree Enterprise worked with the company to define their requirements across almost 19,000sqm of property and developed a standardised service process that enabled classification of priorities in the multi-tiered service contract.

The initial project timeframe required to bring the building back up to a presentable standard was estimated at two months due to the extensive neglect in some areas and over-servicing in others. However, Spree completed the improvements in less than five weeks.

Results:

The new contract services program greatly reduced the effort of managing numerous core and non-core service providers. It enabled new services to be introduced while old services and those deemed obsolete to be cancelled.

As Spree Enterprise was engaged and respectively engaged its third party suppliers, specific training sessions on both the quality standards and control systems, service expectations and on time-delivery, formed part of the induction and ongoing training.

Focusing on the immediate issues and developing attainable solutions at much lower delivery costs, Spree and client quickly rationalised the service contracts and third party supplier channels with the key objectives of the facility. Spree also obtained on average 12% further savings. In addition to the initial savings, out client continued to see significant improvements across its outsourced facility services.

Third Case Study.

Spree provided sizable savings, efficiencies and reliable service solutions for a suburban shopping centre.

Situation.

With growing pressure from communities and the government to further improve the safety and security of public facilities, enormous onus was put on shopping centre owners to focus on intelligent solutions that not only improved the function of their facilities but also the safety of shoppers.

One midsized shopping centre on outer suburban fringe of Melbourne’s suburbs realised that they needed to make changes and improve the maintenance and up-keep of their facility in order to maintain their existing tenants in light of a new shopping centre that had been built only four kilometres away. These improvements involved numerous major and minor tasks, with the key objective being to ensure tenant satisfaction and to re-establish the facility as the premium shopping centre in that particular suburban corridor.

This other new development also meant that rents needed to be re-negotiated to secure long-term leases and that further cost-cutting across service and maintenance contracts was necessary. The asset management team had been working together for more than three months, trying to devise contract packages that would save them money and reduce the inefficiencies. They had also employed professionals to help them put together the tendering documentation, spending almost $240,000. The asset management initially looked at a multi contractor approach in order to reduce risk, however they quickly realised that the prices submitted where nowhere near on-budget.

Solution:

When the shopping centre owners opened up the contract tendering process to a multi-service approach, Spree was appointed as the successful service provider due on the fact that it demonstrated “extensive expertise, knowledge, intelligence, capabilities and technology” that was capable of enabling the contract to be fulfilled in a predictable and seamless manner. Spree’s service strategy offered an integrated service, combining cleaning, multi-skilled, waste management, hygiene, gardening and lighting solutions that could provide a complex services fulfilment program all through one point of contact. Our client required a twostep integrated facility service system, whereby cleaning, waste management, gardening and waste management were implemented in phase one and the remainder of the service in phase two. Our project team conducted comprehensive training on and off sites and developed service operation guides and manuals that enabled us to fulfil our contract requirements and gave us a blue-print of what was required. Our project team also worked closely with asset managers, as part of an on-going initiative by Spree Enterprise. In this, further cost-reductions were identified.  Overall the cost savings generated where 19% in the first year and 27.5% in the second year. Thanks to the continuous improvement process the company expects to achieve further efficiencies by upgrading the lighting systems and toilet systems in order to reduce electricity and water consumption.

Savings were also achieved through feasibility modelling. (This was based on a criterion of the most important tasks and delivery objectives versus cost savings and where cost efficiencies were most obvious.) Spree then introduced newly devised service specifications that allowed for the maximum savings possible.

During the same period, Spree introduced a comprehensive facility supply program that allowed for the new ordering and delivery of supplies through an automated ordering system, along with new procurement and management procedures that have been the key driver for ongoing cost improvements.

Results:

The shopping centre owners achieved their goal within three months of Spree Enterprise officially taking over the contracted services, generating initial savings within the expectations and exceeding their forecasts in the subsequent operating periods.