Acis Group 

A new approach to planned and cyclical maintenance brings reduced costs

Acis Group required new partnering arrangements for the delivery of planned maintenance and gas repair / servicing to their stock of 4,500 rural units. The combined annual expenditure was in the region of £2.3 million with the works being undertaken by numerous contractors with a complex supply chain. Existing contractors were already in place and had been working on traditional contracts for over eight years. However there was a need to develop a robust framework for the partnering arrangements, which would provide the platform to drive improvements in performance.

In setting up the new arrangements EC Harris’ approach was to seek to drive improvements in service delivery through rationalisation and enhanced value for money, whilst improving the efficiency of contract administration. The aim was to deliver within a pre-determined budget whilst increasing the service quality.

Creating solutions

Locating ourselves within the client’s office during the project ensured effective collaborative working and skills transfer, enabling a culture of ownership and engagement to be developed with key Acis staff from day one. This also helped to embed the long-term efficient operation of the new service arrangements.

A thorough analysis of the ‘current’ service delivery arrangements coupled with identifying the specific aspirations of Acis, enabled a robust, flexible and effective delivery model to be proposed by EC Harris. Interrogating the ‘current’ cost base and utilising appropriate benchmarking tools enabled the establishment of value for money measures. Developing payment mechanisms based on a robust scope of service and efficient packaging of works ensured that the client was also provided with cost / budget certainty.

Adding value

Acis now have (cost) certainty that the awarded contracts will not exceed their pre-determined budgets throughout their lifetime and have benefited from the hands on approach the EC Harris team adopted to transfer relevant skills to key client personnel.

Drawing on the previous experience of the EC Harris delivery team enabled OJEU compliant contracts to be awarded within 4 months, significantly faster than similar organisations. The underpinning philosophy ‘to keep processes simple’ resulted in much simplified schedules of rates and methods of contract delivery.

Reviewing and fully benchmarking the ‘current’ service costs, developing a robust payment mechanism, and creating effective works packages led to significant savings with year one cost reductions of 6% for planned maintenance and 30% for gas repair and servicing.

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