Case study: Sweett Group, London Mobile Asset Management Planning in offices Closer management of mobile assets within offices delivers business and environmental benefits. Example of benefits available: Increased asset life, so reduced replacement costs Reduced waste to landfill Reduced carbon emissions Introduction This case study investigates the business and environmental benefits that can be realised through an enhanced approach to managing mobile assets. WRAP has a number of tools to help the Facilities Management (FM) sector realise the benefits of careful asset management. This study demonstrates how these tools can be applied in an office context. What is Mobile Asset Management Planning? Mobile Asset Management Planning (MAMP) is a process that can be employed to review and improve how assets are managed through their life. MAMP can be used during the mobilisation of new contracts; retrofitted into existing contracts; or, used for succession planning of mobile stock and assets beyond a current contract. Key elements include: purchasing the appropriate quantity and quality of stock and assets; encouraging re-use and redeployment over storage or disposal; and, conserving value of stock and assets via wholelife cost procurement and robust service regimes. WRAP has a suite of resources, guidance and tools relating to MAMP. These include the MAM strategy and the Furniture tools 1, both of which were used in this case study. Case study details Location Organisation FM contract cost FM services No. of occupants 200-225 Floor Area 20,000 sq ft Gray s Inn Road, London Sweett Group 1,500,000 over 10 years Hospitality & Vending, Caretaking, Postal, Reception, and Helpdesk Services Sweett Group s Gray s Inn Road office (GIR) underwent a refurbishment in 2010. As part of the refurbishment a number of new spaces were created, including break-out areas, for which new furniture was purchased shown in Figure 1. For other spaces, a large amount of existing furniture was reused 2. This study investigates how the use of MAMP could have benefitted Sweett Group during the refurbishment process. Furthermore, it describes what actions can be taken to improve both current and future performance. Figure 1: Sweett Group, London Project background WRAP has worked with FM service providers to develop its approach to MAMP. Initiatives investigated include: analysis of the usability of MAMP in real life scenarios via a number of pilot studies; and, review of the steps necessary to deliver tangible benefits in the form of reduced cost, resource use and environmental impact. 1 http://www.wrap.org.uk/content/office-furnitureprocurement-comparison-tool-0; http://www.wrap.org.uk/mamp 2 In general, office furniture stock is typically replaced every 10-20 years after their purchase date in office environments
Summary of benefits Business benefits: Through increasing the quality of servicing for the most significant mobile assets within the office, the residual asset value at the end of the contract could be increased by up to 37%. Maintaining assets will reduce unplanned maintenance expenditure. The servicing and repair costs could fall by at least 26% over the length of the contract equating to around 22,000. Higher quality servicing can increase asset life and therefore reduce the capital expenditure over the contract period by up to 11,000. Environmental benefits: Potential to reduce the amount of furniture sent to landfill at the end of their life by 70%. In an office of approximately 200 workstations over a 20 year period, 66 tco 2 e could be avoided through careful management and procurement of furniture items. If a similar strategy was employed in 1,000 comparable offices, the reduction of waste sent to landfill could equate to over 1,200 tonnes per year. WRAP s MAM strategy tool was used for the assessment of the assets for this study. The following headings describe the steps undertaken to carry out the analysis. Defining Assets The first step was to define the assets within the scope of the FM management contract. For GIR, these assets included furniture, catering equipment such as fridges and microwaves, and other office equipment, for example bins and coat stands. To support this step, the MAM Strategy tool enables: an asset list to be created based on all the mobile assets included in the contract; consideration of the asset condition; consideration of the asset life expectancy; calculation of the estimated cost to contract based on the number of units and new unit purchase cost; and, identification of the top 10 most significant assets in terms of value. WRAP s grading system was used to assist with identifying asset condition. There are six classification grades ranging from New under warranty to Scrap. Grade 6 Grade 5 Grade 4 Grade 3 Grade 2 Grade 1 Grade 0 For the GIR office, 9 of the top 10 most significant assets were furniture items. This is a reflection on the FM services provided within the contract and the nature of the office building. Most items were graded 4 or 5 as they were fairly new and in good condition. The most expensive asset group identified was desk chairs with a cost to total cost ratio of 22%. This is due to the large quantity and high new unit purchase cost. Risk analysis New under warranty Nearly new Fully operational, recently serviced Mechanically sound, requires service Excessive wear and tear, some mechanical defects Missing parts, poorly maintained Scrap Figure 2: WRAP s Asset Grading When appraising assets it is important to understand the impacts of failure and the risk posed to the delivery of the FM services. Once any risks are identified, the assets can be managed appropriately. A risk analysis was carried out on the top 10 items by completing the following steps within the tool: assess the impact of failure on contract delivery/penalties from no cost to very high cost ; assess the likelihood of failure for each asset from none to very high ; record possible mitigation measures to reduce the impact and / or the likelihood of failure; and, review the risk matrix in Figure 3 showing the spread of asset risks against the axes of impact and likelihood. An extract from the tool (Figure 3) shows how the risk analysis is presented, enabling users to visualise the spread of risk across their assets.
Quality of new / replacement items: items with a higher specification will often yield a longer asset life. Quality of servicing regime: higher quality and more frequent servicing will lengthen the asset life and preserve the asset for longer. Cost analysis The baseline cost performance scenario to compare against was calculated based on the source of the assets and the condition of assets at the start of the contract. Figure 3: Risk of asset failure matrix - GIR study Figure 3 shows the risk matrix and the spread of assets for the GIR pilot. Assets within the green quadrant were identified as having a low risk of failure. These were small plastic tables and desk dividing screens. Both of these assets would be well suited to the use of reconditioned or redeployed used assets. High risk assets are those within the red quadrant and included items such as desk and meeting room chairs, which may be well suited to procurement of higher quality assets and / or implementation of a higher quality of servicing. Asset source, quality and servicing analysis Further to the risk analysis, the tool enables the investigation of the impact of changing other variables to improve the asset performance. The tool was used to define the asset source, quality and servicing regimes for each of the top 10 assets. Other variables which the tool was used to assess included: As this study assessed the existing situation, all items were described as being sourced from Client s stock. The items within GIR were fairly new and generally in good condition so most assets were categorised as either Grade 4 or Grade 5 condition. The following options demonstrate some of the strategies that were investigated through the use of the tool. They bring together different combinations of management decisions and yield different results. Figure 4 details headline results obtained for each of the options. Option 1 Provide a higher quality of servicing to the high risk and high cost items identified only. Leave the quality of new / replacement items as average. Option 2 Provide a higher quality of servicing to all of the top 10 items. Leave the quality of new / replacement items as average. Option 3 Provide a higher servicing regime for all assets and buy higher quality items for the high risk items (Desk chairs, meeting room chairs and fridges). Leave the quality of new /replacement items as average for all other assets. Scenario Capital Costs Servicing and Repair Costs Residual end of contract All New 274,000 82,000 56,000 Baseline 275,000 86,000 61,000 Option 1 275,000 70,000 81,000 Option 2 (Preferred) 264,000 64,000 83,000 Option 3 287,000 63,000 96,000 Figure 4: Headline figure results comparing the options with the baseline and all new scenarios
Management opportunities The results in Figure 4 show the different scenarios and the calculated figures for each of the metrics. The analysis suggests that the best approach would be to follow option 2 and improve the servicing regime of all of the top ten items. When comparing option 2 to the baseline scenario the following results were obtained: capital cost would reduce by 11,000; servicing and repair costs would fall by 26%, which is equivalent to 22,000; and, residual value at the end of contract would increase by 22,000. Further considerations The tool allows FM teams to choose the most appropriate method of management for them. Some options may not deliver the greatest capital cost savings or life cycle cost savings but will improve the asset residual value, for instance option 3. Residual value is the monetary value left in the asset at the end of its life. This may be beneficial in some situations where items are planned to be re-deployed, sold, or be re-used once the contract has finished. Furniture items may benefit from an approach like this since they can often have an operational life cycle which is longer than the required life of the asset within an office. Figure 5: Cost performance of assets for option 2 Figure 5 shows how option 2 affects the cost performance of the assets over the contract. It shows both the cash flow and the residual value for each of the Baseline, All New and Modified scenarios. It shows that the modified cash flow line is lower, hence representing a reduction in cost. The dotted lines show the residual value of the assets once the contract is over. In this instance the modified residual value is higher than both the Baseline and All New scenarios representing an increase in the value of assets at the end of the contract Resource savings The results can be translated into resource efficiency savings. There are a number of benefits that would result from following option 2. Longer asset life As the servicing quality increases, the asset life would lengthen due to increased care and maintenance. These longer replacement cycles would save on capital expenditure, disposal costs and also reduce the waste generation due to fewer new resources being purchased.
Higher residual value Servicing an item more frequently through its life cycle is shown to deliver higher residual values. A higher residual value means that there is the potential for a better return on re-use, re-deployment or re-sale of items at the end of their first life. This also should reduce the likelihood of items going to landfill. Environmental benefits This study showed that the chairs at GIR were amongst the most expensive assets and had a high risk rating. The WRAP document Benefits of reuse study: Office furniture (2011) 3 states that only 14% of office chairs that reach their end of life are re-used. Re-using chairs at the end of their life would result in less demand for new chairs and reduction of waste to landfill. The environmental benefits associated with re-use have been shown to be greater than the impacts associated with the transport and handling of recovered items. Other WRAP MAM tools are useful to quantify the environmental benefits that could be achieved alongside these options. Furniture analysis Furniture comprises a large proportion of the mobile assets within GIR. Therefore, the furniture MAM tool was used to analyse the potential cost savings, waste reduction and carbon avoidance that could be achieved from different furniture management strategies. The tool carries out more detailed analysis focusing on furniture items and works in a similar way to the strategy tool whereby it compares a target level to a baseline level. The analysis was set over 20 years for the GIR office for 200 occupants per annum over this period. The input parameters used for the baseline and target scenarios are shown in Figure 6: Variable Baseline Target Equipment source Replace with End of project treatment New standard for all items New standard for all items Bulk waste Chairs new standard Other items Existing High risk assets New remanufacturable. Other items remanufactured. Figure 6: Furniture tool variables for GIR study All items sent for re-use The target scenario takes into account the fact that the chairs are high risk assets at GIR hence it would not be appropriate to replace chairs with refurbished counterparts. Therefore, the approach involves replacement chairs and desks to be purchased as new remanufacturable and all other items as remanufactured. The potential savings that could arise from implementing the target strategy are shown in Figure 7. Most notably, for this example there is a potential to save 9,400 and approximately 3tCO 2 e per annum. Cost Waste (kg) Waste to landfill (kg) Carbon benefit (tco 2 e) Baseline 18,200 1,630 1,630 2.8 Target 8,800 640 440-0.5 Saving 48% 61% 70% 3.3 Figure 7: Headline figure results from the Furniture analysis Figure 8 shows an extract from the Furniture MAM tool showing a chart of the fate of materials for the baseline and target scenarios. It illustrates the potential reduction in waste (kg) overall and the reduction in waste to landfill resulting from adopting the target scenario. This baseline scenario assumes all items are sent to landfill and hence none of the waste is sent for recycling or used to generate energy. The reduction of waste sent to landfill in the target scenario is a direct result of sending items to be reused, remanufactured or used for energy recovery. 3 http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/office%20furniture_ final.pdf
through the use of MAMP. This approach can be transferred across other FM teams and offices. There are some key opportunities to be realised when implementing MAMP, which include: Figure 8: Chart to show the comparison for the baseline and target scenarios for the Fate of materials Barriers This study highlights some lessons learnt about the FM approach to MAMP in offices. Some of the barriers identified were as follows: FM teams do not necessarily record all of the information required for MAMP. Asset information is often recorded; however, records can be fragmented across a number of teams, offices and systems. Leased or hired assets are not directly controllable; however they can be effectively managed through the procurement stage. Recording information on assets which do not move often (such as furniture) is not necessarily cost effective but should be noted that once completed, requires minimal resource to maintain. Recommendations This study demonstrates the opportunities available in the FM sector for management of offices. There are clear business and environmental benefits available WRAP s MAMP strategy tool allows FM providers to identify the most expensive items and those with the highest risk of failure. This data can be used to generate a targeted and effective management plan. FM teams are well positioned to collate evidence and bring it all together for MAM. There are opportunities to learn from existing successful data collection processes. An example is Information Technology departments who often give items asset numbers and track them throughout the course of their life within a company. Procurement and operational teams can interact to share knowledge about assets to evaluate the best options. Implementing the MAM process can increase the general awareness of resource use and efficiency within a company and could lead to positive changes in the way that users operate within the building. Additional information The WRAP resources used in this study are freely available online alongside other guidance documents and resources. They can be accessed via the following link: WRAP Mobile Asset Management Plan Page: http://www.wrap.org.uk/mamp WRAP Facilities Management Sector Page - http://www.wrap.org.uk/fm
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