Leapfrog Day Nurseries - Leaping into action
Client: Leapfrog Day Nurseries
Project: To implement an IT application to unify the facilities management function of 102 Leapfrog Day Nurseries (including 3 recent mergers) across the UK.
Objectives: To have documentary evidence of maintenance issues (and to pre-empt recurring issues) and to be able to demonstrate that they are dealt with efficiently, with safety being paramount at all times
Results: Improved management and measurement of security control, better communication between head office and the 102 nurseries and accurate performance measurement of contractors providing documentary evidence and closure of maintenance issues.
The availability of childcare is a hot topic in the British media. With the growing number of women now wishing to go back to work after maternity leave, the number of childcare places needed to accommodate their children has been rising dramatically.
Leapfrog Day Nurseries is one of the UK’s largest childcare providers, with a total of 102 Day Nurseries offering almost 10,000 places for children aged 0-5 years. Its large and varied building portfolio, from nurseries through to the company’s headquarters in Burton upon Trent, presents a complex challenge for the facilities management team. Heading up the team is Barry Yeomans who was appointed in January 2005 and tasked with finding an IT application that was able to bring together the facilities management function for all of Leapfrog’s nurseries across the UK.
Leapfrog’s recent merge with three other well known nursery brands, Jigsaw, Princess Christian and Petit Enfant meant that a centralised system that could co-ordinate all of the nurseries was essential. Yeomans explains, “The main issue was that we had four different companies each of which had different ways of doing things - four different cultures if you like. We needed a solution that would allow us to unify the management across all of the nurseries.”
As part of the overall facilities strategy Yeomans immediately saw the benefits that a Computer Aided Facilities Management (CAFM) could bring to the company and as a result implemented a system across all of the 102 nurseries. “We chose to bring in CAFM software because we needed a system that could provide documentary evidence of where problems exist and to pre-empt where they are likely to occur.” Leapfrog has a responsibility not only to meet the approval of parents but also to pass the requirements of an OFSTED (Office for Standards in Education) inspection. The ability to produce documentary evidence demonstrating how efficiently maintenance is dealt with is an obvious benefit.
“The safety of the children has to be paramount for Leapfrog,” says Yeomans. “When it comes to security, Leapfrog cannot afford to delay repairs and maintenance; from high level security such as strictly controlled nursery access protocol, down to the finer maintenance details such as finger guards on doors and high door handles.”
All Leapfrog Day Nurseries have Secure Access Systems, which only enable parents who are registered with the Nursery to gain entry into the reception area via an issued key fob. Parents are only allowed in to the reception area and from there a member of staff will greet them and take them to their child’s Base Room. All nurseries have CCTV throughout the Base Rooms and gardens, plus a monitor located in the reception area, where parents can watch their child settle before leaving the Nursery.
“Security is a high priority for us," comments Yeomans, “especially with regards to access control. It is absolutely essential that we have minimal turnaround time if a fault occurs on the security system. We need to ensure that any problems with security get an instant response.”
Although Yeomans names the two areas in which the system has been of most benefit as reporting and communications, he also believes that the installation of the Service Works Global’s QFM CAFM system has improved the management and measurement of security control.
Leapfrog employs four technicians who cover duties on a regional remit, plus a number of specialist contractors who they work with throughout the UK. Before the days of the CAFM system, problems were reported to the helpdesk by telephone and assigned to a contractor, along via a faxed job sheet. Now the new system is able to log jobs as they are reported to the helpdesk, the job is raised and information, including urgency, is sent to both the contractor and the audit manager via email. The system has greatly improved communications between the central office and the 102 nurseries. Additionally turnaround times and admin have been reduced. “Using QFM gives us a more professional approach when dealing with contractors. We are able to provide them with the necessary information more efficiently and we can measure their performance on a regular basis,” says Yeomans.
The system has allowed the facilities management function to become proactive rather than reactive, by creating an audit trail that monitors jobs from the time that they are reported right through to completion. “The measurement function is important to us because it allows us to quickly identify areas of spend which we can subsequently investigate and find a reason for,” Yeomans explains. “It may be that a particular brand that we have deployed is proving to be unreliable, or that an individual nursery has an exceptionally high volume of usage and therefore refurbishment needs to be brought forward. The system identifies weaknesses and strengths and shows us where we need to make improvements and can even highlight user error.” The CAFM system can produce reports for the eight regional areas the nurseries are divided up into, by individual nursery or job type. Reports can then be used to identify where problems are occurring on a regular basis.
“The ability to produce reports quickly is extremely beneficial. The reports highlight large areas of nursery spend,” says Yeomans. “They are also very useful to take into board meetings to explain at the top level where and when funds are being used. The graphs the CAFM system produces can also help us develop the content of contracts for the next financial year.”