Wessex Water
Wessex Water, a regional water and sewerage company providing services across 10,000 sq. km in the South West of England, is committed to reducing its impact on the environment. This is reflected in both the services that the company provides and in their new futuristic head office building in Bath , where their £20m investment has resulted in an environmentally friendly site, which successfully minimises energy usage and maximises recycling.
The technology behind the infrastructure provides a benchmark for other new buildings, because the environment is completely self-sustaining. The ventilation is provided naturally, using a combination of opening windows, electronically operated high level vents, internal blinds and external solar shading. The lighting in the building also adjusts automatically and works on proximity sensors, allowing lights to switch on automatically upon entering a room and dimming down over time, so that electricity consumption is minimised. In addition, rainwater collected from the roof is used to flush the toilets in the building and waste is recycled wherever possible. Ingeniously installed solar panels on the roof heat the water for use throughout the site.
Likewise, the management of the facilities has also been an area where Wessex Water has worked hard to maximise efficiency. When the premises at Bath were still in their planning stages, an FM team was created to review and critique the scheme design from an FM perspective. They wanted to ensure that the building combined architectural skills with client needs, so that the architect's intentions were interpreted to the benefit of the client. The final results at Wessex Water are really impressive.
Once the building spec was finalised, the team started to look for a CAFM system to manage the site. They pulled together a CAFM design brief in advance of occupation, to search for a system that was smart, effective and leading edge, to reflect the qualities of their new headquarters.
Wessex Water needed a solution that was capable of logging and managing fault calls, general maintenance, PPM's, room booking and catering . In addition, they wanted a software package that would help them provide an 'FM Information Desk', something that was more than just a Help Desk, where the FM team could be proactive and not just reactive. The FM team was keen for the desk to act as an information point as well as a central place for taking calls, where callers could be given a list of options when booking a meeting room.
One of the most important criteria in the system selection was that the software was user friendly. Several systems were investigated, and four systems were selected for a detailed review and demonstration. QFM provided the necessary functionality for room bookings, catering, PPM's and much more. Wessex purchased the system four months prior to practical completion and then had five weeks between practical completion and the first move to get everything set up and implemented . Although Service Works Global (SWG) imported some of the existing data from the Wessex Water paper-based system, they also chose to purchase a system that SWG had already populated with template data, which made the implementation process much easier.
In summary, QFM has meant that reported incidents can now be logged and analysed and conference room booking can be accurately monitored. The reports that the system provides are extremely good. Wessex Water uses the catering reports within the conference room booking module and the Contract and SLA reports to give the organisation much more control and performance monitoring capability.