Chelsea Harbour

About the client

The Chelsea Harbour Estate lies on a 20-acre site in west London, adjacent to the Thames. At its heart sits The Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour, the largest interior design, retail and trade centre in Europe. This area features 120 showrooms, 600 international brands and a raft of pop-up House Guests at numerous events held there during the year. The Estate also includes 160,000 sq. ft. of office space, let to over 100 independent businesses, a five-star hotel, 80 berth marina, car parking for 1,000+ cars and 310 exclusive residential apartments.

The need

At Chelsea Harbour, the outsourced FM provider serves two clients, in the form of the Estates and Property Management team (day-to-day operational detail), plus an executive relationship with Chelsea Harbour, related to the retail and events activity. The extensive site geography and the diverse office, retail and residential space, creates a unique set of FM demands, generating a multitude of non-standard, reactive tasks on a daily basis. The scope of work spans M&E services, cleaning, residential cleaning and waste management, exhibition and events management, projects, marina maintenance and operation.

The Q3 solution

When Q3 secured the contract in 2018, and recognising the challenges described above, we proposed a fresh approach to achieve a step-change in service levels.

To achieve this, Q3 introduced new systems and procedures, continuous improvement programmes, new working practices and better time management. Most importantly, our solution gave the onsite management the freedom and autonomy to make decisions and implement them.

In operations, we reshaped the team to provide a more responsive, fleet-footed style of delivery to meet the high level of demand for reactive tasks. The entire team was restructured, replacing specialists with multi-skilled, multi-trade handymen, with all round ability. Training and development were critical to ensure that the existing team could deliver more services on site, with the same resource, all designed to improve productivity and add value.

The management function was then responsible for juggling this resource to best effect, to deliver the right operative, with the right skills, to the right place, at the right time, to get a particular job done.

One innovative aspect of this new approach relates to the alternative way of costing, and charging for, this new arrangement. By taking the view that with the new team in place, they had a fixed cost overhead, it didn’t matter whether an operative was unblocking a toilet, changing a light fitting, or painting a wall, so long as the costs for that man’s time were being covered adequately.

Results

The all–encompassing umbrella, labour-pricing model, has saved hundreds of hours in administration and delivered thousands of pounds worth of savings

The flexible delivery model allows Q3 to deliver a wide range of non-standard activities including:

• Retail showcase events – constructing the exhibition stands and space
• Designing and building bespoke displays and structures for the retail area
• Converting a retail showroom from one to two units
• Operating lock gates in the marina, maintaining boardwalks and general waterside maintenance
• Installation of ceiling-level displays
• Riverside and car park cleaning

The Q3 team has worked closely with the client to develop a waste management strategy, introducing innovative waste handling equipment and supporting Chelsea Harbour’s sustainability plan and Net Zero objectives

“There is one team here at Chelsea Harbour with a pride in what they are doing. Interaction between Chelsea Harbour and Q3 is seamless because we are all on the same page and acknowledge the one, can-do culture!” Sailesh Siyani, Head of Estates Operations