Facilities management services

Tender description

The University is looking to change its approach to how it delivers its Hard FM services across its campuses. Currently, we engage with over 45 service providers alongside our in-house maintenance labour team to provide planned, reactive, and long term maintenance across our portfolio of buildings. The university is looking to reduce the number of external service providers to between 4 and 6, whilst maintaining our in-house maintenance labour capability. The new approach to Hard FM services is of strategic importance to the organisation. The university is keen to build close partnerships with its delivery partners in order to more robustly demonstrate statutory compliance and move towards an asset centric maintenance model. This will allow the university to make informed decisions around its assets in terms of maintenance standards, replacement, refurbishment of spaces and infrastructure with its service level agreements to the university's customers, the students, at its core. The university is about to embark upon the delivery of our 20 years campus plan, Phase 1 is c 220 000 000 GBP investment over the next 5 years in both new and refurbished buildings in the heart of the city. We recognise as an organisation that the operational costs of a facility throughout its life far outweighs the capital build cost. Therefore the new Hard FM delivery partners will be required to become a part of an alliance arrangement alongside the single delivery partners for multi-disciplinary construction consultancy services and contractor for major construction works. The university are keen to involve the Hard FM delivery partners in the design, construction and handover phases of its new capital works. We see this as a great opportunity to improve the quality of our estate, whilst making the transition from capital project to “Business as Usual” as smooth as it can be. In 2017, Sheffield Hallam University commenced an internal review of how it provides FM services across its campuses. This review identified several inefficiencies in the way it operates internally, and how it engages with its external service providers. The review also identified gaps in the universities asset information and found that service standards were inconsistent and often not in line with industry standard practice. Following the internal review, the estates team embarked on a number of work streams aimed at improving the way we deliver Hard FM services. An extensive programme of asset capture was embarked upon, resulting in all key assets being tagged with QR codes, and all assets and spaces being recorded for quantity, age, and condition. A review of our helpdesk and CAFM software systems was also carried out, resulting in the implementation of a new CAFM system which the Hard FM Partners will be required to use. We also reviewed our maintenance and service standards and, utilising a bespoke version of the SFG20 standards as a basis, we have realigned our service standards with our appetite for balancing robust compliance, business continuity, asset management strategy, and appetite for risk. One of the main areas identified for improvement is the number of FM contractors that we engage with. Currently we employ over 45 FM contractors, which have resulted in inefficiencies in contract management, procurement, and makes continuous improvement difficult. By reducing the number of FM contractors to between 4 and 6, with each contractor providing a defined and specialised scope of service, we will be enabled to work more closely with all of our service providers. This will allow us to drive efficiencies and work collaboratively on innovative asset management solutions. We will also expect our FM partners to work as part of an alliance arrangement with the delivery partners for multi-disciplinary construction consultancy services and contractor for major construction works. We have experienced industry wide problems with the design, construction, handover and operationalising of building projects. A contributing factor too many of these issues has been the lack of engagement with the FM providers during design and construction. This results in many of the lessons learnt within the operational phase of a building being overlooked. We see an opportunity to be sector leading in the way we integrate our service providers and are targeting real change within the building industry. The contract agreement will be for an initial 5 years term, with the option to extend for a further 3 years and a final 3 years. This long term commitment should go a long distance to engender a strong partnering ethos that we are ultimately aiming to achieve. The procurement will follow the restricted procedure. The form of contract that we are intending to use is the NEC4 term service contract. If this sounds like the type of opportunity that your organisation would be interested in and your values align to our aspirations (Cont'd in Additional Information).