Challenge

Johnsons Business Moves were awarded the major five-phase decant project at the University of Salford. The project consisted of:

Embedding a Move Manager capable of value engineering complex projects

Providing support to the internal estates team and advising on room/building consolidation and configuration plans

Supplying external expertise to the senior stakeholders involved

Attending client meetings with all key stakeholders

Providing an experienced team for the duration of the project

Project move management for a five-phase decant

Organising and coordinating the external office and machinery relocation

IT decom/recom and transfer

Provision of sufficient resources, crates and materials to complete the relocation of all inventoried items

Crate supply, distribution and management throughout all project phases

Providing purpose built wooden Novak crates for high value and delicate items

Dismantling, moving and reassembling of all library racking

Packing, moving and unpacking of all library shelf contents

Supply of mobile hanging rails for costume items to be transferred in

Provision of a fitter to unbolt and re-fit photography backdrops

Ensuring a robust project management structure is in place with clear, defined lines of communication, accountability and issue resolution

Agreeing on and ensuring all KPI’s in place are practical, accountable and reportable

Removal of first floor window and relocation of a number of machines through the window using a telehandler

Solution

We provided the University with a project management team to undertake the decant over four phases with an optional 5th:

Phase 1: Workshops/Recording Studios – decommissioning and moving

Phase 2: Specialist Spaces (Recording Studios, Store Rooms, Theatre, Rehearsals/Studio Theatres, Green Room, Ensemble/Tuition/Band Rooms, Wardrobe, TV Acting Studios, Dance Studios, PC Suites (250 PC/Mac Units), Photography Studios, Fashion, Architecture, Graphics/Visual Arts Library & Technical Staff

Phase 3: Management, Admin & Academic Staff (150 staff)

Phase 4: Library Stock move

Phase 5: Graphics Print room move

Considerations:

Providing a consistent, capable and experienced team throughout all five phases of the project

University staff not being ready to relocate

Large items would not fit in the lift

Moving pieces of kit containing oil or liquid

Reconfiguring racking/having the right parts to enable this

Working with the University to ensure books were available throughout the project

Ensuring the sections had the capacity for the volume of books

Physical floor elements (pillars/fire doors/floor boxes)

Outcomes:

We made sure the expertise and experience of the teams provided remained consistent for the duration of the four phases carried out so far

We reviewed and altered the move programme to provide any staff not ready to relocate with more time to prepare themselves. We allocated an extra team of packers to assist them with packing their crates

We hired a mobile crane and removed the windows to allow us to safely relocate all heavy/large items

Pre-planning and ensuring we had the required parts in advance of the moves

Regular reporting to client as to where the books are located throughout the process

Providing an experienced and flexible team to reposition the racking to accommodate overlooked physical items etc.