East Thames Case Study

Location/Area: East Thames and Essex
Duration: 3 years
Team: Asbestos Consultants to the Environment Ltd (ACE), Benfleet Operations ACE is part of the AcePSI Group

The Issue

Based in east London and Essex, East Thames Group is a housing provider with more than 13,500 properties.  To ensure an on-going compliance with the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006 and associated asbestos legislations, codes of practice and guidance, the Group tendered to appoint an asbestos management company. The primary criteria was to appoint a single company with the expertise to undertake complete set of asbestos works while maintaining UKAS accredited standards: ISO17020 & ISO17025 and with the capability to operate efficiently within the geographical area of the property portfolio. Knowledge of setting up AMS (PSI 2000 software) databases and a strong understanding of asbestos management systems & registers in general were also part of key criterions.

Asbestos Consultants to the Environment (ACE), was awarded the full contract in mid July this year.

The contract primarily involves conducting asbestos surveys for all the properties, ranging from low to high risk, in both communal and residential areas. Besides this, ACE is required to undertake asbestos refurbishment/demolition surveys in accordance to HSG 264, bulk sampling & analysis, re-inspection Surveys, air monitoring and project management for asbestos removal.

The Task

ACE needed to start on the project as soon as possible. Phase 1 involved completing around 2000 management surveys by the end of 2011. Although this task was originally scoped to be completed over a span of 12 months, ACE had to effectively deliver it in only 5 months.  Further, due to the nature of high and medium risk, another challenge for ACE was to be able to gain access to all such properties while keeping in mind the tight timelines and availability of occupants.

The Approach

To achieve the goals in time, the project was kick-started after only 3 weeks of mobilisation.

During this time, ACE appointed a dedicated team that included one project manager, one administrator, three data entry administrators and four surveyors. The appointed surveyors had minimum of 5 years of experience, relevant qualifications and at least 3 years of experience of working on Housing projects. Additionally, an auditor, a technical reviewer, an IT personnel and a project director are also assigned to the project to achieve, maintain and monitor the required quality of the delivery.  ACE also carried out the full set up of AMS database including installation and configuration of the complete software application on a number of virtual machines.

To overcome the challenges of property access, ACE organised a dedicated phone-line, email and an administrator to schedule appointments, take bookings and liaise with various parties. Moreover, keeping in mind flexibility with tenants, out of hours appointment and weekend appointments were made to keep up with the programme and ensure maximum access.

Day to day the team carries out management surveys as per the programme. The survey results are captured and imported into AMS database, which is remotely hosted on customer’s Citrix servers. This aspect helps the customers because they are also able to update the database simultaneously. To stay on top of the deliverables, the project team ensures to meet internally once a week and to meet the East Thames project team once in every 2 weeks. Additionally, KPIs are monitored and reported on monthly basis focusing on delivery, quality and health & safety.

ACE has organised a unique and innovative Project management Portal and document management system, which is set up for the contract. East Thames Group has access to this portal and to all related information about the progress of the programme, KPIs, meeting minutes, project status and survey reports. Overall, ACE’s customised project management ability maintains clear and strong channels of communication with the clients and gives them complete access to the most up-to-date information.

The Result

ACE is confident about being able to finish the programme of works for Phase 1 and the entire contract in time. So far, which is by 12^th week out of 20 weeks, ACE has successfully completed nearly 70% of phase 1. Due to the due diligence of the team and stringent quality checks, all surveys done to-date have successfully undergone 10 % re-inspection audit check, which is double the 5% audit as per the best practices.

By applying various strategies, dedicated resources, constant customer liaison and communication, the access rate to properties has also improved from around 60% to over 85%.