Best of both worlds

After 40 years as a successful privately-owned Mechanical & Electrical service provider, Planned Maintenance Engineering became part of the Carillion group of companies on the 8th March 2005. It now aims to provide the personalised service of a private organisation, alongside the security of dealing with a national organisation.

The parent company acquired Planned Maintenance Engineering (PME) with the specific intention of creating a specialist mechanical and electrical operation within the larger group. PME is therefore now Carillion’s sole gas operation in the social housing market, and where other parts of the group have previously contained a gas component, these have now been absorbed into the PME structure.

It works across the full spectrum of sectors, from social housing to commercial, and can offer servicing, responsive maintenance, installations – the full gamut of services. Its social housing operation stretches from the environs surrounding its Battersea head office up as far as the East Midlands, with a presence in the South West and Wales.

Although 70 per cent of the company’s housing work takes place within the M25, it also carries out work in East Anglia and the East Midlands, with a Birmingham office that handles its commercial work in these areas. The social housing operation is overseen from head office, as the Birmingham office extends its social housing skill base.

This may be set to change, however, as PME is preparing itself for a major expansion drive beyond the confines of the London Orbital, heading up the M1 and spreading out as it goes. The knowledge and skills gained in the last 30 years will stand PME in good stead as it looks to expand geographically.

As new divisional manager Stuart Websdale said: “We’ve been doing a lot of good work with our clients for a long time. We’ve worked in Hounslow for 30 years, and currently look after the gas needs of 7,000 homes there.”

In Newham, working for Newham Homes the ALMO for Newham Council, the company’s biggest social housing contract sees it looking after 16,000 homes. During this period by working closely together, employing local staff and adapting flexible working patterns, it has improved the access rate in the annual gas safety inspections to 99.54 per cent compliant.

“We have not always been the best at letting people know about what we can do,” Websdale added. “It’s time to start changing that, and as part of Carillion we can offer clients many other disciplines from within the group, right up to offering full facilities management contracts.”

The company certainly has ambitious plans, but this is far from the over-exuberance of a newly taken over company marvelling at the prospect of accessing the new parent’s knowledge bank.

PME has spent two years since the takeover consolidating, and feels that with the two companies now successfully integrated the time is right to launch the next phase. New managers have been brought in to work alongside the old hands who remain from the former regime, such as new face Websdale.

“Private companies reach a point where they’ve gone as far as they can, they reach the top of their game, but it’s very hard to then step up to the next level and compete with the larger organisations,” he said. “You can see it happening all over the sector, and from that point of view the takeover came at the right time for PME. We now have a dramatically increased focus in the market, with all the financial and procurement advantages that being part of Carillion brings, as well as the ability to operate in many areas that would not have been practical had the company continued to go it alone.

“On the other side of the coin though, with our history and experience, we can still offer the personal service expected of a smaller company within this framework, and that individual touch is important to customers.”

Call centre manager Sonia Hope is at the forefront of this personal approach. She said: “We have our call centre on site here at the office and in Leatherhead, which means we’re always on hand, 24 hours-a-day, to assist clients. The other advantage to having all our own home-based call centre staff is that as part of their training, all staff go out in the field with engineers, so they have an understanding of jobs at hand. This helps them to deal with customer enquiries better.”

This close contact with customers is doubtless also a factor in PME having achieved 99.47 per cent compliance on issued CP12s last year with their largest customer. The company’s firm belief in directly employing staff, meaning that many customers may have received visits from the same engineer for several years, is also key. The company is also committed to supplying essential materials in languages or formats that customers can understand, while the call centre can give advance warning of visits, all helping to bolster the impressive access rates.

PME is further committed to making the most of local skills and resources. Because it carries out the full range of work, from installation to servicing, its regional depots carry many spare parts, speeding up the repairs process. Local labour, meanwhile, is crucial to the company’s operation.

Websdale explained: “It just makes sense to recruit locally, not only from the point of view of creating sustainable employment, but also from our own point of view – if an engineer is needed on an emergency call out, he’s a lot more use within the community where its taking place than

travelling from miles away.”

PME operates a number of apprenticeship schemes, and on some, such as that in Newham, its own apprentices work alongside the council’s apprentices. “It means the council trainees get to complete the gas part of their apprenticeships, but also that they have the advantage of seeing the job from a different perspective, working alongside a private organisation,” Websdale pointed out.

Its own bespoke software system – Fusion – allows the company to keep on top of all of its operations. The software’s ability to integrate with clients’ own systems and offer web access to job details, instant updates via engineer’s portable devices and live financial information, PME keeps itself at the cutting edge of its game.

“We have a lot of ability and knowledge within the business, but we’ve maybe not made the most of shouting about it in the past,” Websdale said. “We feel that now is the time to start sharing that knowledge and ability with prospective clients, and we’re confident that it will be to the benefit of all parties.”