University of Chester

University of Chester Social Distancing Exercise.

University of Chester is already an established client of CMS but 2020 has proved to be one of the busiest years we have had for them.

Due to the current pandemic and the universities duty of care to its staff and students CMS were asked to assist with a massive social distancing project.

We were tasked with the removal and storage of furniture from across the entire estate, this included office space, teaching rooms and practical spaces such as labs.

Over a three week period we removed in excess of 4000 chairs, tables and soft seating in order to ensure that everyone maintained a safe distance.

In addition to the furniture removal we were also asked to apply all relevant signage to teaching spaces instructing students on where they should sit.

As an extra safety precaution Chester University precured 100s of acrylic screens to help with the protection, CMS took on the task of distributing and installing these across all teaching and office spaces.

I am pleased to say that although this exercise did not start until August 2020 and the students & staff were all arriving on site in early September we were able to achieve all of Chester Universities objectives both on time and on budget.

ASCO Space Planning

ASCO were contracted by an international investment bank to carry out the relocation of their flagship London office situated on Upper Thames Street in Central London to their newly refurbished offices just a short walk along the Thames.

This was made all the more difficult as it was undertaken during the current pandemic. The basic brief was to vacate their building in its entirety allowing the keys to be handed back to the landlord at the end of September.

CMS dismantled and removed in excess of 650 workstations, 300 filing cabinets and over 750 PCs most of which we now have in storage which are to be re-used in the New Year at their Southampton office following a refurbishment project.

Through our network of partner companies CMS were also able to find a re-use solution for the redundant furniture thereby avoiding landfill and the hefty charges associated with that.

The new client site was far from ready but was able to receive some items such as office chairs and crates of confidential documentation, these items were delivered in at pre-arranged times with the primary refurb contactor so as to avoid congestion with goods lifts and access corridors.

Every part of the clients brief was met right down to replacing all of the cabling back below the raised floor allowing for a deep clean of all carpets by the cleaning team.

Commercial Moving Services approached this project the same way we approach all moves, with a can do attitude and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

This project required both seven day weeks and evening shifts in order to meet the deadline which is part of the norm for office relocation, and we are please to say everything went without a hitch.

Weightmans LLP (national Law Firm with sites throughout the UK)

Weightmans made a decision to reduce their Liverpool footprint, they had decided to hand back one full floor at The Plaza, Liverpool and reduce the workspace from two full floors to one.

This had to be done over two phases, due to the size and scope of the works.

Phase 1 was to relocate in excess of 300 staff from floor 1 to floor 2 which would then allow the complete refurbishment of floor 1 to go ahead.

This particular move was carried out over two consecutive weekends with CMS taking responsibility for the decommissioning, moving and recommissioning all desktop IT kit, breaking down existing desks, repositioning and rebuilding them and on top of all this we were required to sequentially pack, relocate and unpack all of the legal files held within the floor of which there were a lot, this equated to approximately 2500 crates of filing to be packed, moved and unpacked.

Upon completion of these two weekends we then stepped away while the building contractor completed the refurb works to the first floor, this took around 12 weeks, after which we were then required to move the entire workforce down from floor 2 to floor 1.

Due to contractual obligations and the refurb works overrunning we were asked to try and deliver this move across one weekend.

After various meetings with our client and a lot of planning, we came up with a plan to start the move of none essential equipment and filing early on in the week leading up to the move weekend.

A lot of this work could be done during business hours while taking into account that we were operating on a live site and had to keep any disruption to an absolute minimum.

We were able to complete the relocation on time and on budget with our client being in position to get back to full productivity by the Monday afternoon, directly after the move.

This is just one example of many similar projects we have delivered for our clients and demonstrates why we are able to retain our clients.

Projen Engineering Warrington.

After moving Projen into their Preston Brook site in 2010 we were contacted in 2019 and asked to provide a relocation and furniture recycling solution.

Projen had outgrown their old site and were set to move into a new site at Daresbury Park, also in Warrington.

In order to avoid any downtime for Projen we agreed that the move of circa 100 staff would be undertaken over one weekend. CMS provided Projen with all the necessary packing crates a couple of weeks in advance of the move to allow staff sufficient time to pack up all office effects and global filing.

The move was scheduled to start at midday on a Friday at which point the IT system was shut down, CMS worked closely with the in-house IT team to co-ordinate the decommissioning and packing of all desk top IT kit freeing Projen staff up to concentrate on dismantling the servers.

The whole move was completed by Sunday afternoon with all IT back on desks and ready for the staff to arrive t their new flagship sight on Monday and get straight back to business.

As soon as the move was complete we then turned our attention to remaining redundant furniture left behind at the old site.

Through our network of CICs, used furniture dealers and charities we were able to pass on over 70% of the furniture thereby avoiding landfill.

What could not be re-used was broken down and recycled with all wooden desk / table tops being converted into bio fuel.

All in all it was  very successful project delivered on time and on budget resulting in a very happy client.