Mills & Reeve is a top five UK law firm whose commercial clients include global and UK based businesses, FTSE and AIM listed organisations, private companies and start-ups as well as more than 120 universities, colleges and education bodies, and over 100 healthcare organisations.
Client Requirements
Mills & Reeve required a specialist business moving contractor to provide a fully managed move service for the relocation of 230 office staff from its existing office in Norwich, which was due to undergo a full refurbishment.
Existing furniture, filing, storage, and personal effects were to be relocated into three temporary offices in adjacent buildings.
Approximately eight months later, and following extensive building works, these same staff needed to relocate back to the refurbished office.
The relocation included :
- The physical removal of approximately 300 desks, 300 chairs and 300 pedestal units, as well as associated filing and storage, and staff personal effects.
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A packing and up-packing service, plus the supply of packing crates (including the packing and unpacking of files).
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Decommissioning and recommissioning of all IT equipment.
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The responsible disposal of remaining furniture.
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A Move Manager to liaise with the Regional Facilities Manager and conduct planning meetings with the staff.
Solution
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An experienced Pickfords Project Manager worked closely with Mills & Reeve to ensure a seamless transition to the new site.
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The move was undertaken in two phases; phase one as a tester phase with the relocation of a single team of 12 staff followed by phase 2 with the relocation of the remaining 280 staff.
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230 desks, chairs, and pedestals were dismantled and disposed of through the Pickfords environmental programme.
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New Category 6 infrastructure was put in place at the new office
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The de-commissioning of approximately 300 desktops took place on the Friday before the weekend move. The commissioning of every one of these onto new monitor arms was then completed over Saturday and Sunday.
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The servers were moved by specialist teams and were rationalised and redistributed across the server racks as part of the move. All the servers were moved and redeployed within a 12-hour window on the Friday night to minimise disruption.
With one large move in one weekend involving a large multi-disciplinary team, effective project management and planning were the keys to completing the move.
Result
The move was completed on time and within budget ensuring “business as usual” on Monday Morning.