Constructed in less than a year at a cost of $23m the Al Raha Beach theatre is located on the waterfront. With a capacity of 2100, it is one of the sites of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage.
Khidmah was recently awarded a contract through Musanada for 17 sites of ADACH including the cultural landmark theatre. And FM service delivery was expected to be as speedy as its construction.
“One of the reasons Musanada selected Khidmah was the fact that we needed to demonstrate change immediately for their client. We set ourselves a target of 60 days in which to complete the annual maintenance, identifying both latent and patent defects,” said Khidmah services supervisor, Abdulla Al Amri.
“Some of these buildings are over 20 years old and required immediate attention. Prior to Musanada, the reactive maintenance was much higher than preventative and predictive.”
Khidmah arranged weekly mobilisation sessions between ADACH, Musanada and itself. Many clients would not allow this in a tripartite arrangement but Musanada wanted to promote open dialogue between all three parties from the outset in a formal and informal manner.
A process of deep cleaning, civil work and annual MEP maintenance work ensued and the priority then became to shift the 80:20 reactive:preventative balance to 20:80 reactive:preventative maintenance.
Musanada encouraged Khidmah to work towards this target and regular reports were analysed by the engineers to ensure the reactive works reflected this progress.
“It took approximately three months to work through the challenges, said Ahmad Mansour FM for Khidmah.
“We had to have the team ready set up. They knew the place, had their tools, and a minimum number of spare parts ready because you didn’t have time to go back and get things. Repair work on all the defects began, after which we looked at preventative FM.”
There is a dedicated MEP team on site consisting of a mechanical supervisor, electrical engineer, two electrical supervisors and technicians. The electrical bias is due to the volume of electrical works on site.
For the theatre project Khidmah works closely with its Musanada counterparts. For example, the Khidmah team works on the lighting system, fixing minor electrical issues but a specialist engineer is assigned on Musanada’s part for major works and the stage lighting. Specialist contractors are also employed for lifts and fire systems.
Every challenge is a learn
Trying to increase understanding of best working practice is a challenge everywhere, says Mansour.
“For one of our clients, there were 12 chillers running for 24hrs when they were only needed for eight hours a day. Sometimes it can be difficult to understand what works best until you see it in practice and baseline the usage. So we got to work and installed electric meters for the chillers only, taking daily readings.
40% of the system was turned on during the night so we could analyse the cost savings and see the cause and effect which was huge. There was no difference felt in cooling. The results were amazing.
“Prior to Musanada coming on board, many things were fixed as and when they broke. Musanada has ensured there is now an engineer in place to promote a more proactive and strategic approach. It’s great to have this support from our client to progress with long term improvements for the properties” said Mansour.
The chillers in the theatre were installed during its construction. When Musanada appointed Khidmah on to the project, only one worked at half capacity. Because of the theatre’s busy schedule, it was difficult for ADACH to replace the chillers while running the theatre as normal.
As a result Musanada made the decision with Khidmah’s recommendation to run one chiller using materials from the other. The two York chillers were repaired and all four now work at full capacity as per building regulations.
Of the four compressors that are also in place, two are run at the same time to save energy and compressors.
“It took our team and two contractors around four weeks to work on the chillers. Previously, the area was treated as a storage area. Now it operates effectively as a chiller room,” said Mansour.
Many things, though not outlined in the original scope of work, were addressed on site by Musanada and Khidmah, including landscaping, which was carried out by Khidmah’s team, and a number of specialist cleaning jobs such the weights that pull the gantries up and down with the lights on.
“There are no stage managers and handlers to do it so it was an expectation that the cleaning team would provide the service,” explained cleaning manager, Jayne Ludlam.
“It was a learning curve but we worked with our client and did it and we now know how to do it,” she added.
As for the rest of the cleaning, Ludlam says it is like cleaning anything else. But like a lot of buildings in the UAE, there can be cleaning challenges, says Ludlam.
“Due to their unique structures, few buildings have some glass shelving at the top which we can’t get at because there’s no safe platform to put machinery on to be able to clean it. That is a challenge we are working to address now. Musanada recognises and supports us in ensuring the appropriate risk measures are in place for high risk work.”
The elements themselves have also caused cleaning problems and damage. “On the exterior of the theatre there’s a lot of sand damage to the lights, paintwork and the ornamental fencing which needs to be painted,” she added.
Technologically, there have been hurdles too, which the Musanada and Khidmah teams have had to overcome. The BMS system is not operating at full efficiency. Khidmah and Musanada teams are now working together to make decisions to either repair, replace or upgrade the assets as was done with the CCTV which initially wasn’t functioning but has now been resolved and is working effectively.
Going digital
And technology was one of the main things Musanada addressed as part of the FM aspect bringing FSI on board to install a CAFM system for the ADACH project.
“The project itself was a huge management vision. It was something new to have a centralised tool brought in to the organisation,” said Adrian Jarvis, general manager, FSI.
“Recording asset info and centralising details for over 3000 buildings had its own challenges in making sure data was provided in a consistent fashion and that performance of it was consistent. Providing a tool to drive accountability was part of the big picture.”
A major part of this involved understanding the vision of Musanada to provide quality services to the government.
A shared understanding
“We had to understand how a software tool could make that vision happen. We had to understand the technical capability of those that would be interacting with the system. They had to understand what they were supposed to be doing in terms of delivering and interacting with the CAFM tool.”
FSI wanted to make sure people understood why it was there. This meant bringing people into the same vision – that the use of software was very important.
One of the challenges was that while many contractors were managing day to day operational work through their own system, it was still necessary for Musanada to be able to obtain the lifecycle information within their own system for the long term. This was tackled by allowing some semi automated and manual procedures to continue.
“Technology can do wonderful things and the entire process could be automated but it wasn’t practical. Therefore some semi automated and manual procedures were introduced which allowed contractors to send emails which could be entered into the system,” said Jarvis.
Training around the system was also necessary for it to work effectively.
“Most importantly, we were on site for our project so we understood the day to day changes and challenges Musanada was facing during the introduction,” said Jarvis.
FSI is now at the end of the initial stage of the project. It has installed a helpdesk that distributes jobs to contractors by regions and buildings they are responsible for when raised.
“Contractors now have substantially complete asset data and maintenance regimes which will be managed with interaction back to the asset lifecycle.”
But one of the things Jarvis stressed upon was that it was important to remember why the technology was there.
“Technology is an enabler; don’t use it for technology’s sake and don’t underestimate its impact on people. FM is a people business, this should not be forgotten by using technology,” he concluded.