Ryton Projects “had the right skills mix in terms of technical knowledge, procurement / contract negotiation experience, and project management skills”.

Our client was a metropolitan borough council in the northwest of England, covering a diverse area. Before the last general election, the council embarked on a programme to save significant sums by increasing efficiency. One of the areas highlighted for early work was the reduction of expenditure on office costs, particularly printing.

Like many organisations, office printing grew up in an uncoordinated and ad hoc manner within the council. Often individual teams would buy printers through their own budgets, and left IT with the problem of installing and supporting them. This problem was reduced (though not eliminated) by making a number of printer models available for purchase through the IT department. However, while this may have reduced the variety of devices, it led to a proliferation of small, low-volume devices around the council. These were often moved around by teams whenever they themselves moved. These small devices, while themselves relatively cheap, tended to have much higher consumable costs per printed page than larger devices.

This situation led to difficulties with support, high consumable costs, and no clear central understanding of exactly what was being spent, why, and by whom. This meant this was an area which could quickly benefit from a clear centralised approach to reducing costs.

The council took steps towards achieving significant savings. They identified an OGC framework agreement for managed print services (MPS). MPS give an organisation information and control over their printing. It does this by ensuring all printing is tracked, by location and user. In addition, it can deliver savings by enabling the most efficient distribution of printing devices to be used – larger devices covering many users.

Ryton Projects was brought in as the shortlisting phase of the procurement ended, following the departure of the previous project manager. Coming into a project partway through can always be difficult, but thanks to the experience of Ryton Projects, we were able to take advantage of the position the council found itself in.

In this case, we took the opportunity to do a full review of where the project was, and where it was going. This involved a review of the financial reasons for carrying out the project, the progress made so far, and the plans and timescales for future work.

During this review, Ryton Projects were able to identify a number of areas that needed further work. The financial assumptions and calculations were re-examined, and tightened up where necessary.

Significant amounts were saved from the project budget by reassessing the future plans, leading to unnecessary work being removed. This reduced the timescales, allowing savings to be made.

With a new, clearer path forward, the council, with Ryton Projects, was able to move confidently into the next stage of procurement. Ryton Projects produced a detailed Invitation To Tender to go out to the shortlisted suppliers, together with an evaluation scheme which was both comprehensive, and comprehensible to those using it!

Following the evaluation of the bids, which included clarification meetings with the bidders, a detailed evaluation report was produced by Ryton Projects. Using this report, a preferred bidder was chosen, and contract negotiations began.

Contract negotiations with large, multi-national, technical firms can be daunting. While for the customer, this may be the only contract dealing with this technical area they deal with for years, for the supplier it is of course just one of many. This is where the procurement experience of Ryton Projects shone through, as we were able to deliver a contract with strong safeguards of quality, and a very competitive price.

Once the contract was signed, the hard work of implementing the new solution across the council began.

This work broke down into three main components – the delivery and installation of the new devices, the decommissioning and removal of old devices, and the training of users on the new system.

Working with the supplier, Ryton Projects created a project plan which took into account the needs of the council and supplier. New devices were delivered and rolled out, and any changes to the user’s computers that were needed were applied. This was done while the old devices were still in situ, so that if there were any problems with the new system, they would be available for use. After a period of time (usually a week) the old devices were collected by the supplier, and disposed of (as agreed within the contract).

The training of users was carried out in a model office, with examples of each device available for users to learn on, and practice with. This helped to ensure the majority of users had little difficulty with the new devices.

Some of the challenges that were faced and overcome included dealing with the complexity of rolling out new devices over many varied council sites. As well as the large central offices, the council had a number of satellite sites that needed to be serviced. Some of these were private offices, some were open to the public, while others included only a small office as part of a larger site (e.g. refuse depots, etc.). Each of these needed a slightly different approach. Ryton Projects were able to ensure the needs of the council were met by the supplier in the implementation.

Overall, in the words of the client, the work of Ryton Projects meant the council “maximised the benefits of the OGC framework agreement”. In addition, we also demonstrated we had the “ability to work constructively and effectively within a public sector environment, and to understand the political and legislative constraints”.

This case study is on a national public body, independent of government. They have a statutory duty to promote, monitor, and enforce laws in relation to their area of expertise.

Ryton Projects was involved at the very start of this body, which was formed by the merger of three existing organisations. Building a new organisation from these constituent parts involved many challenges, and the area that Ryton Projects assisted with was the creation of a new national IT infrastructure.

There were numerous issues to be considered in such work. Each of the three precursor organisations already had their own IT infrastructure, and the main challenge was to ensure the best parts of each were re-used, while taking the opportunity to upgrade where necessary.

Ryton Projects was brought in to project manage the IT infrastructure work, and to act as a link between the IT team, based in Manchester, and the rest of the ‘transition team’, based in London. This link was of vital importance – the IT project was just one part of the larger programme of work taking place, with many dependencies between the various strands.

For this contract, Ryton Projects’ contribution was very much around the ‘traditional’ project management endeavours – planning, co-ordination, risk management, etc. Much of the design work for the new infrastructure had been done before we were engaged – our engagement happening as it became clear external expertise and assistance was needed for such a large body of work.

By providing the project management function, Ryton Projects freed up the key internal client team (made up of staff from the precursor organisations) to focus on the work that needed their expertise – building the new infrastructure. In addition, we were able to handle the (relatively simple) procurement required, taking pressure from the IT team. Finally, Ryton Projects also handled some basic management of temporary external contractors.

Of course, with any project of this size, there will always be the odd surprise and hurdle. In this case, a change was made to when the national helpline was due to start, bringing it forward by 6 weeks. Ryton Projects reacted by flexing the project plan to ensure the IT needs of this helpline could be delivered sooner – but that was the easy part. The office the helpline was due to be based in was still undergoing a major refit! To cope with this, temporary office accommodation was secured, and the necessary IT infrastructure, telephone systems, and desktop computers were put in place – all within a couple of weeks!

While some of the reason for this was the project management flexibility and skill shown by Ryton Projects, the majority of the praise would have to go to the IT team, including both internal staff and temporary contractors, who threw themselves into the challenge.

This demonstrates the way Ryton Projects works – providing project management expertise, freeing you up to do what you do best. Together, we can build a strong team spirit within the project, and build on that to achieve success.

Ultimately, the project delivered a working IT infrastructure for the national body as it launched, enabling it to carry out its vital work.