Several years ago we were approached by Sykes Global in the creation of an office space in Galashiels. Fast forward to 2017 and Purdie Worldwide have partnered up again with Sykes Global in their office relocation from Galashiels to Currie House in Edinburgh.

Client Requirement

• Collect 164 chairs and office desks from Storage Facility in Galashiels
• Transport of 164 chairs and office desks from Galashiels to Currie House in Edinburgh
• Re-assembly of 164 office desks across two floors of Currie House
• Desks and Chairs to be aligned according to architect’s plan
• Workstations to be completed by 7th July to allow the IT team to install and setup the computers

Project Solution

• Transport of 164 chairs and desks to Currie House
• Deliver 164 chairs and desks into the first floor of Currie House
• 3-man team over 3 days, job split into 3 sections (55 tables per day)
• The first floor consisted of 110 workstations, whereas the second floor consisted of 54 workstations. The first floor should be completed over 2 days, with the second floor being completed on the 3rd day, as long as an average of approximately 55 desks were being built per day.

The desks and chairs had been delivered to Currie House the day before by a previous crew and unfortunately, as they did not have a copy of the plan, had placed the majority of the chairs and desks in the locations where workstations would have been. So in order to put a completed workstation in its correct location we would have to move the 10 high stacked table tops. This would not be very efficient.

As a result, we split the team into 3 and assigned tasks. Worker 1’s task was to move the table tops blocking our way to a more accessible and convenient location. Worker 2’s task was to start bringing the pieces of each desk together (each desk consisted of a table top, a left leg, a right leg, a backboard and a cable tray). With the pieces of each desk brought together they were placed in their relevant locations in the office. Worker 3 had the task of assembling the desks once they had been put into place. Task 3 would take the longest, whereas soon as Worker 1 had finished, they would come in behind Worker 3 and start flipping and aligning the desks according to the plan. Once Worker 2 had finished location and positioning the desk pieces he would start bringing in the chairs from the more convenient location Worker 1 had setup.

This solution worked well for the first 2 days, and along with liaising with the painters to ensure we weren’t putting desks in places that hadn’t been painted yet, nothing else went wrong until day 3.

The desks for the second floor were unfortunately slightly different to the ones we re-assembled for the first floor. These desks were a lot older. In fact, the British Telecom stickers on the underside bore the year 1998. Yes, these desks were almost 20 years old.

The issue with the age of the desks came into play when we first tried to flip over the first re-assembled desk. These desks had a similar design to the first desks except the legs bolted onto a metal rectangular frame that was in turn bolted to the underside of the desks. Unfortunately, when we lifted the desks over, the weight of the frame and legs were too much for the small plastic fixings in the 20-year-old chipboard, so as we lifted the desks up, the frame and legs fell away.

In order to resolve the situation, we had to purchase 100 new screws and fixings, along with a taped drill bit to ensure that we didn’t puncture the desks completely, and manually reaffixed the frames and legs for every desk.

Lesson of the week? Do a feasibility test of how easy the desks will be to put back together before quoting.