Students from Sheffield Hallam University have been applying their newly developed skills and expertise in a bid to help leading South Yorkshire law firm Atteys maximise their use of office space and improve the working environment for their staff. It is the first project of its kind to be undertaken in the region and was pioneered by Dr Barry Haynes and Nick Nunnington from the Faculty of Development and Society of Sheffield Hallam University and Atteys Managing Partner Gill Knight. The project was based on similar work Nick has undertaken as a consultant in Scandinavia and Barry with a number of local and national government organisations and an Australian bank. The winning team came up with a number of ideas aimed at helping to maximise the firm's use of space as well as enhancing the way in which the firm operates. Ideas including the introduction of new IT systems, creating and enhancing staff social areas, as well as creating a more open plan layout within each of the offices. Over the past few weeks, nine teams of students, currently working towards degrees in Business Property Management, have been visiting the firm's offices across South Yorkshire, surveying working space, preparing and analysing satisfaction questionnaires and space utilisation records and interviewing members of staff in order to prepare reports and recommendations on how the business could achieve its goals by better use of its premises. Managing Partner Gill Knight said: "This project has been a really worthwhile partnership with benefits all round. It has been a real privilege to work with Sheffield Hallam University, and it's clear from the quality of work produced that the students have been working hard on their proposals. Each group produced some really innovative ideas and there is no doubt that they provoked a debate within the firm about how we use our premises to create a better working environment. "Nine groups of students presented a number of different ideas to us. What particularly impressed me was that each group came up with quite different solutions. I will certainly be looking at the viability of implementing a number of their recommendations in the near future."
Sheffield Hallam website
Rotherham
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The world-leading emissions monitoring system from Rotherham's Martek Marine has been specified for two new 147,000 m3 liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers being built in the DSME shipyard in South Korea. The vessels will be operated by Shell STASCO on behalf of the Brunei Government and the contract follows on the back of 44 other deals for LNG carriers and 21 tankers being built in South Korea over the last three years. One such deal will see the first giant tanker carrying LNG from the Middle East to one of two new terminals in Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire complete with Martek's MariNOx system on board. The Tembek, a 211,885 m3 Q-Flex LNG tanker, was built at the Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard at Geoje, South Korea and launched in November 2007 as part of the Qatargas 2 project. It is one of over 40 vessels in the Qatargas project to be fitted with the MariNOx on-board engine emissions monitoring system. MariNOx was the world's first Type Approved on-board NOx, SOx & CO2 emissions monitoring system and remains the overwhelming market leader with over 100 systems sold.
Rotherham glazing company Solaglas Windowcare, part of the Saint-Gobain Group, has appointed three specialists to head new sector teams as part of an overall restructure of its sales and marketing operation. Andrew Betteridge becomes sales manager for the insurance services sector, Gerard Brierley is sales manager for the maintenance services sector and David Thomas joins the company to head up sales in the commercial glazing sector. Last year, the Hellaby company carried out a re-branding exercise and clarified its offering to insurers, commercial clients and public sector agencies by establishing four key sectors for growth – insurance services, commercial glazing, maintenance services and call management. Managing director, Ian Davy commented: "Since we carried out the successful restructuring of our business into four operating sectors we have been developing our sales and marketing strategy to ensure we are capable of meeting our ambitious growth plans for each revenue area and are able to professionally manage a dramatically increased customer base." Solaglas Windowcare employs some 340 people serving clients through a nationwide network of highly-skilled, directly-employed engineers and glaziers from its Rotherham contact centre and factory, supported by a bespoke real-time workflow system.
