Gratte Brothers Building Services Maintenance (GBBSM) Estimates SFG20 Saves Them 20% On Building Maintenance Costs

In this in-depth case study, Commercial Manager James Richardson explains how implementing SFG20 across his facility management operations not only helped the Gratte Brothers Building Services Maintenance (GBBSM) with compliance and tendering, but also saved the company an estimated 20% on maintenance costs across its sites.  

Who are the Gratte Brothers Building Services Maintenance (GBBSM)? 

Gratte Brothers Building Services Maintenance is a leading independent provider of comprehensive building services, renowned for exceptional quality. Their services include a complete range of design, installation and maintenance solutions for building services and engineering, security systems and software and foodservice facilities. 

Who is James Richardson?

James Richardson is the Commercial Manager for the hard services maintenance arm of the Group, Gratte Brothers Building Services Maintenance Ltd. James is responsible for tenders, senior client relationships and mobilisation of contracts.  

How long have Gratte Brothers Building Services Maintenance been using SFG20? 

“Gratte Brothers has been using SFG20 since 2007. When I joined, they were using their own bespoke approach to compliance, which was harder to demonstrate.  

It quickly became apparent to me that SFG20 was the way to go, particularly as we were getting outside pressure to demonstrate compliance with the SFG20 standard which was becoming a more and more common requirement in tenders.” 

How does SFG20 feature in your tenders?

“SFG20 is the cornerstone of how we put our proposals together because it’s important to us that we are able to offer a transparent proposal. We never want to promise a service that we are unable to deliver, and SFG20 helps us to provide an exact specification of works. 

SFG20 is also essential for us because it’s a living breathing document, meaning the specification we propose will always be up to date with current standards.  

This is important because our priority as a business is always to ensure that our clients’ systems are running in line with their needs but most importantly, that they’re compliant and that’s as much about having the documentation in place to prove you’ve done the work as it is doing the work. 

Every SFG20 schedule has a link to a British Standard or equivalent standard, which is invaluable to us as a reference, and as proof that we are complying with UK standards.” 

What was the main benefit of SFG20 to you?

“SFG20 gives us that up-to-date compliance with legislation which is all important. 

It saves me time from an estimating and labour loading perspective because you have standard schedules to call on and this ultimately saves time but retains the quality of the output. 

From an operational perspective, adhering to the standard helps everything really, it helps plant efficiency and reduces call outs which is  good for us and good for our clients – and ultimately a happy client is our end goal. 

In terms of operational savings, we’ve never done a formal calculation but I would estimate about 20% as well as the invaluable peace of mind provided to our clients. 

In my opinion just adopting the SFG20 standard will allow most people to make a saving. 

Sustainability is a big focus for us as well as a big talking point at the moment with ESG goals, which clients are asking us to help tackle. SFG20 also helps with that because we are undoubtedly saving energy and reducing carbon emissions, just by following the standard.” 

How would you rate working with SFG20 and why? 

“I would say the experience is generally good, I like the accessibility of the schedules – whenever I have a problem SFG20 is really helpful. I also enjoy the webinars and find those helpful too.”