Racing Queensland

About the client

The facilities team at Racing Queensland manage two sites, one being the head office at Deagon, and the training facilities for thoroughbreds and jockeys, and the other Albion Park Raceway in Brisbane. Albion Park is currently one of only six greyhound tracks in Queensland and shares the site with the Albion Park Harness Racing Club. In addition to managing the day-to-day operations of these sites, the team at Racing Queensland provide support and guidance to over 115 racing clubs across Queensland.

The opportunity

Prior to moving to FMI Works, the facilities team at Racing Queensland relied heavily upon the knowledge of individuals to manage works and contractors. Asset information and maintenance histories were stored in disparate spreadsheets, making it difficult to keep track of assets across different sites.

Management of contractors was also a challenge for Racing Queensland’s facilities team. Booking jobs with contractors was mostly organised over the phone, providing verbal instructions. Often, this resulted in contractors arriving onsite without forewarning, only to find the job scheduler was at another location.

As a result, the contractor would end up having to call the scheduler to confirm job details as others were not aware of the booking. It became evident that instead of solely relying on verbal communication between the scheduler and the contractor, the team needed a system to reference bookings.

Implementing a system would help to ensure the team were fully informed on jobs in the pipeline and able to assist contractors on arrival. Additionally, the goal was to ease the burden on the Facilities Services Manager who had been the only source of information and point of contact.

Reliance on an individual’s knowledge exposed the business to risk of knowledge loss over the long term. Without those key team members, the organisation would be faced with rebuilding their FM function from scratch.

The journey

In 2023, the team at Racing Queensland decided it was time to adopt a system to reduce the business risks and pressure on key team members. Their highly efficient and motivated team took just a few months to transition to using FMI Works to manage all work orders planned maintenance, and contractors.

With the help of the FMI onboarding team, Racing Queensland made a seamless transition from paper-based processes to the FMI Works platform. Facilities Services and Project Administrator Melanie Bishop drove the project within Racing Queensland, having been introduced to the FMI team in a previous role.

Melanie says: “I already understood FMI, and I knew it was a really good program to work with. We had no challenges getting up and running, the team were fantastic right from the start, from sales to our project team and now our account manager. The project team were so easy to work with, extremely responsive and took the time to explain things in detail which helped us avoid any problems in induction.”

With the facilities team at Racing Queensland quickly becoming adept at using the platform to manage works, the next step was to onboard the rest of the staff, and their contractors.

Melanie describes getting their facility users onboard: “I created instructions on how to use the platform, and explained why we’re doing this, then sent it out to RQ staff and contractors. After that, apart from providing support for those who had questions, within a few months most had adopted the process and began using the system.” 

“Once we went live, work orders were rolled out across the business pretty much straight away, we didn’t experience any resistance. The feedback has been that it's so easy compared to what they’ve had to do previously, it’s just so simple.”

With facility users and contractors using FMI Works to log and complete work, the facilities team at Racing Queensland have dramatically improved visibility over their operations.

Melanie explains: “Before FMI I had contractors show up, looking for their contact. If they weren’t at their desk, then I wouldn’t know what to say to the contractor, they may have known what they were there to do, although at times, were vague with details, I didn’t know, so couldn’t provide further instruction.

Now, contractors receive sitemaps and other information alongside the work order, but if they do turn up with questions, it is easy for me to log into FMI and check the details of their job.”

Looking to the future

Racing Queensland have made impressive progress in just a few short months of using FMI. After solving their immediate challenges, the team are working towards unlocking the full potential of the platform for their organisation.

Melanie says: “Over the next 12 months, I want to really refine how our contractors use FMI. Getting them using it on their phone, closing off jobs with reports and supporting photos.

Long term, we’ll be working on our asset reporting. We’re already starting to build that foundational data, but I would love to have photos associated with our assets, and more detailed reporting so we can get a better understanding of expenditure on specific trades or assets.”

‍