the experience of Robin Ellerthorpe

the experience of Robin Ellerthorpe, a principal and director of
consultants at OWP/P, a Chicago-based fully integrated architecture
firm: “We find that clients are so focused on increasing the
value of what they have, they’re totally caught up in those results.”
This focus on results in a particular business or industry can cause
great results in that area but leave untapped potential results from
other areas not of high focus.
For example, a hospital typically spends most (if not all) of its
focus on providing health care. Decisions to purchase medical
devices, such as a new MRI machine, are straightforward, since
the benefit and financial payback to health care professionals are
intuitive. However, looking at areas outside of health care, it is not
as obvious. “When they look at their facilities, they anguish
because they can’t see the benefit of accounting for space,” says
Ellerthorpe.
Like many hospitals, Lake Forest Hospital rents outside office
space to medical professionals. By broadening its focus outside its
traditional area of health care, the hospital discovered that it was
only charging for the usable office space because that was what the
tenants were technically occupying. Ellerthorpe’s analysis showed
that the tenants all were paying below-market rates. Once this was
shown to the tenants and the hospital, the hospital increased the
rents, netting an additional $750,000 per year.
Another of OWP/P’s clients in the area of asset management,
the State of Illinois has sixty million square feet of space. By developing
and instituting processes and process improvements, including
review of the leases, facility uses, and number of people
working in the offices, OWP/P identified $40 million worth of savings
on the state’s budget of $430 million. “Processes have to show
results,” says Ellerthorpe.
Ellerthorpe deploys assessment teams to quantify everything.
For one client, the group oversaw management of eight thousand
service contracts having to do with services such as snow removal
and janitorial services. Computer applications were used to catalog