Tuesday 19 February 2013

PKL at London 2012: Part 1

In today's guest post, PKL's Commercial Director Peter Schad blogs about a particularly exciting project he worked on last summer...

The restrictions have been lifted, and I am delighted to finally be allowed to share last summer's big news with you!

PKL supplied temporary overlay facilities to 150 separate kitchen locations at the Olympic and Paralympic Games in London 2012. This included a wide variety of locations around the Olympic Park, and other Olympic sites within the UK. In total, our temporary kitchens were used to provide over 250,000 meals per day.

The total facilities we supplied to the Olympics amounted to over 7,500 pieces of commercial catering equipment from PKL’s hire fleet, which were transported to London in over 140 lorry loads and installed by our team of engineers.


The overall contract represented four years of hard work from PKL, in competing for and winning the various temporary catering equipment contracts at London 2012, and working with LOCOG and the onsite contract caterers from an early stage to ensure that the venues were designed and supplied to exact requirements.
 

Turnkey Solution

We provided a complete turnkey solution including all design, transportation, installation, project management and maintenance services during the Games.

The installation process itself was undertaken over a five month period between February and June and involved the relocation of a number of PKL staff to London during this period to oversee the process. In addition, we employed a dedicated team for the delivery and installation process which helped to create an extra 25 jobs over a 12-18 month period. We assigned project managers to oversee each temporary kitchen installation, and had engineers based on site throughout the Games. This ensured that not only did the installation process run as smoothly as possible, but that crucially the kitchens remained operational during the Games period causing no disruption to the athletes. 

Awards and Recognition

As a result of my work on the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, I
was honoured in Catering Insight’s Hot 100, and PKL was shortlisted for an International Sports Event Management Award, in the Event Overlay and Facilities category.

Final Thoughts

The most satisfying aspect of the London Games has been the scale of our achievement. Each year, the catering and dining facilities required for the Olympic Games gets bigger and bigger, and London 2012 was no exception. It has far surpassed any other Olympics in which we have been involved.


It was not just the size of the undertaking, it was the deadline. All facilities had to be completed within a short four-week window before the Games. Thanks to our extensive experience of supplying previous major games, delivering the entire project on time and on budget was a challenge which PKL rose to and fulfilled successfully. PKL had to rely on all its expertise to mobilise 30 engineers, 7,500 items of equipment, and nearly 200 40 foot truck movements.


Look out for Part 2 coming soon, where I'll give an overview of the different facilities we supplied to the various Olympic venues...

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Great Job PKL, under the able guidance of Peter Schad. I am sure PKL is going to be a step ahead in Glasgow Games also. All the best in advance.

Rakesh K Singh
New Delhi, India