Partner for change

The Ghent Police District wanted to accommodate the greater part of its operations in a new police building.

Strategic challenge

The Ghent Police District services were accommodated in different buildings that are spread throughout the city. This sometimes made it unclear for citizens where they should go. This situation also adversely affected the internal collaboration between services and staff. In addition, the (often outdated) accommodation was not suited to the needs and challenges of a modern police force.

This is why the Ghent Police District wanted to accommodate the greater part of its operations in a new police building. As a first step, the organisation wanted a detailed and substantiated schedule of requirements as input for the design phase. In the meantime, the organisation wanted to use this strategic moment to further optimise internal operations.

To our great satisfaction, Möbius has assisted in the change project that goes hand in hand with the drawing up of a schedule of requirements for our new building. The manner in which this assistance was given was professional on all fronts and emphasised process thinking and the finding of the best possible substantiated solutions.

Philip Rasschaert Ghent Police District Superintendent

Approach

A participative approach was used to entailor the involvement of a large group of staff and active representatives of the Federal Police and the City. We also resolutely started with the processes (including patrol routes, underlying vicinity of services and spaces, etc.), to make sure that the building design will be tailored as much as possible to align with police force operations.

An initial phase was focused on forming the vision and included document analysis, orientation meetings, site visits and reference visits. On a vision day, we interacted with forty participants to determine the future vision for the new police building.

A second phase was focused on the elaboration of the schedule of requirements with a distinction between the office environment and the non-office environment. The elaboration of the office environment (workplaces, meeting places, etc.) included interviews, workplace measurements, determination of work style per functional profile and the working out of a dynamic workplace environment (according to the principles of 'the new way of working'). The elaboration of the non-office environment (logistics zone, detention zone, etc.) included walking through processes and workshops on each process and zone, where outlines were used to conceptualise and document each zone. On a second vision day, we interacted with staff to discuss and further refine all proposals. All information was then consolidated in the schedule of requirements and supplemented with an estimate of the cost price.

In the meantime, we also drew up site specifications that will allow the development of a smart organisation in the coming years. Optimisation projects have already started for several sites. This involves, among others, projects for HRM and Personnel, ICT, vehicle management, warehouse management and digitisation and archiving.