Introduction
The SA Aquatic & Leisure Centre is located in the City of Marion, South Australia, and provides 1,000 square meters of leisure water. It was built after an increase in demand for more comprehensive sporting facilities in the area. With the support of the local government, the centre was built to host international and national aquatic sporting events. The motivation for this was to bring back elite sport into the state of South Australia. Not only does the centre host elite sporting events, but it also has facilities for the general public to enjoy all year around. In addition to the aquatic facilities, the centre is also equipped to run fitness, and health programs that benefit and engage the entire community.
The centre boasts a 50m competition pool, hydraulic dive boards, a 55m athlete recovery pool, a 25m program pool, and a learn to swim pool. In addition, the centre has a therapeutic spa, a leisure pool with aquatic playground, sauna, steam room, health club, group fitness rooms, child minding, food, and beverage, car parking, elite sporting administration offices, waterslides, and a function area for private hire. All facilities are priced at a reasonable cost in order to attract the entire community. In addition, they also have membership programs which are available to long term users.
The South Australian government is the owner of this impressive centre. They have appointed the YMCA as managers of the facility. The YMCA is a not-for-profit organisation who is wholly community based. The centre employs around 250 locals, and as the facility becomes more popular they plan to employ even more. The government has not only had the community in mind when building this facility, but also the environment. The pools are heated using solar power. They also re-use water in the toilet areas, and use water saving devices in the showers. They also have a comprehensive drought management plan in place.
In addition to this, the centre continues to be environmentally conscious by collecting storm water, using filtration systems that use minimal energy, and building management systems that control the atmospheric environment to the right temperatures while reducing power consumption costs. Furthermore, the YMCA has a comprehensive environmental plan in place to continue to reduce the impact the facility has on the environment.
The government has used the Marion site well. It is 26,400 square meters in total, with around 560 car parks. So in addition to the aquatic centre, the South Australian government has built a large GP healthcare centre. This healthcare centre includes a community mental health centre which opened its doors in 2011. Both of these healthcare facilities have broken state records. The GP facilities are the largest in the state, and the community mental health centre is a first for South Australia as well. The healthcare centre aims to provide services such as;
Healthy lifestyle programs
Dental services
Health counselling services
Drug and alcohol counselling
Mental health counselling and support services
Allied health therapy services such as podiatry, physiotherapy, nutrition and psychology
Early childhood development therapy, including speech pathology and occupational therapy
Health assessment, education and counselling.
Overall, the entire site is geared towards providing the community with the best health facilities available that looks after their entire wellbeing from head to toe.
Analysis
The technology used in the facility is cutting edge. The main one is the highly efficient water filtration system. Since the centre has to filter an immense amount of water every day the government wanted to make sure the filtration system was high end, and efficient enough to actually cut costs and help the environment as well. The other key piece of technology used is the solar panels that are located on the roof. While, solar panels are no becoming more common place, this type of technology in a public facility is rare. The centre uses the solar panels to heat the pools; this cuts power consumption and lowers the centre’s environmental impact. Both of these groups ensure that the centre is self sufficient and able to cope with demand.
In the event that the sun is covered by cloud, and the centre does not generate enough energy from its solar panels, a backup system is in place that uses the city power grid. One solution to prevent this from happening could be to increase the amount of solar panels at the facility. In the summer the facility would then produce enough energy to power more of the facility using solar energy, and not just heat the water. However, because the centre is till relatively new the solar panels that are in place are sufficient for the time being.
Another issue that arises from the centre being relatively new is that construction on improvements is still ongoing. These improvements tend to disrupt the centre’s normal daily programs and activities. They also impact the customers who at times may have to re-schedule important events because of the work being undertaken. On the 8th of June 2016 the facility underwent an upgrade to its gas system. Some of the impacts to customers were;
No heated showers
No hot water
Less items available in the café
Moderate effect on the Leisure Area pool temperatures
Overall disruption to services
They also had o close the sauna room on the 5th of May in order to improve on the seating. This meant that anyone who had booked into the centre wanting to use the sauna room couldn’t. Refurbishments and ongoing construction in the facility can be a PR nightmare and a customer service nightmare too. The government made big promises to the public and disruptions like this could be seen, as failing to deliver on those promises for a smooth running facility.
In order to minimise the impacts such improvements have upon the customers, the centre sent out an alert via its website. For such a large facility customer service is paramount and the centre has its own dedicated customer service team, and telephone line. One suggestion to improve customer service when events like this happen is to ensure all customers are notified whether they read the website or not. This may entail putting an advertisement in the local paper, and / or giving out flyers to clients as they enter in, or notifying membership holders of the works.
Logistical issues arise out of the car parking facilities, particularly the multi-story car park. When elite sporting events are on, the facilities car parks become a premium and the multi-story car park is a nightmare to get in and out of. To remedy this situation the centre puts’ out alerts on their website informing customers to allow some extra time due to congestion issues. However, as previously stated, not all clients regularly check the website. So I think the centre could remedy this a bit better by making sure the public is well informed on multiple channels. This would give most patrons the opportunity to be forewarned about such interruptions and minimise the impacts it has on customer satisfaction.
In order to do this the centre will need a dedicated small team of individuals who are social media experts. Their responsibilities will include the maintenance of all social media channels and upholding the centres social media protocols. It is important to note that social media is an open space, and the centre cannot control what people may say. However, they can have clear engagement rules for their followers, and repercussions such as banning for individuals who abuse it.
These protocols would form part of the risk assessment for this area of the centre’s operations. Social media has proven to be an effective communication tool. However, if it is managed badly it can backfire, and cause issues for the centre. That is why I suggest that the centre employs a dedicated social media / communications / media team that are professionally trained to handle the kinds of issues that arise from social media platforms. If managed well the centre could increase its reach, and customer base. It could give its customers a better level of satisfaction by properly informing them of changes, improvements, and disruptions to their normal scheduling.
What the centre are doing really well in regards to customer satisfaction is its membership programs. The centre offers affordable membership programs and rewards its members monthly by choosing a member of the month to receive an award which recognises their contribution to the facility, and community. I think this is a great way or retaining customers and getting the community involved at the facility.
Other issues with the facility were present in the early days of opening the facility. The builder was called back in to fix issues that included health hand safety risks. The risks were significant and involved the storage of chlorine and gas at the centre. In addition to this, the facility found faults in the fittings and pipes that could leak and present fire risk issues. Other problems that arose included problems with lighting and temperature control. According to the centre the fix can to around 3 million dollars, but they held the builder liable for the fix since they were within their warranty.
These issues meant that swimming carnivals had to be cancelled and re-arranged, this lead to a public outrage over the running of the facility. Although the issue was very serious, and could have lead to the downfall of the centre, the issues were rectified and the centre has since built a solid reputation for its world class facilities.
Assets management is very important for a facility of this size, and I think management learned from its earlier issues and have put strategic plan in place to manage the facilities so that they remain safe for the public to use. Recent issues relate to the theft of items within the facility. A number of patrons had their wallets, personal effects, and purses stolen while they were swimming. Although the centre has dedicated lockers available, the price to use them isn’t always attainable for all patrons.
Unfortunately, until this incident the centre’s CCTV cameras inside the facility were poor. This meant that many of the patrons never found out who stole their items. This incident cause public outrage again and the centre took immediate action installing new CCTV cameras to ensure the safety of its patrons. The indicators of the centre’s performance show that they are willing to go to great lengths to ensure their clients are happy, and safe at the facility.
Conclusion
Overall the facility has managed it assets well, and have learned from its earlier failures. The centre should have had checks in place to make sure the builder had constructed the facility well before opening. It could have used a more comprehensive risk management system in order to identity potential risk areas before they became a problem. This would have reduced the impact on customers, and given the centre a better public profile.
The fact that there were insufficient CCTV cameras until the thefts in 2014 indicates that the centre has been lacking in a proper risk management system. For a government owned facility this is simply inexcusable.
The centre really needs to use social media in order to inform its clients of changes to the normal scheduling times. Although the centre boasts that it is on the cutting edge of technology, not using social media in this way just makes them look out of touch with the current times.
Future considerations would take disaster management into consideration and look more closely at assets management, particularly in areas that pose a high fire risk. It would conduct and updated risk management plan that includes potential risks such as individuals who commit crimes at the facility. The multi story car park could be upgraded further to include a digital parking system, where clients can visually see which parking spaces are available. This would bring the centre up to date and give a greater satisfaction to its customers.
