Private Area
                                                                                                                                                        
                                Green Spaces of Madrid     

The trust placed in Gruporaga           

            GRUPORAGA, S.A. is the company selected by the Madrid's City Hall to preserve the parks and municipal gardens in the so called zone1, which consists of the districts of Centro, Arganzuela, Retiro, Salamanca, Chamartín, Tetuán, and Chamberí, that is, the central kernel of the city.

          The contract represents a considerable challenge compared to other tenders. The resources available to the service are an indication of its size: more than 500 workers, 20 technicians with higher qualifications, more than a hundred vehicles, several dozen lorries including some high tonnage lorries and rubbish trucks, more than 200 light machines, pruning platforms, hydro-jet cleaners, street sweepers, all-terrain vehicles, fumigation cannons, and so on.  

    
 Park of de Berlín and Prado Museum  (Madrid)
Design and maintenance of Gruporaga, S.A.

         All of this is to maintain the 420 hectares that include notably such emblematic zones as the Prado –Recoletos- Castellana axis, the Puerta de Alcalá and the Cibeles fountain, large parks such as Enrique Tierno Galván and Rodríguez Sahagún, and other historic parks such as the Atenas Park, the Berlín Park, and the Eva Duarte de Perón Park.

The Zone

            In the zone1, as is the case in other large cities, circumstances arise that place restrictions on maintenance and make it difficult to a considerable extent:
 
        - The high density of users per hectare. It is necessary to take into account that, from the approximately 700 existing green zones, 80% are under 0.5 ha; these are the small central squares creating a high level of concentration, as the large parks in zone 1 are located on the outskirts of these and proportionally receive a smaller number of visitors.

        - The large number of small green zones, their demanding cleaning requirements (at least twice a day Monday to Sunday), and the poor distribution of the staff huts cause long trips within the zone either on foot or driving, which, combined with the traffic conditions, leads to an increase in travel downtime.

    
Méndez Álvaro and the Vistillas  (Madrid)
Design and maintenance of Gruporaga, S.A.

        - The large number of events and concentrations that regularly take place, demonstrations, cabalgata de reyes (cavalcade of the 3 Kings), cycling tours, military parades, the San Isidro and La Paloma festivals, gay pride day, concerts, open-air dances, and all kinds of events involving the setting up of marquees and scenery with the resulting temporary occupancy of the zone and the massive presence of people, which inevitably leads to deterioration of the green zone.

The challenges and difficulties

            In addition to the disadvantages mentioned, it is necessary to take into account that the zone1 encompasses the main places of tourist interest in Madrid and which are the most visited by the people of Madrid themselves. The Museo del Prado, the Puerta de Alcalá, and the Cibeles fountain are compulsory stops for sightseers. Therefore, the maintenance of zone 1 must represent the image of the municipal gardening of Madrid and that which it shows to the outside world, hence the service quality requirements and the need for a quick response to the mentioned events.  
 
            In order to set the main goals for maintenance, it is necessary to consider the demands of the users. If users were asked what they thought the minimum requirements were, most would agree on cleanliness as the first essential requirement and then the general good condition of the plantlife.

    
Park of Roma  and  Park of Athens (Madrid)
Design and maintenance of Gruporaga, S.A..

            It is therefore a matter of focusing maintenance on the priority goal in order to achieve clean and green spaces, and from that starting point, demand the quality necessary for the other tasks, such as mowing, cutting, and treatment.

Organisation of the Service

For this purpose, the organisation of the service in the zone1 is based on various fundamental pillars.
 
Distribution of maintenance staff

This can be split into two groups:

            Zone staff. The staff assigned to a surface area of reduced dimensions where they carry out three fundamental tasks: Cleaning, watering, and light digging or hoeing. In this case, it is fundamental to distribute the zones proportionally not only by their surface area but also by their cleaning needs, manual watering needs, or square metres of clumps of shrubs where digging requires more time. With the right distribution covering the three entrusted tasks, the user will perceive a zone that is clean, green, and well cared for.
 
            Specialist staff. Specialist staff carry out all other tasks, such as mowing, pruning, cutting, planting flowers, etc. They make up teams specialising in one or more tasks varying throughout the year. These are usually officers or gardeners with the necessary experience and knowledge, who know the frequency and output of each task in each zone thus making it easier to plan the service. The technical quality of maintenance lies in the effective organisation of these teams.

     
Toledo street  and  Nuevos Ministerios (Madrid)
Design and maintenance of Gruporaga, S.A.

         Among the specialist staff, it is worth making special mention of the plumbing teams dedicated to the watering systems with a 24-hour repair service.
From all the tasks that have to be carried out in the  zone1, the frequency of mowing, cutting, and flower-planting quality are deemed to be priority, particularly the latter as we replant around 625,000 flowers a year.

 
Cleaning shifts

            In order to keep the squares and parks in the zone1 clean, it is not enough to carry out cleaning once a day from Monday to Friday. It is essential in most zones to carry out extra cleaning in the evening, especially during the months of spring and autumn, and at weekends with shifts also in the morning and evening.

             The intensity and organisation of cleaning varies with the use of a given zone at a given time, as it varies according to time of day and day of the week: so squares quiet during weekdays suffer the famous "botellón", or street drinking, on nights of the weekend, and require greater attention.
              In order to ensure that cleanliness remains the priority goal of GRUPORAGA, S.A., 200 workers are assigned to the evening and weekend shifts.

    
Paseo del Prado (Madrid)
Design and maintenance of Gruporaga, S.A.

Auxiliary resources

            Auxiliary teams are needed to complement and speed up the work in order to support the maintenance tasks. Some of these teams are part of the maintenance flow chart, such as the mechanical workshop, the warehouse, and the administrative services.

            Finally, it is worth highlighting the great advantage that GRUPORAGA, S.A. has in been provided with its own plant nursery and a works department with broad experience, which for a service like this one leads to flexibility and the capability to meet any requirement.

  
Paseo de Recoletos  and  Huerta del Obispo (Madrid)
Design and maintenance of Gruporaga, S.A.
 

GRUPORAGA, S.A. - Copyright © - jun-07 -