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The CIBSE Yorkshire Committee

January 2018

Offsite Manufacture

Yorkshire Region CIBSE are happy to advise that the Technical event on Tuesday 20^th November shall be a visit to the NG Bailey Offsite Manufacture facility in Bradford.

NG Bailey have been a leading provider of Offsite manufactured solutions for many years.

Ian Rogers (Business Development Manager) and Mark Connor (Technical Manager) shall be giving a presentation on the key benefits of Offsite manufacture, which is quickly becoming an intrinsic part of many construction projects, due to the inherent benefits it offers. Mark shall also offer an insight into ways in which the benefits of Offsite manufacture can be maximised by early engagement with the design and construction team.

The event will include a quick tour of the factory, highlighting products and solutions currently being produced for clients.

In order to see the factory at work, the technical meeting will commence from 4:30pm, and is expected to end around 7pm.
Refreshments will be provided.

Please advise Mark Connor () if you are wishing to attend, so that appropriate refreshments/facilities can be arranged.

Bailey Offsite Manufacture

20/11/2012 16:30:02

Post event comment/Overview of Bailey Offsite tour - by Simon Owen

On Tuesday, 20^th November Mark Connor and Ian Rogers hosted a tour for Yorkshire CIBSE of the Bailey Offsite facility in Bradford. It was well attended and no wonder with fabrication becoming more popular with many compelling arguments for it; increased safety, reduced costs and faster production times. There are other benefits too which became apparent during Ian’s presentation and were highlighted during Mark’s tour.

Many people associate pre-fabrication with the quick build McDonalds which seem to spring up over a period of mere weeks. Earlier on this year a time lapse video of a 30 story tower being assembled in just 15 days by Chinas Broad Sustainable Building company was circulated (you can view it here). BBC1’s new series Supersized Earth started this week with a piece about prefabrication as well as many other fascinating buildings facts and feats. The technique is going to be used by the same company, only this time they are going bigger by creating the tallest building in the world (thanks @snowarchitects for your timely tweet!).

It seems amazing to think that within a modestly size unit on the outskirts of Bradford a team are achieving similarly remarkable feats for projects within the UK.

NG Bailey is well known as the UK’s largest independent M&E contractor with their HQ in Ilkley; they have a £450 million turnover as well as a very strong reputation for safety; something which was demonstrated with Ian’s first slide of the presentation where he did their “safety share” highlighting the number of cyclists killed and injured on the roads each year.

The presentation itself (click for link here)is on this page and well worth looking at beside these notes. I won’t repeat the slides, but there were two short films that Mark and Ian added to various points to. The first was about the work that Bailey Offsite carried out at Birmingham New Street Station, a project where the deadline could not be missed as there is only one day a year when it would be possible to switch off the existing communications systems so that they new could be connected; Christmas day. That was just one of the challenges; the station design itself made access very difficult and this coupled with the fact that the building had to be kept live made the scheme all the more “interesting”.

In the end just 8 people installed a 126m long, 8m wide by 3m high services corridor as part of a design and build period lasting just 12 months.

The project was safer as there were significantly less people on site carrying out the installation, there were less deliveries to site, minimal working at height and each module was delivered pre-tested with zero defects so there was no need for rectification on site.

The second film about Heathrow T5C had no narrative so Ian and Mark talked us through different aspects. The terminal is designed to deal with 66 million people per annum, 89 airlines flying out to 170 countries. A key part of delivering that was the 12 10m by 15m units produced in Bradford and then taken down to site using Just In Time methodologies. The client looked at the prototype and identified 108 changes that they wanted making which were implemented on subsequent units; a big step forward to the usual checks which happen once one part is complete and others are underway.

Overall from using off site manufacture, the client saw a reduction in time from a projected 60000 hours to deliver the scheme to an actual 26880 hours; each unit took just 4 days to install as opposed to 16 weeks for how they would normally be built.

As well as an overall £6m saving for the client, the project was delivered early so that they could gain revenue early, but of far greater importance to the client was the fact that there was no onsite debris. With the work being carried out airside waste blowing across a runway could be catastrophic.

So where do the savings come from?

Labour – Semi Skilled and Skilled operatives assemble the units rather than having large numbers of skilled operatives on site. Access is also easier speeding up the assembly process

Accident reduction – Assembly is carried out at ground level in a weather proofed building, with a dry floor and sufficient space to lay out tools and parts. Less journeys around sites by staff and of deliveries as well as a reduction of working at height.

Design detail – Each design is completed and then modelled within a 3D environment to ensure that the finished modules will fit together to 2mm tolerance saving time

Zero leakage – Theft and damage to plant, equipment, fixtures and fittings hits the headlines at different times; by using modules to site just when they are needed and about to be installed this is minimised.

Purchasing efficiencies – As the project is precisely modelled before being built every detail is known before work commences; as such all purchasing can be done up front with no need for “just in case” allowances to be made with quantities.

Easier management of waste – For a start there is less of it, but also it is easier to sort which is allows for greater recycling and it does not have to be moved around a busy site saving time.

Better CSR – With CSR being important for most clients and their supply chain there are big wins to be had; looking at carbon alone, the majority of which for a building is in its construction, the reduced volume of materials and staff needing transport, looking after and managing creates considerable reductions all of which help with CSR and provides marketing opportunities for all involved.

Are there any downsides? They are hard to see; the main consideration is the concern that as pre-fabrication becomes more widely adopted that there will be a reduction in the number of site tradesman needed to complete projects. It could be argued that this will lead to a de-skilling within the industry, but it could also be said to be a result of progress within methodologies; how many schemes have full time Clerk of Works for example?

All in all it was a fascinating tour and a real eye opener as to just what scope for development there is beyond how building s are designed and the technologies used within them, but also how the construction is evolving to meet, or even lead, client needs.