Bankside Yards : Taking complex offsite to the max

TClarke’s unique in-house capabilities help our clients and partners to reset industry standards. Bankside Yards, with Multiplex and Native Land, shows how.

Project Background : This highly complex major project takes offsite prefabrication to a new limit and helps achieve the UK’s first fossil-fuel free major mixed-use development

Onsite install reduced down to a four bolt connection for major risers

Working with all trades, partners and supply chain on a 19 story commercial tower and combined basements,, TClarke delivered complete prefabricated tenant and landlord electrical and comms risers from our own manufacturing facility..

Quality assurance was at the forefront with stringent quality checks completed in the factory environment. Fully installed benchmarks were produced and reviewed with Multiplex and the client team where the client had the opportunity to incorporate comments into the build. Highly detailed co-ordination and planning was carried out to ensure that not only the initial installation but future tenants were unimpeded and catered for.

Onsite installation was reduced to an absolute bare minimum – almost down to a four bolt connection to fix the riser module in place. This created serial benefits for the project.

TClarke Value Add : The highest standards of manufacturing, planning and assurance gives client the opportunity to achieve exceptional goals

Absolute quality in manufacturing, assurance and planning

Essentially this job has been an exercise in engineering excellence; detailed work carried out with an absolute focus, very high quality collaborations with numerous partners and manufacturing execution to the very highest standards – all contributing to the achievement of a new standard of capability in offsite manufacturing.

What this has enabled is a client’s vision to achieve a fossil-fuel free development and a perfectly executed programme with a very high level of complexity.

Detailed Modern Methods of Construction (MMC), co-ordination, sequencing and planning took place to incorporate all the various services and importantly to ensure that all the equipment was accessible and maintainable within the constraints of the riser space provided.
The Electrical and comms tenants and landlords risers incorporated pre wired distribution boards, future tenant distribution boards, lighting controllers, BMS panels, rising busbar and tap offs, , CNS network cabinets, fire alarm devices, PAVA racks, rising cable containment, luminaires and earth bars at our Stansted manufacturing facility,complete with all interlinking cabling, down to all final labelling.This significantly reduced the installation timescales on site, given that access can only be provided once the risers are watertight, due to the sensitive nature of the electrical and comms equipment being installed. Each individual module was fully quality assurance checked prior to delivery, which allowed the installation to be completely snag free when it arrived on site.
The earlier installation of the risers allowed for the Converged Network System (CNS) to be flawlessly integrated which incorporated the lighting control, security, BMS, WiFi, access control and intercom.

Commentary : “Offsite prefabrication at this level of completion, with this level of complexity gives our clients so much more potential to drive their programme and sustainability goals forward”. Daniel Grant, Project Director, TClarke

“Pre-construction was absolutely key for us – a lot of our good work was done in the first portion of the job. This was enabled substantially by the quality of our relationships with principal contractor Multiplex, the design team and the client Native Land. When you are all fully aligned you can achieve new standards and this is a key to how TClarke works.

“Having our own extremely high quality in-house manufacturing capability also means we can confidently target and achieve this level of maximum offsite/minimal onsite large volume project and then get there snag free whilst assisting in achieving our sustainability goals.

“The way we approached this project was to get the level of completion off site to the maximum. Our team were focused on the high quality of the installation for each and every riser module. Each individual module was rigorously checked with nothing leaving our Stansted facility without being 100% correct. This allowed us to have a snag free installation the moment it was installed on site, adding real value and largely de risking the programme.

Contracts Engineer Ryan Pitcher played a significant role in delivery of the project:

“What we realised is that the programme would have been a real challenge if we had approached it in the traditional way where as our approach with offsite complemented by a certain amount of finishing onsite was beneficial to all parties.

“This is not just a step forward for the programme, this is also about working conditions, safety and sustainability – all of which gain significantly when the work is done in our manufacturing facility rather than on a building site. It does involve a lot of detailed engineering and planning work – and reliance on the knowledge and skills within our business – but that’s central to what TClarke is all about.

Client Review : At Western Yards, Building 3, the TClarke combined team of Electrical, ELVS and prefabrication teams engineered a fully coordinated solution for the electrical and communication/ data risers to be prefabricated off site.

“The benefit of the TClarke ‘centralised approach’ of prefabrication, both leading the design on site, with the inhouse individual design specialists to delivery and installation is the leanest delivery model. The point in question realised at Western Yards where other issues significantly delayed the planned riser install. However, as a result of detailed prefabrication, when measured against the traditional installation methods on site, the significantly faster install of the risers enabled the project critical path to be maintained – turning a loss into a project gain! A fantastic offer and an approach that will be capitalised on in the next project as a result.” Alan Williamson, Package Manager, Multiplex

This is the next level of offsite prefabrication delivered in partnership and achieving the highest standards of quality in a complex and large scale DfMA installation. TClarke have unique capabilities and teams that help us deliver our goals.