Design phase collaboration is key to successful delivery of projects featuring a high percentage of DfMA and offsite manufacturing. That was Laing O’Rourke’s message at Digital Construction Week (DCW).

To drive that collaboration, the contractor formed a design partner framework with Aecom, BDP and WSP. In a panel session at DCW, Laing O’Rourke head of digital Paul Drayton led a discussion about why the framework was formed and how it’s working. He reminded the audience that on every project, the contractor aims to deliver a minimum of 70% of the work offsite. “Why do we do that? It’s because it reduces the onsite workforce by in excess of 60% and allows us to accelerate delivery by 30% as well,” he said.

Harriet Belk MCIOB, senior design manager at Laing O’Rourke, emphasised the importance of early engagement on the design: “If we don’t get the design right, the project won’t be right. It can have a massive impact on risk, cost, programme [and cause] delays.

“We have a really big focus on early engagement. We’ve done a lot of work around design stages and adapting the RIBA stages to specific Laing O’Rourke design stages – we’re looking at Stage 4 and splitting it to 4.0 and 4.5 to be in line with our design operating model. That means getting that early engagement so the design is ready for our offsite manufacture approach, and making sure that that design turns up right on our sites.

“This design partnership [gives] us a safe space where people can truly challenge things that might not be working, work across multiple companies and disciplines, and explore innovation and continuous improvement.”

Harriet Belk

“We’ve been doing a lot around our design operating model and making sure that our design strategy is set up, that everybody’s aware of what our design strategy is within our design teams and that everybody’s aware of their roles and responsibilities, and setting things up from the start.

“[We need to] make sure that we’re embedding our DfMA strategies, our procurement strategies and our sustainability as early as possible in the design. We’ve even got projects where we’re getting involved in Stage 2 now.”

A matter of trust

The design partner framework is not a contract, rather it is a business agreement, Belk explained. “[We] wanted to build deep relationships and trust with partners. We want to improve project outcomes through that collaboration, and we want to create trust-based partnerships with clear and shared values.

“We needed to make sure that BDP, WSP and Aecom had alignment with our priority sectors [and] that they had multidisciplinary capabilities. We needed to make sure that we had a good existing relationship with those partners, and had successful projects with them previously. The final thing was that they [needed to] fit into our future pipeline.”

As well the collaboration on projects, the framework enables strategic work streams in five areas: safety, culture, design certainty, sustainability and digital. Belk said: “I think a lot of the time we focus on individual projects and how they can be successful, but this design partnership [gives] us a safe space where people can truly challenge things that might not be working, work across multiple companies and disciplines, and explore innovation and continuous improvement.”

Design maturity is a must

Drayton noted that Laing O’Rourke’s focus on offsite means elements are being manufactured in a factory weeks or months in advance – and in turn that means design maturity must be locked in as early as possible.

Elliott Crossley, digital director at BDP, agreed. “You cannot separate design vision from design execution and construction. You can be very pure in how you want a building to look, the experience you want for visitors, but if we don’t understand how a thing is built, then we’re not going to execute the vision that we want.”

Lilian Ho, associate director of digital and BIM at Aecom, linked design and information. “I think the design maturity should be quite closely linked to the information maturity,” she said. “There needs to be standardisation across disciplines, because it’s an incredibly important foundation for the next stage – the information management [process].”

“Our clients buy two assets from us: the big physical asset and the digital asset. So information and data is absolutely at the bedrock of successful delivery and successful design maturity.”

Paul Drayton

Drayton responded: “I often say that our clients buy two assets from us: the big physical asset – the hospital, the power station, whatever it may be; and the digital asset. So information and data is absolutely at the bedrock of successful delivery and successful design maturity.”

Heidi Meakin, regional information manager at Laing O’Rourke, added: “The first thing we need to do is start with the Employer’s Information Requirements, make sure that we understand what they mean, make sure the client understands what they’re asking for, and that we understand what we’re actually delivering to.

“And then, of course, we’re looking at standardisation – consistency of naming, aligned with 19650. Getting everybody on board, making sure we’re using the same naming convention, is one of the biggest [challenges]. We can then start looking at that information, and people can start pulling off the detail they need, but we can also put classifications against it, flags, and attributes, so we can actually flag it as we require it.

“Once that information is in the CDE, and it’s all branded correctly and tagged, we can then start using it functionally.”

Getting to know you

Kathleen Baird, associate director for digital services at WSP, revealed how the relationship between WSP and Laing O’Rourke evolved on the University Hospital Monklands project for NHS Lanarkshire.

“I would say that the relationship between ourselves and Laing at the beginning of the project was contentious. At the point, where Laing came on board, we already had the EIRs signed off by the client, and as far as we were concerned, we were on to the next challenge.

“And then the Laing team came on board, and at the first review, we got 163 comments back. We spent a few months working on that, and reached agreement. Client checked it again, we sent it out: 150 more comments came through, and this continued. It became ‘them and us’: they were nitpicking, we were going to nitpick right back.

“It reached the point where we realised this is ridiculous, we are on one project, we’ve got the same client, we have the same goal, everybody’s comments are valid, but it was the way we were communicating that wasn’t working.

“This project changed my perception of how we deliver, and I think having partnerships like this ultimately benefits clients at the end of the day.”

Kathleen Baird

“I can say this now, because we’re all friends again, everybody’s working great between WSP and Laing. I think the difference now that we’ve got this partnership is the fact that we’re all starting day one with the same common goal. We’re not seeing it as ‘we’ve done our bit, why are you coming back and making life difficult for us?’

“Having the conversations with the client at the same time as we’re having conversations with the contractor means we’re capturing everything at the beginning, we’re not having to redo it.

“It takes time for this industry to change, and I did think I was young enough not to be stuck in my ways yet, but I will admit that this project changed my perception of how we deliver, and I think having partnerships like this ultimately benefits clients. Earlier involvement does have a huge impact.”

The Everton effect

Drayton noted that the new Everton stadium was delivered on time and to budget. “That never happens in stadia globally,” he said. The stadium is one of Laing O’Rourke’s recent halo projects, being both a digital and offsite exemplar. Indeed, around 70% of the superstructure and MEP infrastructure was delivered through DfMA.

Crossley emphasised that an offsite/DfMA approach can still allow for inspiring design. “You would never look at that and think, that’s a really dull design, that’s been manufactured, that’s boring. Everybody involved in [Everton] is so proud of what they achieved collectively, which is testament to the [design framework] approach. I think it is a really good ‘alliancey’ way of moving forward and challenging the status quo of the industry and to just what if we thought a little bit differently.”