Balfour Beatty’s Midland Metropolitan University Hospital secured the prestigious Digital Construction Project of the Year trophy, sponsored by Revizto, at the Digital Construction Awards last night (2 July).
Balfour Beatty took over the delivery of the Midland Metropolitan University Hospital in December 2019, following Carillion’s collapse.
When operational, the hospital will offer maternity, children’s and inpatient adult services to half a million people. It measures 85,924 sq m across 10 storeys with 675 beds and 13 theatres.
Balfour implemented a digital strategy to support the project completion, commissioning and handover stages. Commissioning activities amounted to around 52,000 (143 systems x c91 commissioning zones x three or four commissioning stages).
The contractor used a common data environment (CDE) from Viewpoint For Projects to store and track commissioning notifications. It not only recorded the outcomes of the commissioning activities, but also stored the associated documentation.
Using the CDE, Balfour created a system to store and track the final handover documentation.
Furthermore, it used BIM 360 Field to store and track issues and snags for every internal and external space. Integration with Revit allowed Balfour to set up drawings of each floor, indicating the number of issues outstanding for every space and the readiness for inspections and lockdown.
"A great example of a project where the right digital tools and platforms have been used to solve complex issues – the main one being the sheer scale of the project. Sensible digital solutions, very well and thoroughly implemented with good training and adoption throughout the team.”
Balfour also used OpenSpace for visual record keeping.
The team received automated reports at the end of each day ready for early morning meetings and weekly progress reports.
Ultimately, productivity was increased by 15%, resource time was reduced by 50%, and project costs by 5%.
Balfour’s success on the hospital has led it to adopt a similar approach and technologies on other major projects.
Nohman Awan, digital construction lead at Balfour Beatty, said: "This project has been going on for some years and has seen a lot of challenges, but we have supported delivery with our digital systems. The digital tools we have used have really helped the team to deliver the project. We have seen many ups and downs – from Carillion’s collapse to covid – so this award is really important for us."
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