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How Flux Fire digitised passive fire protection
CM Digital Staff
Image: Flux Fire Protection
With briefs and timelines varying, digitising passive fire protection information is a must for Flux Fire Protection.
Flux Fire Protection was founded in 2021. Five years later, the team has 10 central office staff and between 25 and 40 operatives working on sites across the UK. The specialist contractor works across healthcare, modular construction, industrial buildings, commercial offices, student accommodation and existing property portfolios. Its involvement can begin during feasibility and design, through to live construction or a survey of an occupied property.
The range of works means the quality and completeness of project information can vary considerably. “You can go from having a full scope and detailed fire strategy to an existing building where nobody knows what fire-stopping work has previously been completed,” says Danny Bell, commercial director at Flux. “The information and responsibility can fall between different parties.”
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“You can go from having a full scope and detailed fire strategy to an existing building where nobody knows what fire-stopping work has previously been completed.”
Danny Bell
Passive fire protection contractors have traditionally been appointed relatively late. On some projects, walls and M&E services would already be installed before the fire-stopping package was procured, sometimes shortly before ceilings were due to close the work up.
But that’s starting to change. Flux is now being invited into projects earlier, allowing the team to examine the available drawings, identify likely requirements and flag missing information.
“Using Bluebeam, some checks can be completed from a desktop in around half an hour. And we’re finding discrepancies or missing information in around 30% of the packages we review. When we identify something early, it saves time and avoids issues once materials and trades are already on site,” Bell says.
For Flux Fire, recording a measurement and marking its location establishes a clearer starting point for the project information that follows.
Supporting quality assurance and the golden thread
The wider objective is consistency. A drawing is calibrated, the scope is measured, the relevant locations are marked, and the quantities are transferred into the pricing process. The underlying information remains available for later review.
Flux Fire also connects its Bluebeam records with a wider documented compliance process. Bell says the company follows a detailed compliance procedure and uses a standardised structure for its quality assurance packs.
Bluebeam contributes the measured and marked-up drawings, including information showing where fire protection installations are located, alongside site reports, photographs, installation dimensions and product details. Flux Fire sees this documented approach from the outset as supporting its contribution to the project’s wider golden thread.
Turning drawings into information
Tom Bowers is Flux Fire’s business development manager and principal Bluebeam user. His responsibilities include estimating, pricing, purchasing and supply chain management.
A typical workflow begins when Flux receives a drawing set or tender pack. Bowers calibrates the relevant drawing, measures the required lengths, areas or structural sections and marks up the anticipated passive fire protection scope.
“Bluebeam digitised that arm of the business. It removed a massive bottleneck from the estimating process.”
Danny Bell
Flux then compares its results with the quantities supplied by the client. The measurement data is exported into the company’s internal Excel pricing templates, where it helps inform material, labour and cost allowances.
This check is important where tender quantities do not correlate with the drawings.
Bowers gives the example of a tender pack stating that a project includes 1,000 linear metres of steelwork. Flux may complete its own take-off and arrive at a different figure. The marked-up drawing lets the company show where that difference arose.
“It helps us validate the measures we have been given,” Bowers says. “It informs the price and helps make sure we have allowed enough labour for the installation.”
Bluebeam gives Flux Fire a consistent way to record passive fire protection information against the drawing, including measured quantities, locations and steel section dimensions. That creates a clearer link between the source information and the decisions that follow.
Replacing paper records
Bell began his career measuring from A1 drawings with a scale ruler. He later used a digitiser, which involved printing a drawing and tracing measurements using a connected reader. The process was slow and vulnerable to printing errors. He recalls spending a day, and sometimes longer, completing measurements before a high-level check revealed that the drawing scale had changed.
“If the drawing had scaled out of the printer slightly wrong, it could reduce every dimension by 20%,” he says. “That destroyed the measures you had spent the day producing.”
“Desktop measurements also reduce the need to send a surveyor on a physical site visit. The cumulative saving in travel, mileage and staff time could amount to tens of thousands of pounds a year.”
Danny Bell
When Flux was established, the firm initially used free online measuring and quantification tools, alongside manual Excel take-off sheets. Printed drawings still had to be colour-coded to show what had been measured. Those physical mark-ups could become untidy, disconnected from the commercial record or lost as the project progressed.
The process also created a practical bottleneck. Staff needed access to a large-format printer, time had to be allowed for printing and quantities then had to be transferred into other documents.
Bluebeam removed much of that manual handling. Drawings could be calibrated on screen, measured directly and saved with their mark-ups intact. “Bluebeam digitised that arm of the business,” Bell says. “It removed a massive bottleneck from the estimating process.”
Reducing time and strengthening pricing
Flux Fire estimates that Bluebeam saves hundreds of working hours each year compared with its manual drawing measurement and take-off process. Full-size drawings no longer need to be printed for every take-off. Measurements can be stored and revisited, while quantities can be exported into the company’s established pricing templates.
“Desktop measurements also reduce the need to send a surveyor on a physical site visit. The cumulative saving in travel, mileage and staff time could amount to tens of thousands of pounds a year,” Bell notes.
The commercial value is accompanied by greater confidence in the company’s labour and material estimates. Flux can test a client’s quantities, establish its own measured position and retain the drawing information behind that assessment.
At handover, the same measured and marked-up drawings can form part of Flux Fire’s wider quality assurance pack. This may also contain mapped installation drawings, site reports, photographs, installation dimensions, product documentation, manufacturers’ warranties and, where applicable, the relevant International Fire Code certificate of conformity.
Retaining the information from the outset gives the client a clearer account of what Flux Fire assessed, priced and installed.
“Bluebeam is one of the baseline foundations for digital recording and the golden thread. All of the measures and drawings are on the system from day one, not on various bits of paper, and all the information can be included in the handover,” Bowers concludes.
