Landsec’s Sumner Street office building is currently at design stage
Mace and Sir Robert McAlpine appointed ‘manufacturing and assembly managers’ on Southwark scheme.
Developer Landsec has appointed Mace and Sir Robert McAlpine as ‘manufacturing and assembly managers’ on a London office scheme that will pioneer a radical new approach to construction procurement.
The 135,000 sq ft Sumner Street development in Southwark is the first ‘real world’ application in the private sector of platform design for manufacture and assembly (PDfMA), a more standardised, componentised approach to construction. Landsec and design partner Bryden Wood have already built a prototype at the practice’s Construction Platforms Research Centre in Hampshire.
The ‘kit of parts’ strategy has meant a “fundamental change in our approach to procurement”, said Neil Pennell, head of design innovation and property solutions at Landsec.
“The model construction has defaulted to is based around design and build, where responsibility to complete the building design is passed down the supply chain,” he explained. “It has been driven by a desire to protect investment returns and transfer risk. But it has become a barrier to innovation. And also, it restricts clients from exerting influence once responsibility has been passed to the contractor – which is madness.
“So, we are looking at a form of construction management (CM). But this role will require the skill set of a consultant, a constructor, a logistics manager – all the skills needed to make a site run like a factory and with a multi-skilled workforce that can step up to that way of working.
“We’ve called this procurement model ‘manufacturing and assembly management’ (MAM). We have appointed two companies in this new role for the Sumner Street project: Sir Robert McAlpine and Mace. The important thing is that they are working collaboratively, to manage the risk, not hide it or push it on to someone else and help to grow the supply chain capability to deliver projects in this way.
“Finding two industry-leading constructors willing to work together to help us develop this model has been great.”
McAlpine and Mace have been working with Landsec in Bryden Wood’s office since the start of 2019, under a pre-construction agreement, with key suppliers
“Landsec were prepared to share the risk on the project in exchange for lower prices and more direct control,” said Jaimie Johnston, global systems director at Bryden Wood. “This also opened up the supply chain to new players.”
