Early-stage collaboration in design is essential to delivering projects with a high proportion of DfMA and offsite manufacturing. That was the central message from Laing O’Rourke at Digital Construction Week (DCW).

To support this approach, the contractor has established a design partner framework with Aecom, BDP and WSP. During a DCW panel session, Laing O’Rourke head of digital Paul Drayton explained the rationale behind the framework and how it is operating in practice. He reiterated that the company targets a minimum of 70% offsite delivery across all projects.

“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, stressed that getting involved early in the design process is critical to achieving successful outcomes.

“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.”

She also explained that embedding strategy and clarity across teams is central to improving delivery outcomes.

“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

Belk said the design partner framework is built on collaboration rather than contractual obligation.

“[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.”

The framework also supports wider workstreams covering safety, culture, design certainty, sustainability and digital delivery.

Belk added: “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 essential

Drayton highlighted that offsite manufacturing requires early design certainty, as components are produced well ahead of installation.

Elliott Crossley, digital director at BDP, agreed that design intent and construction capability must be aligned from the outset.

“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, emphasised the link between design maturity and data quality.

“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].”

Drayton added that data is now a core deliverable alongside physical construction.

“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, explained the importance of structured information requirements and standardisation.

“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 of WSP described how collaboration with Laing O’Rourke evolved on the University Hospital Monklands project.

“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.”

She added that the shift to a partnership model has improved outcomes by aligning all parties from the outset and reducing duplication of effort.

The Everton effect

Drayton pointed to the delivery of Everton’s new stadium as a standout example of the benefits of this approach.

“That never happens in stadia globally,” he said, referring to its on-time and on-budget delivery. He noted that around 70% of the structure and MEP systems were delivered using DfMA, making it a flagship digital and offsite project.

Crossley added that industrialised delivery does not compromise design quality.

“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.”