CONSTRUCTION PROCESSES
Making digital construction ‘business as usual’
Mark Gibson, Managing director – Healthcare, at Sir Robert McAlpine, looks at some of the considerable benefits that a growing arsenal of digital construction tools can bring – both to designers and builders of healthcare facilities and the end-client – be it an NHS Trust or private healthcare provider. He stresses that the data collected during project delivery can also be highly valuable to the end-user once the building has been completed.
The Spring Budget 2024 in March announced a £100 m funding package for AI, some of which will be channelled into the healthcare sector. It comes at an opportune time. Since COVID-19, there has been a distinct focus on improving both the number and quality of healthcare facilities in the UK. The Department of Health and Social Care is of course in the process of delivering a new National Hospital Programme, where this will be a huge focus. Embracing digital construction helps improve the delivery of these new hospitals and other healthcare projects. Digital tools can drive efficiency and support technical excellence throughout a build, and the data generated can underpin operations throughout the entire lifecycle of a building. Digital construction tools improve the scale and level of accuracy possible for project delivery – something fundamental to ensuring both build quality and efficiency of delivery. Previously, project progress was assessed manually. For example, on the construction of the BEACH (Births, Emergency, and Critical care, children’s health) Building at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital, this could result in individual discipline and package managers walking an 8 km site each week for our IHP team (a joint venture between VINCI Building and Sir Robert McAlpine). However, the process has been significantly accelerated by adopting tools such as Buildots – which uses helmet- mounted 360° cameras to capture images that AI then combines with BIM, schedule data, and 3D modelling, to produce an accurate picture of project progress. BIM tools such as Dalux BIM viewer – bringing together floor plans, site capture, and models, can also make it easier to visualise complex interface details and understand construction sequencing. Augmented reality headset technology, like that trialled at IHP’s Kingsway Hospital – an adult acute mental healthcare facility in Derby, can then allow teams to superimpose BIM models on a structure
Construction of the BEACH (Births, Emergency, and Critical care, children’s health) Building at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital in progress.
that is either built or under construction. This can help improve the installation process for on-site teams, with significant time, materials, and cost benefits to the scheme. The tools are also very useful for stakeholders and clinicians during the planning stages of a project.
Meeting healthcare projects’ demanding criteria Digital tools can also strengthen the delivery of the stringent criteria of healthcare projects. At Derby Kingsway, which incorporates a psychiatric intensive care unit, accuracy is paramount, and the project provided a well-suited backdrop for a trial of the HP Site Print robots, which help to reduce the time it takes to create floorplans and perform the function to an accuracy of three millimetres. The robots printed layout jobs on concrete decks ten times faster than traditional surveying methods.
The data that digital construction methods collect throughout a project is highly valuable. The Building Safety Act has made it a legal duty to provide accurate and up-to-date information on a building. Digital tools can help accurately capture, manage, and make accessible the data that provides the golden thread of information of what work was done at the various stages of a building’s lifecycle, and by whom, and so on. The data collected during project
delivery can also be highly valuable to the Trust and the end-user once the building has been completed. The Royal Bournemouth Hospital estate previously used the paper ‘logs’ commonplace across the NHS. However, project data collected throughout the build of the BEACH Building was handed over to the University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust to assist with the BEACH Building’s ongoing operation and maintenance. At the BEACH
August 2024 Health Estate Journal 65
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