Copyright © Braham Electrical 2011 :: Company Reg. 12310

:: Braham Electrical : 7a Charlotte Street : Warrenpoint : BT34 3LF :: Tel: +44 (0) 284177 2989 ::

Scale / Scope –This project was a £14M new build, 3 storey secondary school sited on the outskirts of Newry City. The nature of the project required our Integrated Project Team (IPT) to participate throughout the design development stage in various Value Engineering (VE) and Risk Management (RM) workshops to ensure that the Clients brief was met in full.

Complexity – This was a new build steel frame construction building with PCC slabs, brick and block infill panels, rainscreen panels, roofing cladding. The Electrical services, which consisted of fire alarms, access controls, IT cabling, BMS cabling, class change system, mechanical services wiring, lighting and external lighting.

Delivery – As this project was on a target cost, we were immediately brought into the IPT to help develop the design and attend various VE and RM workshops. We worked very closely with the main contractor (MC) and the M&E designers in reviewing the design completeness, assessing areas where savings could be achieved through our market purchasing power, design alternatives etc and also to comment on the buildability of the design as the quality of the finish was a priority to the landlord and the end users.

A master programme for the project was produced from which we developed our installation and commissioning programme around the key milestones identified by MC. Throughout the project, this programme was updated and revised to take account of new design information, progress from other trades that influenced our installation.

As this was a target cost project, we knew that our works budget would be continually scrutinised and where costs did exceed the planned expenditure, we raised ‘early warnings’ to both MC and the M&E designers. These were then reviewed in detail and through VE exercises with WLC cost analysis, we managed to reduce the costs without affecting the function or value of the works.