Digital Handover Workstream Meeting 05-12-2024

DIGITAL HANDOVER WORKSTREAM MEETING 05-12-2024

RICHARD FREER We’re absent our illustrious leaders for reasons that we’re unavoidable. We had a pre-meet last week, George and I briefed on where we want to go on this. The first meeting of the group we tend to have a chat and get your buy in and opinions and input into what we’re doing here in this group, why we’re doing it and what our output is.

GEORGE STEVENSON What I’d like to do is give you a quick positioning. (shares screen). Firstly I want to explain how this fits into the context of the other things that we’re doing. The principal work group that we’re focusing on that is feeding into this is the Fire & Safety Critical Asset group which Cliff and Paul White are leading. Within BIM In Asset Management we’ve got a number of different workstreams that are addressing certain aspects of things. What we’ve done is we’ve taken the O&M group and the Health & Safety group and merged the two together because it’s logical to look at the technical submittal process as part of the O&M and health & safety file creation.

But we’ve got a range of other initiatives underway that other parts of the organisation are dealing with. If we look at that, all of that is drawn together through the golden thread which is a matter of looking at the building as a whole, not a series of work packages, which is very apposite for this particular meeting, but also looking at how that works together to achieve a purpose. And part of that process is to say if we’re collecting information in the O&M about compartmentation, smoke control detection and signage for example, they’re there because what we’re trying to do is protect against the flow or the spread of smoke in the building.

So therefore we need to capture the information in a way that satisfies the requirements of the O&M documentation, but we also need to look at it as to what its purpose is, why we are actually doing it. And that’s broadly what we’re trying to achieve here. We’ve got digital records to say what was actually installed, what was specified, who installed it. So this is all of the information, I think we would probably agree, is needed from the O&M. And part of the challenge is that the O&M folders are generally structured by work package, there’s no connection to the models or the information in most cases. The product information is collected uniquely on every occasion, possibly by people that aren’t that familiar with what those products are.

So you end up with the wrong maybe data sheet for a particular product and 3 years down the line who would know? Products aren’t easily compared and also we often find that warranties and additional information is missing. So, part of the challenge is to say OK, at handover we may get a BIM model, we may get CAD data, COBie information, even 360 photographs, but the O&M typically is disconnected from all of that and that means that there is a huge amount of manual checking that needs to be done. So, what obviously we’re trying to do is digitise and make digital that handover information so that we can have everything properly auditable. And one way of doing that is to then pull together this information either from drawings and models, from schedules, technical submittals, that information, that would never go in the model. Also from digital asset captures, so from 360 photographs

So, that’s part of the process that we’re trying to encourage. And then on new build, make sure that we’ve got proper information requirements that are machine-readable. They can be ten checked with manufacturers’ product data and then it can then be gathering progressively during the process. So, this is the type of methodology that we’re following. Andy Simpson from Waites is coordinating that side of things for us, unfortunately one of his colleagues has just had to go into hospital so Andy has had to step in this morning to do a training course, that’s why I’m delivering this bit of it. The other aspect of this is the technical submittal process, that’s the point at which the product that’s actually been selected is being installed…actually being installed is selected 6mins 15secs. So our method or our thought is to standardise the technical submittal process so that when a product is chosen we can then pick that up and then use that to then recognise what are the key requirements of that particular product so that those can be easily compared and then we can then capture that information through the process.

So what we’ve been doing over the last couple of meetings, this is not the first meeting we’ve had on this, we’ve been working in the background to put together some standardised data templates that we’d like to encourage people to start to use. We’ve already got some fantastic information that’s come through from BIM4 Housing which has got some really detailed information on what goes wrong with the sprinkler systems, for example. But what we want to do is focus on the areas that are legally required now. Sp, fire safety is obviously a critical area, it’s not the only area, but it’s one that now is very much required. So, what we’re looking to do is to use the fire safety example as one that we can concentrate on.

So, we need information that the client, this is now by law, has to sign off to say that they’ve got all of the information that they need to run that building safely. And the contractor has got to sign a declaration that they have both provided the information and also that the client has received it. I’m finding that in the industry people don’t really appreciate that this is now legislation. So if you don’t provide this information or if you sign the declaration and it’s not right, my understanding is that is a criminal offence. So what we’ve tried to do is to look at that from a point of view of what is that critical information. That’s for fire, this is for building safety, and then how can we then bring that through.

So, that’s broadly what we want to cover today. I want to show you some of the tools that we’ve got that we’re hoping to share with everybody. Are you supportive of what we’re trying to do?

PAUL WOMACK Yes, very much so. The only problem if it works then organisations won’t be able to file different information in all sorts of different files that you can’t find because it will all be in one file. So, it just needs the buy in of the senior management to follow this and as you said George, I don’t believe that anybody is aware that potentially it’s a criminal offence not to follow.

GEORGE STEVENSON Exactly, Kevin from Jacobs has been doing a lot of work on this, working this through to try and educate the clients.

KEVIN BAYLISS We’ve got big work with Wolverhampton Homes so we do all…from high-rise, HRBs down and so on. So as part of that process we’ve been working with them putting a standard structure, they use 360 and their various AIM systems and we’ve been talking to George about Active Plan getting involved in that, a link between the two. And as part of that we’ve been doing some sessions around the file structure, where things should go and how that should work. And as part of that I’ve been doing some workshops on golden thread, I’ve written a document for them. And as part of that it’s been talking about things like Regulation 38 saying this is a requirement and some of the legal requirements, to a point of going to competencies and all of the sort of stuff.

So we have spent some time educating both the contractors on their framework and as part of this process is actually putting together a golden thread which is the Building Safety Act is all about compliance and safety, so there is an element between asset…How I describe the golden thread under the Building Safety Act, if you were to take golden thread as an element outside of the building industry and just assets, if you were talking about that, then that would be slightly different to the Building Safety Act golden thread. A lot of the Safety Act golden thread is literally this is what meets compliance and safety which would be your 38 and various other stuff.

And then on top of that would be the client requirements under the asset requirements of general maintenance that may not necessarily be compliance. So that’s how you define, but it’s obviously the accountable person as a client to really identify what needs to sit in that. So, we’re doing a lot of work on that at the moment.

PAUL WOMACK I believe I’m right in saying that the golden thread is also about ensuring documentation is named correctly.

KEVIN BAYLISS Yes, as part of that document that we put together is 19650 looking at how standard naming system, making sure that’s going into the EIRs to make sure that everyone is following that system. And essentially also making sure that we’re documenting things like S5 reviews for suitability codes for client reviews. So the client is signing those things and they’re tracked and they’re on that system and it’s easily accessible by the right people at the right time which is what the golden thread is all about. So yeah, it’s a big piece of work, we’re well on the way, but the asset piece is now the next step into that. And it’s a question do you have then the asset piece as a database tagging along 360 site?

And how does that work, because do you really want all of that information on a 360 site as a platform…so the client has been 360 for their delivery of the projects and so on? And they have other asset systems, but then actually do we want all of that data capture in 360? Or do we want something like Active Plan working with it as that goes along to capture that, so then they build the asset model from that? And then that gets into asset manage systems. So, there’s a lot of work that we still need to do on that.

GEORGE STEVENSON I think the thing is as well, Paul, one of the challenges is that the BIM standards which are fundamental, we should be following the BIM standards, but we’ve got to recognise that they have been put together largely for design and construction. And therefore a lot of the ways, the taxonomies, the classification all of that side of things, 19650 doesn’t delve down into the detail of how things should be named and structured. That’s something that needs to be agreed by the client organisation. Ideally, it shouldn’t really be done at an individual client level because if, for example, Metropolitan may have a naming convention for a particular project, but because the consultants that they’ve used have proposed that.

But you’ve got hundreds of buildings, so therefore there should be a standardised asset naming convention across all of your buildings. And importantly actually stepping beyond that, we ought to be trying to get something together at industry level, so that if people are talking about a fan coil unit or a fire damper that there should be standardised naming across the board. Now, that’s a big challenge because projects do tend to get driven by, they’re quite insular in some ways. But that’s why I feel BIM In Asset Management has got an opportunity to help coordinate some of these things. We’re using Uniclass as a key, but going from there.

TERENCE HORSMAN Very interesting to hear about your use case, Kevin, I couldn’t agree more on the standardisation. We get involved with the actual operational maintenance stage and produce maintenance reports that then feed in to these systems.The challenging part we see is always the standardisation and classification, making sure that the right reports go into the right systems once the maintenance works have been completed. And in a lot of cases clients are handling?? 16mins 48secs this, they would be manually uploading PDF reports, maintenance check sheets to their systems. Whereas actually, ideally they should be interoperable, they should be machine-readable data.

It doesn’t matter what standard you go for, if that’s Uniclass, if that’s SFG20, if that is an agreed to maintenance standard that clients and service agent have agreed to, that data should be flowing in the right information. But when you’re going to your golden thread, absolutely, now you’ve got your itemised records there that are machine-readable that you can actually perform analysis and trend analysis on. Because if you’re just talking about documents and we’re putting static non machine-readable data into the files that’s great, it offers the opportunity of finding the data easily. But then when you’re getting to analysis that’s a significant hurdle.

LUCY KEAN It’s more general, really. Just if we’re looking for sort of an industry standard…are we looking to sort of feed into the industry steering group so that we can feed that back to BSR through the industry steering group and get them behind us. Because ultimately the BSR are looking for industry to drive standards up, so if we’re feeding back into the industry steering group then that would really help the cause as well.

GEORGE STEVENSON Yes, we are, we’re part of those industry groups. When you say the BSR, you mean Building Safety Regulator?

LUCY KEAN Yeah, obviously they set up the industry steering group within it. Hands up, I came from the BSR from the set-up of the programme, so I know how much influence they can have and how much table time that gets. If you’ve got stuff with the industry steering group and sub-groups from within it.

GEORGE STEVENSON Yeah, we’re sort of part of that anyway because I led the Golden Thread Initiative Asset & Survey Information Group, so we’ve been feeding stuff into MHCLG, as it’s now called, and also through that into the BSR. But it would be very interesting, Lucy, because what we’re finding is that the industry has a lot of the knowledge, in fact probably the knowledge, because the government doesn’t have the knowledge naturally because that’s not their role. And indeed obviously within the BSR you’ve got a lot of people who have got significant expertise, but you don’t know everything.

LUCY KEAN No, absolutely, and they are really looking to those groups.

GEORGE STEVENSON What I’ll do, perhaps offline, is I’ll show you the resources we…to MHCLG, the information that we’d been collectively contributing. We’ve run over 200 workshops with subject matter experts.

LUCY KEAN Yeah, I changed roles earlier this year, my first meeting with you was last week and when I heard about the group, so that would be great to have a chat offline about it.

GEORGE STEVENSON So, what we’ve tried to do, this is a huge elephant that we’ve all got to eat, therefore we’ve tried to break it down into a number of different groups. For example, the taxonomy and the interoperability, we’ve actually got a few people focusing on that.So what we’re really trying to do is to break this down into something that is more achievable.

KEVIN BAYLISS I was just going to ask, obviously the CLC stuff that came out in August on the golden thread doesn’t really tell you, you must do it in this way. It just says your general elements about what the standards are and what the requirements on some of the documents and how that relates to golden thread. Which is a really good document in terms of some of the legislation coming out before on it, that dealt with it a little bit more and it does get into all of the other documentation for the BSR.

But I’m thinking an exercise like what I’m doing, Wolverhampton and other people are doing, other people are doing similar things, to be able to have that information and come back and say this is how we’ve done it. I’m not saying that’s the right way necessarily, but it’s a way to be able to deliver that golden thread and how they’re doing it would be really beneficial in terms of feeding that back.

GEORGE STEVENSON What I’d like to show you is a couple of things that we’ve been developing. One is a standardised folder structure that we’ve been working with the HSE about. And in fact John Morrow from Origin, he’s working with Cliff Kneale to actually use that as a standardised structure that they’re using to audit buildings that they are receiving and also put together a standardised structure across all of their properties. Because, like most housing associations, they’ve got hundreds of properties and all of the O&Ms have been complied according to what suited the contractor on that particular job. If they’ve actually got the O&Ms at all, on some of the old buildings.

So, what they’re trying to do at the moment is start with the new buildings that they’re receiving, and then not use the folder structure particularly. The folder structure is a way of holding place holders for where things are, but then using metadata to actually find things. Cliff can explain the methodology that they’re following there. So that’s one aspect, to have a more standardised way of setting up the folders. And also a standardised way of checking the information, so that’s another aspect that they’ve done some work on. And then also the technical submittal process. When we started looking at this about a year to 18 months ago we realised that pretty well every main contractor operates a technical submittal process because it’s the way they manage cost and quality.

The only thing is they all do it differently. They’re almost the same, but they’ve all got their own templates. So, we’ve now got several big contractors to agree that it would be sensible for them to have a standardised technical submittal process and that’s what we’re trying to put together. So, that will become something that we can then get buy in from people so that trade contractors for example, who are providing information, can do so in a standardised form.

KEVIN BAYLISS When going through this process of the handover files and everything in the file structure and standardising at Wolverhampton, it’s quite clear talking to…a CDM point of view and how they use things and those typical folders from experience working with Wolverhampton Homes in terms of what they do with maintenance teams as well. It was the fact that actually when you look at the handover material that gets handed over there is a lot of duplication from folder to folder.

So, what the proposal we’re working at the moment is we’ve got this folder structure, but then when you get certain things like areas in the health & safety file and surveys that we’ve already got in the folder structure. Then we’ve been doing links to those rather than duplicating the folder structure and then links to other software platforms to deal with that golden thread rather than duplicating the information.

GEORGE STEVENSON That’s completely in line with what we’re recommending. Cliff, would you be able to explain what you’re doing with Origin? Cliff is showing this in Active Plan, but this is not specific to Active Plan at all, this is generic.

CLIFF KNEALE (shares screen). What we’ve done is we’ve been discussing this with the health & safety executive and come up with this folder structure that was initially based on the CDM folder structure. And we’ve worked it out with some clients of ours as well to see what they would expect to have as a folder structure at handover. Because, as already mentioned, a lot of the housing associations or the end users are working with many different developers and they’re getting information in a different way each time, so this is one way of just standardising it, you could say that information management starts at a folder level and then it’s the contents of the folders and then it’s actually going down into the drawing until you get to actually assets and objects.

So, this is what we’ve been developing here. We’ve just got all of the information in each folder, if you go down to the home user guide you’ll see that in there. We’ve got consultants (if we open this up), so there’s a place for each consultant to put their information. There’s also we were asked where does the fire information, it’s very important so we’ve added a specific folder just for all of the fire information, fire safety critical assets. As you can see, it starts off at the top of the health & safety file and that, of course, does include the O&M information which sits down in the work packages.

So, if I open this up you’ll see that there are work packages here, you have fabric and then you have services packages and general building information. This can be expanded on, this would probably be the minimum folders that you would need, and you might want to add some folders for project managers, that kind of thing.

GEORGE STEVENSON Could you show what you used to populate that from Sharepoint so the spreadsheet process that you use that tags all of the documents. I’ve got it here. This is the generic process. (shares screen). What Cliff was just showing there, it’s important to say that this is not an Active Plan thing. This is the standard folder structure that we’ve developed with the HSE and input from lots of other people as well. We’ve got folders…do you want to explain this, Cliff?

CLIFF KNEALE It started out with when the Building Safety Act first came in and you had to register your buildings. We started out with a list of information you would need to register a building and then we built it out from there in terms of what BSRIA say you need at handover and what RIBA say that you need at handover. So, we’ve added all of that information in, so it’s just based on industry standards and some of the institutes. It lists everything that you would need, I think it goes to a couple of thousand lines long and ultimately you can organise things by systems and products are part of systems. So, you can actually click on a system and it would find all of the products that go to make up that system. And we use this then to populate the database, we use it to identify what’s needed on a project and then to track that it’s been delivered. And then once it’s been delivered in Sharepoint that’s then exported into the database which is effectively the golden thread, so that’s the tool really.

GEORGE STEVENSON The principle behind this is that the fire strategy drawings, for example, you can have a checklist against it to say what does that fire strategy drawing need to be able to include in terms of information. But it’s also the case that we can add tags to all of those documents so that when that then is imported into whatever database people are using, you can then find information by how it has been grouped. So, the principle here is that, just ask Kevin was saying there, you don’t simply rely on, because you only want the document in once, so the document may sit in maybe the information from an architect, but you actually want it to be a part of the fire & emergency file, or something like that. So the principle behind it is that you’ve got the document once, but then you add metadata and other attributes to it to present it more easily.

CLIFF KNEALE Yeah, you can bring these together for many purposes. At the top there it says part of, so that bit of information may have been used as part of the HRB registration, or it might have been part of Regulation 7, 38 or the Fire Safety Manual Building Logbook. Whatever it is you just put that tag in there and when you search through the Building Logbook it brings all of that information together. It doesn’t duplicate it, it just references it.

PAUL WOMACK I think you answered the question as soon as I put my hand up, but did I see in the spreadsheet something about resident engagement?

CLIFF KNEALE From memory, it’s a while ago since I’ve prepared that, but I think there is something on there to do with that. But I wanted to touch on the point that Kevin mentioned earlier and you mentioned, Paul, about the naming conventions. So, the naming conventions are all well and good if it’s a new project and everybody agrees to the naming conventions at the start and there’s a way that checking that they were followed. But on existing buildings, and let’s face it most buildings are already existing and they’re quite old, so there may not have been any naming conventions.

And it’s important not to rename those files to follow in ISO19650 because, of course, those drawings would have been referred to from other drawings. So, if you rename the file you’re not going to be able to find it. So this is why we add metadata so that you can retain your existing folder structure and your existing file names, but you can add tags onto those files. And, using databases, you can map from the source folder to the new folder and it will take the contents across and give it a tag, so that way people don’t have to change their folder structure or their file names of existing information.

PAUL WOMACK Which is good, the only thing, and it’s at lower level, is when I’m trying to go through documentation and you get all of the evidence of servicing and maintenance records etc. They come as a PDF titled 1479876 and it’s just got no relevance, you’re looking at hundreds of PDFs to find one key piece of information that you need to produce, potentially to the Regulator.

CLIFF KNEALE Yeah, so you’d add a tag on to that, human readable, something that makes sense on to that, and then when you search the database it will bring that document up. And quite often when a PDF is produced it gives it a document number that looks like a password to your wifi, it just doesn’t make any sense at all. So, those documents can also be, you just tag them with what actually is in there, but you don’t change the file name.

GEORGE STEVENSON What we’re trying to do in this group is really get people, like you Paul, who are at the sharp end, to critique the ideas that we’re developing so that we can then come up with something that people can buy into, rather than do it uniquely.

PAUL WOMACK Apologies, you’ve asked me to critique when I’m looking at this spreadsheet which I can’t knock at all. But human intervention where they move files, they remove a line. So, for example, line 101 detailed roles…if that’s lost and deleted by human intervention then that link is lost. How do you protect this to stop human intervention mucking it up?

GEORGE STEVENSON If it’s in the database, then we manage that through permissions. So, that’s pretty straightforward. We’re not suggesting, by the way, that we’re doing this in Excel, this is just a way that we’re presenting it.

PAUL WOMACK Oh yeah, sorry, I’m blinkered, but I see so much Excel that if I’ve treated incorrectly then I apologise.

CLIFF KNEALE This is the stepping stone into the database, so it’s taking things from dumb PDF data that might be a PDF drawing, into a database so that you can add some intelligence to it and start linking things together. This is a tool to identify what’s needed, track its delivery, tag it so that you can find it and then import it into a database and then do searches based on those tags.

PAUL WOMACK I was an operational fire fighter and for those new bits of equipment I was given it first to see if I could break it. And if I could break it, obviously it was fine.

KEVIN BAYLISS Probably this was answered in terms of what was said, I think that’s a really good idea because we’ve got a lot of existing HRBs and things that we’re working on that we’re developing. And we’ve a few new build bits as well with the same client, but it’s just a case of part of the projects are part way through, so then trying as much as we’re setting that up. So then part of it is actually setting up a sequence and so on, but saying actually we’re not going to rename all of those things. However, moving forward, the new documents and everything and how that process of review is done properly.

For example, taking it from a point where people are coordinating on that golden thread platform which is held by the client and managed by the client. That platform and then people are reviewing things correctly. And then the other point I was going to make to Paul, the golden thread is a number of platforms and they’re a number of secure platforms to deliver that golden thread. And I think that bit that I’ve just said is the hardest bit, I would say, and how they all interlink and work together. So then we’ve got a point where obviously we’re using 360 for the client, trying to convince them to go ACC, it’s not the greatest, different ones have different advantages.

But as part of that process we’ve also been talking to them about access, who has access. And the really important message that we’ve been saying is the document controllers controlling that information for the standard naming is absolutely critical to make sure that is going on. Otherwise, everyone just puts things in any old fashion. When you’ve set up a system then, in reality, the system is not going to work.

GEORGE STEVENSON Agreed. What I’m showing you here now is a standardised process that we’ve been developing, of doing that review process. This can work with Asite, with Dalux, full projects or whatever. The principle is that we can agree a standard and then who the authors are clearly identified, which may sound blindingly obvious but often isn’t done very clearly. And then what we’re proposing is that whatever CDE is being used, BIM 360 for example, we’ve got a methodology of then going through and checking against a criteria. And if anything isn’t in compliance with that criteria, that should be created as a digital snag. So, it means that we’ve then got a method of actually tracking that through.

Now, people are using tools for doing snagging and management of that, so that it’s an established way of working, so therefore what we should be doing is treating that in that way. I think a lot of people do anyway, but having that as a methodology that if something is wrong, if there’s a digital defect, it ought to be treated the same way as a physical defect. And until it gets closed out it’s open. And then also using that to then check the technical data, if it’s in documents, ideally obviously as much as it as possible should be digital and therefore it can be checked through some sort of COBie comparison. But then it then gets accepted and then can also connect to product data so that we’ve actually got something that then can then be more intelligently managed going forward.

And it starts to address a range of other criteria, it’s not just operating and maintenance or safety, you’ve also got things like sustainability and carbon and these other things that everybody is now being focused on. So, that’s the methodology. The other thing I was going to show, this technical submittal process. This is the way it’s being done at the moment, this is a Bouygues project, that’s a technical submittal document from Bouygues. And it’s very similar to others that we’re working with. So, what we’re doing is saying that information, the proposed product at that point that it’s being proposed, there is a requirement on the supply chain, on the trade contractor that wants to use it, to put it into a product library.

And by putting it into a product library they enter it into the product library, so they’re responsible for saying this is how that product is going to perform. But then it can then feed into the technical submittal process. So, in the case of here that we’ve put together, this is a standardised way of doing it where you’ve got what the product was supposed to do and also what the product is that’s proposed, the actual product and the model number. Not a catalogue of 50 items that it could be, it’s that one that we want to use. And then that gets fed back up to whoever the approver is through probably a design manager, for it to be approved and signed off. And, as Andy was saying, Waites are not unusual in this.

Andy Simpson is normally at the end of the process because he is compiling the O&Ms and quite often he’ll get technical submittals that aren’t completed, so there is not a proper record of what was installed. So this process can help with that.

PAUL WOMACK Is there any mileage in adding shelf life or use life before the equipment needs to be changed? That way that will give the heads up to the bean counters that oh, this is here for 15 years, I need to factor that in when we need to spend some money on whatever.

GEORGE STEVENSON Yeah, we’ve got that, we built that in, it’s called expected life. So, very much so, a really important point. And in fact actually the other thing that is really important that is often missed is warranties, because people perceive that the warranty is just the contractor’s warranty which is probably 12 months. Whereas the warranties that the manufacturers give, which good manufacturers will probably give maybe a 10 or a 15 or even a 25 year warranty because their product is better than some of the less good ones, but that information is just lost. The other thing that you as a client should be doing is asking for the warranties to be novated.

At the moment what tends to happen is that if NG Bailey buy a fire damper because they’re doing the installation, the warranty is with them. But, of course, that’s useless, you need it with you. And people aren’t asking those questions and that’s just something that we should be pushing.

KEVIN BAYLISS Just in reflection to this, I just wanted to identify in terms of when you’re thinking about BSR, for example, and HRBs for example, obviously there’s the change log. So, how that then directly relates to a change in approval process, for Wolverhampton they’re looking at setting a simple database up which effectively we’ve gone through a change control process which then essentially, because obviously after you’ve done your gateway 2 essentially anything that could be 1 needs to be logged 2 if it’s a notifiable one. Essentially before anyone does anything around that change it needs to go through a client approval process and get the right technical and say are we going to do this? Do we think it’s a major?

A bit of a process about if the contractor is saying actually I want to change this product, onsite we know it’s different, actually it’s a better product, it’s not a worse product. It’s still clients’ and accountable persons point of view to say actually I need to review that and sign that off and I’ve got the right people on board to be able to have that technical view. And can I justify that to the BSR? So, there’s a bit of a process around it, setting up a little database for a sort of approval process. That’s something if you’re dealing with HRBs, for example, you may want to consider how that works into that process as well.

GEORGE STEVENSON Very much so. What would be really helpful, Kevin, because I know the way you work these things through, if we share with you the technical submittal template that we’ve just given there. I can plug you into Paul Oakley who’s been coordinating it. It would be great to feed that into your process because I think that’s exactly right. And all of the main CDEs are quite good at managing those workflows. So, that change control process you’re absolutely right, that’s a big, big driver for doing this properly. Why on earth wouldn’t you use the tech sub process to record what’s actually being installed? It just seems a no brainer.

KEVIN BAYLISS And that process of reviewing and justifying. If you were to, for the BSR one for example, if you do a submission it’s not a change of submission because you’re doing, so then it goes to…you’ve got to say it was cheaper or I could get hold of it quicker, is it an argument? I don’t think. I think the argument is from a point of view of are you making that change because it’s a better change. Because it’s a bit cheaper you can’t potentially change that product to be a bit less, you’re more likely to signal a change.

So, there is a process around so when you’re going through those technical subs, clicking some kind of element that then says from a change control point of view and the control plan has it gone through that approval process? is there a reason why you’re doing that change? Is it a justified change on the BSR? So, there’s a little bit more in there.

GEORGE STEVENSON Yeah, definitely. I’ll send you this through, but is there anybody else interested in participating in that technical submittal bit?

PAUL WOMACK Absolutely, yes, I’d be delighted to assist.

GEORGE STEVENSON Terence, on your side, one of the things that I was impressed with when I was talking to you and Chris Craggs the either day, you were very much looking at things as to what the impact is. So, that’s another aspect, Kevin, I think you’d find interesting. Chris Craggs, a lot of what they do is catering equipment and the impact, for example, of a kitchen not working I imagine is quite significant. And they’ve set up with ORCA to actually manage a lot of that process through.

TERENCE HORSMAN What we’re trying to do is beyond the product specifications, were’ trying to operationalise the impact data around assets not functioning or functioning. So, for example, if you have a gas range at a primary school, but what’s the business impact of that particular products or assets going down? Clearly, you won’t be able to feed the children, so there needs to be alternatives been put in place, it could have significant impact. So what we’re trying to do is create an array of normalised business dimensions that we could add as metadata to these assets to be able to evaluate what the business impact is of certain assets failing. So, if I could get involved with the project I think it would be really, really positive, to add a different view to things, perhaps.

GEORGE STEVENSON The other thing, Richard Whittaker is on the call, and Richard leads, along with Will Borthen, our business case group. So, one of the things that Richard is doing…What Terence is doing is looking at what the impact is of, the example he used was a kitchen. I think from a business case perspective, Richard, that’s the sort of thing we want examples of things going wrong because you don’t have the right asset information and therefore that provides the justification for making the investments.

RICHARD WHITTAKER Thats right, because that brings long term value into your whole lifecycle costing. And when you look at that, and people will get that or should get that quite easily, but add to that the digital snagging or information as a route, that just doesn’t exist in construction in my 40-odd years. You just wait for it to go wrong and then you react and then it costs you a fortune, or you put yourself at risk of being non-compliant. So, those things for governance and the decision makers should be really influential. So, if you’ve got compliance you’re not going to go to jail, if you’ve got cost everybody has got finite budgets and they’re all very tight. And you’ve got efficiency and customer satisfaction at the other end of that journey. Three simple milestones that boards focus on quite heavily.

So, these examples might seem quite small in isolation, but you don’t need very many before somebody starts looking at, well, the process is flawed all of the way through. Because once this is up and running this should then influence future developments, not just in terms of information, but also in terms of the design and the sort of feedback from you customers. We’re going to see them in 12 months on domestic dwellings, we’re going to see them in 12 months we’ve got ?? 55mins 34secs work, by then we’ve got another 5 jobs out of starting blocks. So, I can change them, but I’d pay a big variation costs. By having this more proactive approach I can invest that money in new build and not existing build, if that makes sense.

PAUL WOMACK Following on from what Terence and Richard have said, when I produce the building safety cases we base a lot on what ifs. What if this breaks down? What’s the implication? And then how do we mitigate that and what process have we got to finding an alternative. So, that’s a big thing that we do for safety cases.

RICHARD WHITTAKER That’s a really good point, actually, because we’ve done a piece of work in terms of risk management and recording risk. And of course, everybody has a single stage risk management profile and some people have got a two-stage sort of process. We’ve introduced a third stage so that it leaves legacy for asset teams, particularly doing new build or refurb actually. A good example of that is through the Building Safety Act where at the minute the measure or risk is height. If that changes to complex building you’ve got a boat load of low-rise buildings with half hour fire check doors in. Not the one hour fire check doors in that you would get on the 4th floor of a high-rise, but not on the 4th floor of a low-rise.

So, that legacy risk, building up that, all contribute to your 30-year business plan. And, I’m hoping somebody can prove me wrong, because if not we’ve done a cracking job. This is the first time we’ve seen it, in terms of risk management, we’ve developed this legacy stage. So, it will be interesting to hear people’s views on that, if it’s got legs or value or not.

GEORGE STEVENSON Absolutely. I was talking to an asset manager this morning, he was explaining the challenge that he’s got on managing PFI health care facilities. And the fact that the lifecycle budget just doesn’t allow, it’s got zero in for a lot of things that have got to be done and he’s got no funds there at all to do them. And somebody’s calculated all of this on spreadsheets to be able to come up with something that is affordable and ticks the box, but there is no relationship between that and the things that are actually in the building.

He was saying he’s got a particular door that needs replacing and because it’s a mechanised door he said it’s £40,000 or something like that and there’s no money to do it. So, I think having the relationship between risk and impact is a really strong one because it’s going to help decision makers to understand the implications of the cuts that they’re making. Because actually they are compromising the safety of the people and therefore their own safety.

PAUL WOMACK It goes on a bit further as well in regards costs and when items are going to be replaced when it has to go through the gateway stages now. So, if you’ve got a number of fire doors that need replacing that’s got to go through the gateway stages. And there is time and expense involved in all of that.

RICHARD WHITTAKER Yeah, and that’s right in terms of obsolescence, but in terms of foreseeable risks we don’t tend, or I’ve not seen anything, that identifies foreseeable risk. They just react to it by robbing a budget from somewhere else for a £40,000 mechanical door and that impacts on the business.

KEVIN BAYLISS My final point is about doing this proactive approach is really important for the assets. Because I’ll give an example in Wolverhampton Homes, the maintenance guys will go out and go I’ve got to change that, I’m not quite sure what fan it is, I’ve got 4 or 5 of them. I’ve ordered 4 or 5, I’m going to put 4 or 5 in the van to go and replace one fan. So, then it can’t be efficient from a cost point of view. So by doing that asset and some of that really proactive element is also then feeding that back into the whole process and circle of that golden thread of your asset and maintaining your asset. The fact that you then know actually this one is more, this one is less efficient, you may have carbon targets or something like that. Or you might look at those and go actually see these are breaking down more often than others. And you go actually, no, I know that data, so I’m now going to have a look at that in the process and I’m now going to look at a different product.

So, that whole circle of managing the data for that asset and also when you’re doing that making sure. What I thought would be a really good thing would be actually even though in this handover area we’re going to be giving this information about warranties, how long you need to be replaced etc which is great. But then it would be really good if the system or linked to the system that then said look, actually, do you realise in X amount of time this is going to need to be replaced, in advance, so you’ve got that tracking element to it. I think that would be really beneficial.

GEORGE STEVENSON Agreed, so more joined up, absolutely.

LUCY KEAN I was really interested in that point that Richard picked up on that additional level of risk because we are just being asked to consider what happens if they roll out the definition of HRB further and what the impact will be to us with the rest of our buildings. And actually something, if we’ve got that level of risk identified that’s not an easy piece of work to do, but it’s a really good way of documenting for the board, this is what it could cost us or this is what we would have to do. So yeah, that’s really key.

GEORGE STEVENSON I think actually I will perhaps contact you afterwards on this, Lucy, because one of the things that we’re trying to do is to look at this in a more joined up way. So, for example, what people are doing at the moment, they’re carrying out work that actually they don’t need to carry out at the moment if they have a proper plan. So, for example, they’re replacing fire doors and actually the key thing about replacing fire doors is that the purpose of it is to make the compartmentation better. So, if they simply replace fire doors because that’s a simple thing for them to do they could be compromising the compartmentation because it’s not being done with due understanding of what the wall is.

So therefore if they actually step back and say, well, what am I actually trying to achieve, the task here isn’t to replace the fire doors, it’s to make the internal compartmentation better. And therefore it maybe that you can then say OK, over the next 3 years we’re going to make the internal compartmentation better and we’re going to do it gradually on the risk-based approach, so we can actually say we want to do these in a progressive way. Does that make sense?

PAUL WOMACK Yes and following on from that the Building Safety Regulator is not interested about how fire starts, you’re going to have a fire, but how do you stop the fire spreading out? If that fire door fails, what if? If the compartmentation fails, what if? So, the Regulator isn’t interested about you’re going to get a fire, that’s fine, but what’s to stop that spread.

GEORGE OK, it sounds as though we’ve got a rich group here that we’ve got other people as well coming onto this. I think the logical thing is for us to, there’s two key things. One is the standardising the O&M structure and classification and all of that side of things. So, if you’re interested in us following up on that just put that into the chat or put your hand up now. And what about technical submittals? Is that something that you’d be interested in? OK, good.

PAUL WOMACK Going on from that, George, with the technical submittal you said you were going to be good enough to pass it on to me. Is there any chance of filling one in?

GEORGE STEVENSON Yeah, so you can see what it would look like, we can certainly do that. I’ve just noticed that Richard Nestor, you’re from Mott MacDonald. which part of Mott MacDonald are you with?

RICHARD NESTOR I sit within the strategic advisory group. We provide advice on information management to clients.

GEORGE STEVENSON So, do you work with Chris…I’d be interested to have a follow up chat with you. You’ve not engaged too much today, but have you found it useful?

RICHARD NESTOR Yeah, very interesting.

GEORGE STEVENSON Because I think the technical submittal bit, obviously Motts is a massive organisation, you’re like Jacobs, you’ll have people that are doing that type of thing. You’re doing strategic advisory.

RICHARD FREER Just to say, we have an advisory group, I don’t know if that might be of interest to you.

CHAT

Chris Craggs (External) 11:47 am

new to this process and not wanting to rock the boat but are there occupiers and FM's in this group - the users, those who might be prosecuted, those who might benefit from maintained data? (we're an interested sub-contractor)

Modupe Sobowale (External) 12:08 pm

The tags can be queried to get information when required.

Terence Horsman (External) 12:26 pm