All in good time

M&E contractors are always seen as the bad boys: they are always late, claims conscious, promise the world but don’t deliver it, and if something is wrong it’s never their fault. In fact, I could write a book on excuses used by M&E contractors. But what is the real reason behind this behaviour? It strikes me that, it might not be entirely their fault.

Everything has a rhythm – life, the day, seasons and the building of a project. Break the rhythm and you have a problem – but that’s exactly what we do time and time again. How many times have you heard the call for an early start on site by the M&E contractors: “Yes, yes, you have an area to work on in the basement; yes that’s it, that little dark 3 m × 3 m cell over there in the south-east corner. Oh and by the way there is another in the north west – plenty of things for you to get on with.” The M&E contractor then spends six months or more trying to pull a jigsaw together.

Putting M&E contractors on site early with the aim of speeding up project delivery all too often ends in confusion, frustration and eventually extra costs. I have seen so many projects where the client has paid up front for the M&E team to come on site early, but they have achieved nothing because of the lack of understanding as to what can be achieved. Quite rightly, the client thinks he has been mugged; what has he got for his money?

The early role of the M&E contractor should be simply as a strategic advisor – without a team of workers on site. The benefits of this approach are considerable: the M&E contractor gets to understand the project and team and the client and design team get the benefit of specialist advice, all at minimal cost and disruption. As the design and programme progresses, the amount of involvement from the M&E contractor will increase until its teams are required full time, with areas of work that are realistic and can maintain connectivity, thereby reducing or eliminating the risk of delays and disruption. This isn’t rocket science, just good practice.

A good design manager is invaluable at this stage, somebody who really understands the consequences of incomplete or incompatible design. The programme targets also need to be realistic, not suicidal, or all members of the project team fail. Everybody in construction has witnessed the mad panic at the end of a project, that insistent drive to complete on programme. Then there are the promises of instructions – why oh why do people still believe in verbal instructions and feel let down when they don’t appear? – and the cries of foul play, usually because the M&E contractor had double or three times the budgeted workforce on site. But why is that? Because of out of sequence working or late design – or in all probability as a direct result of both.

More often than not, M&E contractors are not allowed to finish their works as a result of incomplete work by other trades, be they dry liners, ceiling erectors or carpenters, and are moved into other areas to continue their work. This kind of behaviour disrupts the natural rhythm of the project, the consequence of which is additional cost and time.

Putting M&E contractors on site early all too often ends in confusion, frustration and eventually extra costs

To reduce this disruption we need to develop ways of working and installation that avoid the problems: for example, removing electrical and mechanical interface with exposed building fabric; ensuring that M&E contractors have large, continuous work areas; simplifying installations; making use of prefabrication and so on.

Most of the above is now common practice but the sequencing and installation remain the main cause of M&E contractors’ problems and we need to take the next step in solving them.

So are the M&E contractors still the bad boys? Well, actually, they probably are.

Barry Nugent is a partner in Davis Langdon Mott Green Wall