Introducing STaMP to building services

The influence that building services has on the cost, quality and programme of a construction project is well-known and oft cited. What is less known is the relationship between the procurement strategy of the entire project against the procurement strategy of the building services.

Currently building services procurement is a disjointed process between all parties within the supply chain. Clients desire to procure building services in a manner that matches their basic description of the functioning service ie heat, coolness or light.

The design must be compatible with the manufacturing and assembly processes in order to reduce waste during production. This compatibility will create greater levels of standardisation, rationalisation and off-site manufacture through the selection and integration of standard components around a co-ordinated manufacturing and assembly plan.

At the same time, manufacturing allows complete flexibility of the design of components, which can be produced as quickly and economically as standard items, while increasing quality.

The aligning of building services to that of product strategies would facilitate the increased uptake of manufacturing strategies utilising standardisation, modularisation and pre-assembly (STaMP). Hence STaMP should become a primary requirement in future building strategies, as it captures the advantages of manufacturing while minimising construction-based activities.

The disjointed working of building services causes clients to become disgruntled as a circle of blame exists between all project participants. With the use of product-based strategies, clients would have simplified lines of responsibilities, together with integrated warranties and product guarantees.

Ideally a system should exist that lays out the project requirement on a function tree. Each building element could then be assessed against a STaMP element for compatibility.

Partial solutions or modifications to standardisation processes may also be considered. This should readily lend any project to a supply chain strategy as the product function can easily be seen on a multi-layered basis.

This should also allow the identification of the necessary attributes and functions of a building service's installation on an elemental basis. Simplistic buildings may lend itself a single product strategy, whereas complex projects, such as hospitals, may more readily lend themselves to a number of product lines. This would assist industry in developing appropriate supply strategies of working together with other suppliers to deliver a product-based service.

Procurement arrangements are either service or performance specific. However, building services procurement that is based on pre-manufacturing must be assessed on a technical, managerial, business and manufacturing criteria.

The ability to develop a strategy to determine the level of component manufacture with the appropriate service provider is hampered by:

a lack of documented information sources which aids decision support

an absence of systematic processes to perform a feasibility study considering all assessment criteria

There is currently no management tool that determines the planning of work with project requirements. Ideally a system should exist that links all providers together within one decision model. Procurement decisions should be based on industry capabilities, rather than individual manufacturers.