The secret to maintaining operations during project delivery
Whenever building, maintenance or repair work takes place in a working estate or building, the challenge of continuing normal operations becomes a delicate balancing act.
Shutting down a site or estate is often impracticable. Many government and public buildings must remain functional to provide essential services, and businesses rely on their real estate to continue trading. Arts and cultural organisations also risk losing visitor interest if access is limited for long periods.
Museums and galleries typically experience a drop in visitor numbers when key exhibits are inaccessible, which can affect revenue, visitor engagement and the museum’s ability to raise funding for future exhibitions. Similarly, pharmaceutical and other manufacturing organisations can face severe disruptions if they cannot keep their production lines flowing.
Skilled project teams must be able to navigate these challenges to have minimal impact on the broader organisation, despite the demands of keeping a major programme on track.
Establish critical needs
Disruption is unavoidable during live construction, but a well-informed approach can mitigate its impact significantly.
The first step is to identify what functions are critical to maintain the building’s key value or purpose to the organisation. This could be preserving high quality clinical care for patients in hospital emergency services or keeping key customer areas open in retail environments.
Understanding the fundamental need, whether it’s patient care, customer experience, or production continuity, is key to plan work around these criteria.
In addition, every site is reliant upon its mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems (MEP), so the continual operation of these systems must be maintained during project delivery. This is prevalent when working to re-service heritage buildings, which can require miles of electrical cable replacement and significant alterations to how water and waste are transported across sites.
Ensuring that this ‘nerve system’ matches and supports the essential features that the site needs to maintain is an essential starting point in developing design solutions and planning construction work.
Canvas site users to understand regular behaviours
Once a building’s critical function within the wider organisation has been established, project teams must then identify occupant touch points with works taking place through examining their regular behaviours.
For instance, within a museum environment, ensuring that galleries and exhibitions remain accessible is vital. Noise and dust from adjacent work can have a hugely detrimental impact on visitor experience, so it’s vital that measures are put in place to appropriately control its impact.
Identifying these priorities helps in planning construction activities with minimal impact to business operations. Close engagement with the different users and stakeholders who use the building regularly allows programme managers to spot opportunities to work around their needs.
Utilise a phased handover
An understanding of the site’s critical needs and regular occupant behaviours enables us to phase construction works to return key areas to normal use quickly and efficiently.
This approach allows different parts of the building to remain operational while construction progresses. For example, in manufacturing or pharmaceutical environments, phased production lines can be implemented to ensure that critical processes continue without interruption.
Handovers need to be planned with both operational and commercial outcomes in mind, aiming to keep normal activity flowing smoothly while maximising retail, visitor or productivity opportunities. When approached early, with contractor buy-in and strong advisory, this careful scheduling helps maintain output and avoid costly downtime.
Plan for contingency, safety and preservation
Unexpected issues can arise in any live construction environment. Fire risks are heightened during live works and building fabric discoveries, such as evidence of asbestos, can hamper both delivery and business as usual.
A fire alarm set off by an overheating light fitting at the British Museum in 2016 saw over 4,000 people evacuated. Such situations can have detrimental consequences, disrupting and potentially driving away visitors.
Therefore, having disaster contingency plans in place for situations like this is vital. These should cover potential scenarios and outline steps to mitigate their impact; or prevent them in the first instance. Robust fire prevention steps must also be considered, including compartmentation with a focus on high-risk areas.
Finally, live construction brings additional risks to heritage collections like fireplaces and painted fabrics, particularly with heating and humidity changes. In such environments project teams need to plan vibration and climate monitoring practices into their works to minimise damage to irreplaceable items.
Collaborative solutions for maintaining operations
One of the most effective ways to manage these complexities is by engaging a strong delivery partner. A delivery partner brings a wealth of experience and expertise, ensuring that all aspects of the project are meticulously planned and executed. Acting as a single point of contact, they streamline communication and coordination among various stakeholders; crucial in a live environment.
A delivery partner can also provide innovative solutions tailored to the unique needs of sites. They might suggest using modular construction techniques to minimise on-site work or employ advanced scheduling software to optimise the timing of disruptive activities. Their role is to foresee potential issues and address them proactively, ensuring that the project stays on track without compromising the building’s needs and functions.
Maintaining operations in a live construction environment is challenging, but with careful planning, skilled execution, and a dedicated delivery partner, outstanding results are achievable without compromising functionality.
