Strategic Planning
The foundation to most projects is strategic planning. We take a holistic approach when considering how scientific facilities and laboratories fit within your overall organisation.
Using our specialist skill sets, informed by over 20 years’ experience, we review, analyse and prepare relevant reports that allow you to make informed, evidence-based decisions.
Operational reviews and functional requirements
We offer functional and operational reviews to assess the strengths and weaknesses of your existing facilities and operations. This gives you a clear baseline and overview of how current space planning and systems affects the quality of work carried out by your user groups. This doesn’t relate to your scientific processes, but the relationships between your laboratories and facilities. For instance, do staff, samples, and products need to travel long distances due to an inefficient layout? Is cross contamination or sample integrity an issue due to spatial constraints?
Many of our clients have found that having an independent review of their functional relationships helps them make some significant improvements to their efficiency and productivity. This also helps to inform the brief for the design of a new facility.
Project feasibility assessment
What is the best option for your business or organisation?
Do you need an entire facility refurbishment or just parts of it? Are you building new or refurbishing an existing building? Are you best to build on a new site or the existing site? What happens if you acquire or divulge a division? What are the compliance issues?
To find practical, long-term solutions to these questions, we work closely with you, often consulting with relevant experts, to look at options and assess the practicality and cost implications.
The result is a report that allows you to make informed decisions on the best way forward.
Master planning
A master plan is one of the most valuable and crucial stages when planning a project. Especially when your project is large, complex, or needs to be staged.
Working together, we review all options and outcomes before creating a co-ordinated plan. This holistic, strategic process is informed by our expansive architectural and planning experience in the science sector, which will give you a solid long-term vision that stands up to executive-level scrutiny.
In addition, we advise clients on the best sequencing of work to reduce compliance issues, as well as the associated time and cost.
Business case reports
Most organisations require detailed business cases for capital expenditure and infrastructure projects. Ensuring that these are well considered, and as accurate as possible, make it easier to assess and gain approval. Thereby setting your project up for success from the very start.
Apart from showing that all reasonable options have been considered and the best option has been recommended, the most critical aspect of any business case is to include budgets and timeframes that are appropriate to the project.
We have assisted many public and private sector organisations to develop robust and well considered business cases.
Decanting and occupation strategy
Whether you need to build new or refurbish an existing facility, how you move existing functions and processes requires careful thought. There will be disruption, so planning the decanting and or occupation strategy will help minimise the impact on a user’s amenity and productivity.
We have helped clients through a variety of scenarios. Be it designing temporary facilities in an alternate location, developing plans for staging construction work, modifying existing facilities to be flexible, or a combination of options, we are able to assist in the planning and execution of your strategy.
