Covering your back or am I just being cynical?
I’ve now completed my handover of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) steam replacement project. Bryden Wood Ltd (BWL) has completed the design, which has been approved by the client and is waiting with all the other tender documentation to be issued for the selection of the principal contractor. Except if I were a betting man I’d put a reasonable wager on that this project won’t be put out to tender anytime soon. Why?
As I’ve previously mentioned steam is currently generated at basement level and supplies autoclaves within the school, serves as a backup heat source for LSHTM and also feeds a district heating system (which is not utilised). What I’ve not gone into is the contractual relationship of this setup. LSHTM don’t own the steam generators, even though they are within their building. They’re owned and operated by an FM company called Cofely Ltd who use them to provide resilience to a district heating system and also sell steam back to LSHTM for use in the school’s autoclaves and backup heating. The brief BWL received from the client was to replace steam generation for the autoclaves and LSHTM’s backup heat source, not for the district heating system. We’ve done this. The client was going to formally / had already informally confirmed with Cofely that Cofely no longer required steam to the district heating system and that LSHTM would no longer be buying their steam from Cofely. What has become apparent is that this plan was based on conversation that had been conducted by LSHTM’s estates director, a man who has now jumped ship. This has left the LSHTM’s estates programme manager with no top cover. What if Cofley decide they do need a steam supply to their district heating system? BWL’s design will need a complete overhaul. Even if Cofley are still happy to lose the district heating system they will presumably want some form of financial compensation to offset the loss of income associated with no longer being able to sell LSHTM steam (although this will be offset by not having to maintain the steam generators). LSHTM’s team don’t appear to be clear on what their exact contractual position is with Cofley, so there’s a whole load of uncertainty to be resolved.
A new estate’s director has been appointed and has put all planned projects on hold until he as personally reviewed them. This should have seen the steam project being reviewed a couple of weeks ago; it hasn’t. I recently had a chat with the estates programme manager who told me that the review of the steam project was being put on hold as there a few large capital projects due to start and they were at risk of taking on too much at once. This could very realistically be the case or it could be that the programme manager doesn’t want to expose to the new director just how much of a mess the contractual position with Cofley is. The large projects serve as a great excuse to delay and get the house in order.
So what?
From my point of view this is a classic example of ensuring you conduct your stake holder analysis and identifying the critical factors for success. From BWL’s perspective they’ve been paid for the work that had been done, so there is no loss and LSHTM are offering BWL additional work (which was the main aim of this project).
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Richard, the critical question that I would be asking is why is the steam no longer required for the district heating main? It should be fairly easy to analyse the exposure to risk on the basis of the answer.
Jim,
It was put into provide some redundancy to the district heat main. The system has developed, some CHP units have been put in elsewhere and so the steam HX is no longer required for redundancy – it’s currently locked off an has not been used in anger. I think the critical question is why didn’t the client get formal agreement from Cofley prior to employing BWL to conduct the design? Although the steam HX is no longer required for redundancy it’s relatively low maintenance and a nice to have, there’s a danger that there could be a bit of sucking of teeth when Cofley are formally told that it’s going to be removed.
Rich,
I guess BWL are content; they did their job and got paid. However it seems that the client has wasted their money based on bad assumptions. If the steam TX is required, how adaptable is the design? Would it require a complete re-show, or has someone been clever enough to make allowance for this?
James,
BWL are fairly content, the only threat will be that the project is delayed so long that it’ll take additional time and therefore money to get back up and running at some point in the future. There’s also still 20% of the fee up for grabs. Completely agree that the client has potentially wasted some money, which is especially frustrating given that it probably comes from the taxpayer. If the district heating HX needs to be included and supplied by the new generators there will need to be a re-show on a huge portion of the design. The new system has been designed with an element of spare capacity for future expansion, but the HX would be far in excess of that, so new generators would be required. Implications would be:
The location of the new steam generators is in a plant room with a relatively low ceiling. The steam generators being installed are at the physical limit of the room size. Allowing for a steam supply to the district heating HX would require a large generator which wouldn’t fit in the existing location. Moving the generator location would mean the distribution routes would need to be re coordinated.
The load from the generator to the HX will run down the main steam riser which would need to be resized as would any steam trapping stations along the run.
Larger generators would need a larger water supply which isn’t available in the new plant room. Also a greater volume of gas would be required so a new gas supply would be required.
Knock it down and start again?…