Standardisation of M&E parts and equipment leads to efficiencies of scale in both procurement and manufacture, and efficiencies of labour in the application on site of simple, safe, repeated, standard tasks.. We apply the principles of DfMA to every M&E building services project we work on, regardless of scale or sector.
Developers who want to attract a specific tenant..The need for fast and scalable lab solutions is clear.
In the US alone (about 1/3 of the global market), over 40 million square feet of lab and R&D space is currently under construction, with the global life sciences market forecast to grow on average 13% per year between now and 2030.. Fast Lab is now in development, and we are interested in working with innovative, forward-thinking life science businesses and developers to meet this growing demand…The life sciences are undergoing a rapid transformation fuelled by a convergence in maturing technologies, scientific breakthroughs, demographics, and geopolitical trends – much of which accelerated during the pandemic.Globally, the sector is forecast to more than double by 2030, while in the UK investment has already increased 12x over the last decade.Laboratories play a key part in this transformation, supporting all stages of the life science value-chain: including R&D, quality control, diagnostic services, and teaching.
As a result, demand for labs is growing rapidly.In Cambridge and Oxford for example (two of the UK’s main life science hubs), demand for labs now outstrips available supply by nearly a hundred to one.
Alongside this growth, improvements in IT, staffing challenges, and new ways of working, now mean that remote or flexible working is commonplace.
For life science developers and companies this has created a major opportunity: converting increasingly vacant or cheaper office space into labs – saving time and money.The level of the bespoke design in traditional projects makes it difficult to properly design every interface, leading to variability between interfaces on-site and the need for ad hoc changes.
However, trades at different points in the process don’t necessarily have access to the early decision-making rationale, so there can be unanticipated consequences of these forced ad hoc changes.. For example, façade installers have reported that they spent 40% of their time undertaking site surveys and using shims and packers to fill in the gaps between their manufactured unitised systems and traditionally built superstructures.This example is particularly pertinent given the crucial role façades play in fire stopping and compartmentation..
If the BSA onus is on ensuring the design doesn’t change from specification to delivery, then the exactness of the design and the tolerances is crucial..The higher degree of accuracy and innovation in platform components ensures that what was designed and modelled is much more likely to be what is installed on site, with no need for site based problem-solving/adaptions vs. what has been designed and tested..