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A drop of Gold for JCA from RoSPA

JCA is proud to announce it has achieved Gold in the internationally-renowned RoSPA Health and Safety Awards 2018.

The longest-running industry awards scheme in the UK, RoSPA receives entries from organisations around the world. The awards recognise achievement in health and safety management systems, including practices such as leadership and workforce involvement.

Commenting on JCA’s Gold achievement, Jamie McDonald, Corporate HSE Manager at JCA, said:

This award is a true reflection of the commitment JCA has to the health and safety of its employees, subcontractors and clients and could not have been achieved without the dedication of all of those who have demonstrated their professionalism to health and safety on JCA’s behalf. This award has set a high standard that we must now maintain and continue to build upon as we progressively adapt and develop our Safe Systems of Work in line with the culture that we continue to build throughout the company.”

Receiving this award is a significant achievement for JCA, as part of a journey of continuous improvement and commitment to ensure stringent health and safety processes across the company and through its supply chain.  Complementing this corporate accolade was the recent professional achievement of Health & Safety Manager (Projects),Tina McGennity, who was presented with JCA’s Employee of the Year Award for 2017.

 

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All together, better – why collaboration is key

Building engineering principal contractor, JCA, looks at the critical importance of collaboration in construction projects, as well as the benefit to the future success of the construction sector.

 According to the Oxford English Dictionary, collaboration is defined as “the action of working with someone else to produce or create something.”

In the context of the construction industry, however, this could be considered something akin to the holy grail. It remains a hugely fragmented sector with lots of different companies, often unknown to one another, brought together to deliver a particular project, which then move on. Such fragmentation means that it takes a long time for best practice to filter through. For example, a particular project may see some innovation that could benefit the whole industry but this is lost at the end when the team disintegrates.

In an ideal world, a truly collaborative venture is where all parties focus on the delivery of a unified set of goals but generally, reality shows a different and more difficult route to completion. Typically, each party has differing objectives, despite a common outcome and these could be conflicting. Success for one party, therefore, could result in failure for another. For example, a project’s mechanical system might be deemed unfit for purpose, while its structural design is award-winning.

In short, while some degree of collaboration in construction is necessary for any project, the process is often a struggle involving competing sub-contractors, disconnected agendas, broken trust and poor communication. Worst case scenario is that a project is derailed and perhaps compounded by legal proceedings which, in certain high profile cases, leads to a public vilification of the construction sector.

In addition, the industry has had to grapple with a lot of wastage. Some owners, architects or designers might demand certain criteria in a building’s specification, such as environmental product declarations that require certain sustainability standards, yet there is a tendency for procurement teams or contractors to overlook or discount such requirements in their pursuit of short-term cost reduction.

New technology and sustainability-focused building standards such as BREEAM are, however, helping to break down the silo mentality in the construction process. Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), which advocates the collective harnessing of all participants’ expertise, is one approach that many in the industry think can make the process more joined up. A central aspect of IPD is Building Information Modelling (BIM) which can be a real force for collaboration, according JCA’s Key Account Director, David Johnson:

“BIM actively encourages the need for a co-operative, fully integrated approach to a project because it demands contractor involvement from the outset. As a digital model, changes to specifications and design can be viewed by all parties. The advent of email was detrimental to the construction sector as changes could be withheld but BIM makes the process more transparent and therefore more collaborative.”

Johnson advocates the use of BIM to deliver projects more smoothly, faster and more cost-effectively. Since 2016, all new public sector buildings must be developed using the technology but there is room for improvement in the wider industry, particularly on lower level projects, where contractors have not invested in such systems.

However, JCA recognises that technology on its own is not the whole solution. The need for the right people with the right skills and experience together with a shared vision and financial clarity are all key elements in successful delivery.

By way of an exemplar on the benefit of collaboration, Kao Data appointed JCA as its preferred Design and Build contractor for its first data centre. The approach was to be unique to the data centre industry for such a major development. Enabling the project to be engineering-led, the client benefitted from a design and construction process that was in harmony with the overall purpose of the facility and complementary to the mechanical, electrical and ancillary infrastructure services.

Kao and JCA undertook an open approach to encourage the free-flowing of ideas, high levels of project dynamism and problem solving to ensure the project was completed on time and on budget. Whilst there were multiple challenges that had to be overcome, the overarching principle of collaborative engagement enabled Kao to achieve its objective and take delivery of one the most advanced data centres anywhere in the world.

This was succinctly put by Paul Finch, Kao’s Chief Operating Officer:

“The collaborative engagement on Kao Data London One was unprecedented and should be championed by the industry to demonstrate that adversarial contracting on major developments is not the only option.”

This approach was a major factor in both JCA and Kao becoming finalists for the 2018 DCS Awards.

Click here for more information about JCA’s integrated approach.

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JCA shortlisted for DCS Awards 2018

Leading design and build contractor in the data centre arena, JCA, is delighted to announce it has been shortlisted for the 2018 DCS Awards in the category, New Design/Build Data Centre Project of the Year.

The DCS awards are designed to reward the product designers, manufacturers, suppliers and providers operating in data centre industry. The Awards recognise the achievements of the vendors and their business partners alike and this year encompass a wider range of both facilities and information technology categories, which acknowledge all of the main areas of this market in Europe.

JCA’s nomination relates to its design and build of Kao Data London One, on behalf of client Kao Data, which was delivered on time at the end of 2017. The approach taken was to be unique to the data centre industry for such a major development.

JCA is primarily an engineering services and data centre specialist that would not traditionally undertake the construction of a new build shell and core data centre, as this would generally be undertaken by a recognised large scale construction company. By allowing the project to be engineering-led, however, the client benefitted from a shell and core design and construction that was in harmony with the overall purpose of the facility and complementary to the mechanical, electrical and ancillary infrastructure services.

In addition, Kao and JCA undertook a truly collaborative, open approach to enable the free-flowing of ideas, high levels of project dynamism and problem solving to achieve Kao Data’s objectives of delivering on time and on budget. Two elements in projects of this nature that are often targeted but very rarely achieved.

The objective for Kao Data was to become the first entrant into the London UK wholesale data centre market for many years. The driving force for the project was to create a product that was market leading in terms of quality, efficiency and innovation. To be able to offer state-of-the-art carrier neutral data centre space at a strategic location just outside London and in doing so form one of the largest data centre campuses in the UK. Kao Data London One is located on the 36-acre Kao Park development in the Harlow Enterprise Zone on the London-Stansted-Cambridge technology corridor.

Each data centre in the £200 million Kao Data Campus is split into four halls, totalling circa 150,000 square feet of net technical space. In addition, each technology suite will be capable of supporting a 2200kW IT load, representing a total technical load of 8.8MW per data centre.

JCA has designed Kao Data London One to deliver market leading efficiency, with the innovative use of technical infrastructure and building engineering expertise to provide Kao Data with a product that provides the highest standard of efficiency, resilience, operational sustainability and connectivity. JCA’s focus on delivering the highest levels of sustainability has also resulted in Kao Data London One achieving BREEAM Excellent Design Certification.

Importantly, the design and construction of the data centre follows the innovative principles of the Open Compute Project and as such is one of the first carrier neutral wholesale data centres to do so.

The Kao Data Campus is powered by a specifically installed UK Power Networks 33kV/11kV 43.5MVA substation within the campus security demise. The 33kV utility power supplies are diverse with N+1 33/11kV transformers in the UKPN adopted substation located within the security demise of the campus. The objective of the concurrently maintainable design is to offer 100% availability with N+1 11kV power generation specific to each data centre and each generator comes complete with 48hour fuel storage.

Rack densities up to 20kW and beyond can be accommodated within the data hall which is designed around hot aisle / rack exhaust air stream segregation with flooded style supply air distribution. Kao Data London One offers the latest incarnation of Indirect Evaporative Cooling systems that are so efficient that there is no requirement for any form of mechanical cooling, which assists towards total facility PUE of 1.20 even at part load.

The campus is compliant with the ASHRAE Technical Committee 9.9 (TC9.9) Thermal Guidelines (2011 and 2015) including the commonly overlooked International Society for Automation Environmental Conditions for Process Measurement & Control Systems: Airborne Contaminants (ISA 71.04 (2013)). Kao Data views the monitoring of airborne gaseous contaminants within the technology suite as a pre-requisite for data centre operations. All major volume server OEMs stipulate the minimum environmental operating conditions required to comply with their warranties. By strictly adhering to these requirements Kao Data is able to evidence to its customers that neither the reliability of the technology assets nor the warranties will ever be put at risk and the environment is optimised for compute performance. Having consulted with subject matter experts, we believe this approach is a first for a wholesale data centre operator.

Whilst there were multiple challenges that had to be overcome throughout the design and construction phases of the project, the overarching principle of collaborative engagement and an engineering led approach to the design and construction has enabled Kao Data to achieve its objective and the business now operates one the most advanced data centres anywhere in the world.

Voting for the DCS Awards is now open until 11th May. Please click HERE to cast your vote. 

JCA thanks you for your support!

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