星空传媒

"Funky." It isn't a word too often associated with building services, but it encapsulates how the 星空传媒 Design Partnership wants its m&e engineers to see themselves. The man behind the idea is the practice's new head of building services, Keith Crossley. "It's one of the words we're using to transmit the feeling to our guys that they should be looking to be more than just a group of people in matching suits. We want them to have intelligence and vitality, some youth and drive to their approach."

Crossley's agenda to expand the BDP m&e sector has more than just buzzwords to it. At the time of this interview, his five year development plan was in the final days of completion and due to go before the company's chief executive. The intention is to double both the number of personnel and the division's turnover during that period, and he is confident of achieving both. 鈥淚ntellect is coming back into m&e engineering. As a profession we have got to play a greater part in the development of buildings and our influence, by virtue of legislation, is only going to increase. As a multidisciplinary practice the m&e engineers in BDP have always sat amongst architects and other professions and had day to day exchange with them. Perhaps for people outside an organisation like this, that opportunity hasn't always been there, but I think the sector will have that chance now. Legislation will mean that the building services industry will be one of the first ports of call."

Crossley's fresh approach to building services comes from his time spent in charge of BDP Advanced Technologies group, for which he remains managing director. Initially set up in the UK to deliver large projects in the semi conductor and electronics sector, the group expanded to focus on the Asian market, opening an office in Singapore.

It was that period working on projects in the semiconductor market that Crossley views as a shining example of high quality work. "These were big technical projects delivered at break neck speed. We started off doing 拢200m plus projects in two years and refined it down to 15 months, just by increasing our sector knowledge, reusing well structured teams, using IT to the maximum, streamlining our processes and getting into partnering type arrangements. We refined the product we were putting out and it became more and more efficient. People talk about BuildSmart and Egan, but the semiconductor and process related industries were doing these things years ago."

The move into Asia also saw the introduction of turnkey delivery: "We changed the way we worked to respond to the Asian market, not only were we offering design, but design and construction, so we became a contractor," he says. The practice has brought this ability back to the UK through its Advanced Technology offices in Livingston and Manchester and can now deliver projects through the 鈥楧esign Lead Contracting鈥� route. "We think there's a market for areas where people want to retain the intellectual value built up at the early part of a project. Conventionally, the designers build up intellectual value and then get decoupled from it when it goes to a contractor.

鈥淎 contractor takes what he thinks are the designers' ideas and delivers those but its an interpretation. With DLC our team have hands on involvement through design and construction, so there's continuity of intellectual value."

This theory is now being applied to the main stream business with sectorisation of the building services group. Each office has a champion for each of the main sectors, including healthcare, education, retail, leisure and office projects. "We are creating cells of knowledge in each of these sectors so that we can use that expertise to give a leading edge response to our clients," says Crossley. "It's no good trying to pull a team together from different types of project and then expecting them to talk intelligently to a client about the specifics of their business needs.

鈥淐lients want to talk to people that speak the same language and immediately add value. We think sectorisation is the way to achieve this. People get used to the terminology and working methods in a sector, they know what makes the sector tick and can benchmark every aspect of the project. My directive to them is to have leading edge knowledge so that they can be identified as understanding what's going on, not just trying to become an expert overnight when an enquiry comes in."

Crossley has labelled his plan for the future 鈥楨ngineering Intelligence鈥� and he has defined four key areas where he wants to roll it out: the working environment, the services and solutions they offer, the way they communicate and the culture within the organisation. 鈥淲e want to raise our game and I鈥檓 looking forward to the challenge.鈥�