Case Study – Laing O’Rourke Whiteley
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Overview

Laing O’Rourke was looking for better on-site control over consumables, PPE and small tools.

The implementation of AssetTagz within its Stores at The Whiteley project, saw over 100 different types of consumable, PPE and small tools being managed using a combination of barcodes and the more robust NFC tags. Existing Laing O’Rourke site ID cards and mobile phones were utilised removing the need for additional hardware.

Background

The Whiteley, one of London’s most complex and high profile construction projects, is being delivered by Laing O’Rourke. Behind the grade ll listed facade, a Norman Foster designed landmark building will comprise 150 apartments, a 5* hotel, a cinema and gym with retail units on the ground floor.

Laing O’Rourke’s specialist engineering business, Expanded, began work on site in January 2020. AssetTagz had been used on previous Laing O’Rourke projects, most recently at its prestigious 150 Bishopsgate project, where the company had seen a significant drop in spend on consumables, a huge reduction in PPE usage and improvements to productivity so it was a natural progression to utilise AssetTagz at The Whiteley.

“The Whiteley is a huge project where over 5,500 people were employed overall. Successfully organising the removal of 30,000 muckaway trucks of waste and debris in central London was no mean feat,” explains Ian Seabrook, Health & Safety Manager at Laing O’Rourke.

“A large scale project such as this always comes with its challenges. It is very easy to overspend on low cost items such as PPE, consumables and even small tools, especially when there is there is little or no control at an on-site Stores facility. Unaccounted for, the cost of these trivial items can all add up.”

“It is very easy to overspend on low cost items such as PPE, consumables and even small tools, especially when there is there is little or no control at an on-site Stores facility. Unaccounted for, the cost of these trivial items can all add up.”

Ian Seabrook, Health & Safety Manager

Implementation

  • Over 100 different types of consumables, PPE and small tools were indentified.
  • Barcodes were used to identify consumables at bin location level, whereas tools such as circular saws and drills were individually tagged with more robust NFC tags. Once scanned, information about the asset such as purchase date, spare part numbers, warranty expiry and even inspection due dates can be viewed easily in the AssetTagz App.
  • Existing Laing O’Rourke site ID cards were enabled as AssetTagz cards in order to record what was being issued to each worker. The AssetTagz App was then set up on existing mobile phones (android or iphone) ensuring no specialist equipment wasneeded.
  • Initial training on how to use the software was then followed by a hard launch of the whole system on-site in the Stores.

Outcome

“AssetTagz has been a very simple and efficient system to use. It has enabled us to track use of PPE and consumable items in real-time. Just by implementing the system we saw an immediate change in behaviour once people understood they were individually accountable.” says Ian Seabrook.

“Another huge benefit of AssetTagz is that it captures a wide range of data which, when presented in Power BI, enables incredibly accurate and useful monitoring of trends and expenditure at a granular level.”

The future

“The Whiteley project really opened our eyes to the potential to use AssetTagz deeper and wider,” continues Ian. “Deeper in the sense of closing that loop by acting on the data in real-time to make it 100% effective in tracking goods in & out of stores.

Wider in terms of looking at other areas of the project: recording muckaway electronically instead of using paper tickets to simplify project billing and automating tool inspection & maintenance to improve our compliance processes.”

 

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