Mission Heights

This project started as a relatively small, one classroom project for Miller Design, but within the space of a few small months, rapidly grew to be a large project comprising seven buildings, with both exterior and interior windows and doors.

At the outset, because of the tight program that Hawkins Construction had to operate within, there was some reservation within Hawkins in appointing just one fabricator, given that there were potentially seven distinct projects. A natural risk mitigation strategy might well have seen logic in appointing a series of sub contractors for the windows and doors.

However, Miller Design argued that several operators may well increase the risk for Hawkins in terms of inconsistency of performance, inconsistency of window systems, and the increased number of sub trade companies that Hawkins would have to manage and deal with. Furthermore, a 'broken up' project would result in a number of smaller contracts - the risk being that the size of each contract for each separate sub trade company may not assume the importance within those individual businesses that was demanded by the project, and that was necessary for Hawkins to be able to meet its own obligations.

Building on this argument, Miller Design then set about tabling a plan as to how it would undertake the entire project, how it would be resourced, how it would manage identified risks, how it would manage changes in scope (shorter build periods, changes in design, etc.), and how it would manage the quality aspects. On top of these points, Miller Design was a known quantity to Hawkins, the two parties having undertaken a number of projects together in the past.

For Miller Design, this project opportunity therefore largely came about from Hawkins being prepared to listen and believe in our case.

The challenge for this project was not so much from the technical design, but from a logistical perspective. We got squeezed at the front end of the project, given that, in some areas, we started on site later than we would have liked; and squeezed at the back end through some parts of the project being brought forward to achieve earlier completion dates. Irrespective, the decision was never around “could we do it”, but “how do we get on and do it”.

At the peak, we were effectively involved in a minimum of six different buildings, managing more than 25 staff and subcontractors (installers, glaziers, window control gearing), all in separate buildings, with two project managers. On top of this was the need to undertake some build in design as we installed; making sure that the manufacturing process kept pace, and ensuring that frames, glass, flashings, etc. were turning up in time - and all this in what became a very tight program.