Building 23, Phase 1 to 4 QC Relocation

Building 23 is located on the main site at GE Healthcare, Amersham. Owing to the nature of the various products a number of onsite laboratories contain radioactive processes. The site comes under the jurisdiction of the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) and therefore it runs a strict health and safety procedure regarding permits and monitoring.

As part of our ongoing commission at the site we have undertaken a number of projects including the reinforcement of the site engineering services infrastructure, partial decentralisation of boiler plant and general upgrading of the sites water, compressed air and site security systems.

We were engaged as the Lead Consultants and Contract Administrators on Building 23. Due to the complexity of the services these works had to be undertaken across a number of phases which included the relocation of a number of departments including the QA and QC. The building was in continual use throughout the contract period. The project was across 4 No. phases which included a new plantroom which contained chillers, air handling unit, extract fans and carbon extract filtration plant.

As part of the phase 2 work which incorporated the relocation of the QC Department sensitive equipment was installed within the Gravatom enclosures. A number of existing items of equipment were required to be relocated from Building 3 which included the EAAS and the ICP which all in turn had to undergo a revalidation prior to operation.

An FAAS was purchased from Perkin Elmer had high temperatures due to the flame and therefore consideration needed to be given to the ratings of the fire dampers and extract systems installed. Due to the type of laboratories and the restricted access into ductworks frangible bulb type dampers were installed.

The Services Contractor was appointed as the Main and Principle Contractor on the project. The multidisciplinary team consisted of Architects and Structural Engineers. We had a close liaison with the Quantity Surveyors and we were responsible for issuing interim payments and contract variations as part of our Contract Administrator duties.