BAA spends £750k to move off-site assembly forward

BAA has taken off-site assembly a stage further by setting up its own product factory to push forward its pier segregation contracts.

The £750,000 renovated factory, named Crawley Assembly 1, will see framework partners Mansell, Mace and Crownhouse Engineering team up with the airports operator to produce off-the-shelf units for Gatwick and Heathrow.

Benefits of the initiative include savings of around £1.5m a year and a return on its first Pier 2 project for Gatwick of 30%.

Around five units, or 25m of corridor, will be produced a week by a team of 20-25 operatives.

This could rise to 60m if the scheme, which is being trialled for just over a year, is successful.

Labour costs are also set to drop as BAA looks to make a saving of 20,000 hours compared to crews working on site. Reductions could soar by a further 10,000 hours as efficiency is nearly three times better than traditional methods.

"It is getting harder to get crews on site as security increases," said Clive Colemon, BAA's general manager of the fit-out delivery team. "This new method of working will see some real cost and time savings and of course reduces the risks of accidents."