Transforming the Environment Agency’s Depots

WSP’s innovative program delivery approach connects a program-level briefing tool to a repeatable kit-of-parts, significantly enhancing how the Environment Agency designs and costs its depots. This initiative is projected to reduce project time by 40% while enabling customization at scale.

The Environment Agency is building a series of depots across England. These buildings will house the people, equipment and materials the Agency uses to protect and improve the environment. While all depots will feature common elements like office spaces and training facilities, some will also have unique requirements such as boat storage, laboratories, or workshops.

With the Environment Agency under pressure to keep costs down and to get the depots operational as quickly as possible, WSP’s digital innovation and project management specialists have worked with the client team to take a programmatic approach to their estate, making each project more predictable, focused, faster, future-ready, and cost-effective. It enables program-level decision-making on sustainability, modern methods of construction and other key drivers – underpinned by an offsite manufacturing strategy mobilized through innovative procurement approaches.

This approach reduces the number of routine decisions made by the project team so they can address the unique challenges of each depot. By automating much of the process from briefing into design, and onwards to manufacturing and assembly, we can improve productivity and by using a built-in feedback mechanism generate further program-level efficiencies in real-time.

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Location

United Kingdom

Client

Environment Agency

This initiative will help us to reduce costs, program and carbon emissions on a series of new depot buildings. By using it to make strategic decisions at a program level, we will be able to prioritize sustainability and free up resources to address key location-specific requirements.

Robert Bayton Program Manager, Environment Agency

Robert Bayton Program Manager, Environment Agency

How does our programmatic approach improve productivity?

Designing buildings is becoming increasingly complex, often requiring thousands of decisions and multiple design iterations, as the construction industry accelerates the drive towards net zero. This demands a huge amount of time and effort as iterations increase exponentially and can lead to inconsistencies across a program. Taking a program-level design approach counters this, streamlining each stage of a series of projects.

Our methodology leads the project team through the process of deciding which elements should be standardized across a program, and which should be varied on a project-by-project basis. The resulting program-level strategy keeps costs and schedules down, and ensures adherence to corporate-level objectives, while still allowing individual projects to be adapted to differing locations or needs.

Unlike a standard program-level briefing tool, the brief is fully connected to design content, iterating between the briefing process and the program-level approach which includes a kit-of-parts. It’s this two-way link between the briefing and program-level strategies that sets our approach apart.

Interface of the Environment Agency’s Facility Flex - a program-level briefing and design tool developed by WSP to assist the project teams in coordinating on the programmatic approach.

Further key benefits of our program approach are:

The number of decisions and documents required falls significantly after the first project.
When aspects of the design (e.g. sustainability) are considered across the entire program, they receive more scrutiny and input from senior leaders, leading to higher standards.
With fewer repetitive day-to-day decisions to make, thanks to the repeatable elements in the kit-of-parts catalogue, the design team can concentrate on the challenges that are unique to each project.
Continuous improvement and greater efficiencies are achieved across each project through built-in feedback loops that inform the program in real-time as projects progress.
Project delivery is faster through use of the briefing tool, the development of a kit-of -parts and alignment to program-level procurement strategies and supply chain relationships that reduce design and specialist subcontractor design.
On-site work is optimized and work instruction is consistent leading to safer project environments created in collaboration with contractor collaborators.

More time and resources to solve site-specific challenges

WSP and the Environment Agency used Riccall near Selby in North Yorkshire as the initial program test site. It was chosen as the first site because many of its functions are replicated at the other depots. Stage 1 has been completed for Riccall with documentation developed at both a project and program level.

With an estate-wide program, different depots each have their own methods of operations, driven by site constraints that prevent staff from working in the most efficient way. To secure efficiencies across the program, our teams involved Environment Agency staff in the decision-making process, learnt more about the specific details of the activities they carry out and worked together to find solutions that would succeed across all depots. The additional time and input invested in Riccall will be more than offset by the time and cost savings on subsequent projects.

The first site to have the approach directly applied is now underway at Leewick, allowing the kit-of-parts and the briefing tool to be tested, and feeding back learnings into future iterations helping provide resilience to the program-level approach.

Reducing complexity across the program and into construction

Thanks to the kit-of-parts catalogue, the next site design required around 50% fewer documents and many of the deliverables could be re-used. Overall, this sped up the project program during the initial RIBA stage to validate the client’s brief, shortening the duration for a single project by around 40%.

Additionally, the real-time feedback gathered as each project progresses is invaluable for the Environment Agency’s program, enabling continuous improvements on a project-by-project basis. WSP will continue managing the interface and content for the Environment Agency, incorporating feedback at each project’s end, ensuring the automated briefing and design process continues to gain in efficiency and effectiveness.