COVER STORY MERIT
RETHINKING OFFSITE WITH ADVANCED PAM TECHNOLOGY
North East offsite specialist, Merit, is challenging traditional construction procurement models to deliver the cleanest, safest and most competitive projects. The company has transformed itself into a technology company using innovation and engineering to design and build bespoke buildings offsite using a unique Design for Manufacture (DfM) strategy.
1 The strategy was developed after the company challenged its own capability in offsite construction, which led to the development of its unique multiservice pre-assembled modules (PAMs) technology. It is an approach that has resulted in significant expansion to meet rapid business growth, with a pipeline of bids now in excess of £100million. Capacity at its factory in Cramlington has recently been doubled again after a previous increase of 40% earlier in the year. Merit has secured an impressive portfolio of new contracts in recent months, particularly in the healthcare and life sciences sectors. Recent new business wins include a contract to deliver the third phase expansion of the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult (CGT Catapult) manufacturing centre in Stevenage, further increasing the capacity of the facility which plays a crucial role in bringing advanced cell and gene therapies to patients.
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The new contract is the company’s second project for CGT Catapult. Last year, Merit completed construction of the expansion phase of the manufacturing centre in Stevenage using the offsite PAM approach to deliver offices and six grade-C cleanrooms, with significant cost, programme and quality benefits. Merit has built four turnkey decontamination facilities in the UK for STERIS in recent years and has just been awarded a contract to deliver a fifth new Decontamination Super Centre in Chessington. The new facility will consolidate healthcare services for a number of NHS Trusts including surgical instrument sterilisation, medical device decontamination and surgical instrument repair. The team has also started work on a new sterilisation facility next to the Northumbrian Specialist Emergency Care Hospital at Cramlington for Northumbria Healthcare NHS
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Foundation Trust. It will disinfect and sterilise medical equipment for use in surgical and medical procedures for hospitals across the region. “The expansion of our factory is part of our continued investment in a strategy that puts us at the forefront of innovation in construction,” says Tony Wells, Managing Director at Merit Group. “Our proprietary technology combines advanced offsite manufacturing with the technical expertise to deliver complex solutions in significantly shorter build schedules. “We combine the advantage of Design and Build and single point of responsibility for design and cost risk, with self-execution of the technical parts of the project to reduce project schedule and cost. Our expertise in design and offsite manufacture reduces overall project ‘Time to Use’ by half while at the same time achieving improved quality, reliability
