Supply Chain Excellence: winner

Winner: Kier – HMP Five Wells

The £253m HMP Five Wells project will deliver 1,680 new prison places, as part of the Ministry of Justice’s aim to modernise the prison estate, to make it more efficient, safer and better focused on rehabilitation. A core goal is to optimise design, procurement, delivery and operation through a Design for Manufacture and Assembly approach.

“Kier made hugely impressive use of the supply chain, which puts the end-user at the heart of the design without compromising safety”

Judges’ comment

Kier serves as project integrator on the Five Wells project, bringing together a diverse delivery team that must provide more than 60,000 repeatable, standardised components, assemblies and sub-assemblies. It is working with three precast suppliers across six factories in the UK, as well as a specialist structural frame contractor. The scale of the work demands tight collaboration between all parties. All six factories are using a common digital platform for quality assurance and data management, while virtual and augmented reality tools have been used to help the client to visualise room layouts, as well as for refining the construction method.

The CN Awards judges branded Kier’s entry “absolute supply chain excellence”, applauding a “great presentation with real detail” delivered by Kier alongside representatives from its supply chain. The judges also hailed the contractor’s “hugely impressive use of the supply chain, which puts the end user at the heart of the design without compromising safety”.

Our judges added that on the project the firm was “choosing the right suppliers; bringing them in early and allowing them to innovate; treating them fairly and creating the right culture. We can all learn a huge amount from this project.”

Highly commended: Garenne Construction Group – Jersey General Hospital, Nightingale Wing

Garenne, together with Sir Robert McAlpine and FES, make up J3, a joint venture created to bid for healthcare projects in Jersey. On 3 April 2020, the partners were invited by the Government of Jersey to join a team tasked with delivering a 180-bed Nightingale field hospital in just four weeks. Five days of intense planning and preparation led to a successful 25-day build, involving the combined efforts of 541 people.

The CN Awards judges labelled this project “a great example of a supply chain coming together and putting aside commercial rivalries for the good of society”. They added: “This was an incredible project and an exceptional one due to the pressures the team faced. The numerous barriers that the industry typically faces were broken down to reach a combined objective.”

This category is sponsored by Opportuni