HELSE STAVANGER — SUS2023

SUS2023 — The Patient's Hospital

Answering the Stavanger region's need for a new hospital, SUS2023 aims to provide a modern, specialist healthcare solution, that prioritises the future needs and requirements of its patients.

The new hospital will be built at Ullandhaug, just next to Innovation Park Stavanger and Archives' house. The plot is conveniently located within walking distance of the University of Stavanger and the first stage of construction is scheduled for completion by 2023. 

It's an ambitious project, with the hospital predicted to be approximately 100,000 square meters large (or over 14 football pitches!). For such a big build, contractors of SUS2023 have adopted a unique methodology to help them plan the construction. 

Short, adaptive planning schedule

It's typical for a project of this size to plan construction months, or even years, into the future. 

But how closely can you plan the construction of a hospital that is scheduled for completion within 5 years? The answer, surprisingly, is: one week intervals.

Bjørn Rosland, lead planner in the construction of SUS2023, explains:

"It is much easier to plan precisely at short intervals. Most of us have a realistic understanding of how long our shorter tasks will take, but it's much more difficult to get an accurate overview of the time-frame of a build when we attempt to plan over the space of months or years. Although we have five years to complete the project, construction of this hospital is a time-critical venture, with as many as 22,000 individual activities taking place simultaneously. In order to avoid large set-back and delays, we have an adaptive plan that can be laid out for five days at a time —which reduces the likelihood of any overlapping issues" 

Innovative planning for the construction industry

The command centre for the build currently consists of two, soon to be three, planners. Safran is the provider of the project control system and their weekly plans are shared amongst the individual contractors.

Unlike conventional construction projects, the build of SUS203 is more closely managed — with shorter, more achievable deadlines.

"The most common way of operating in the construction industry is to work to deadlines of several weeks or months, with each contractor independently managing his own operations. We do it differently. We gather the contractors and the building management every Tuesday morning, where we'll run through the tasks for the coming weeks, ensuring we have full control over all the activities and have all the necessary work documentation, material and staffing. All job requirements, large and small, complex or simple, are broken down into weekly intervals —which maintains consistency" says Rosland.

Another effective way to streamline the build is ensuring that everyone uses the same planning tool, which is developed by us here at Safran. 

"It is a requirement that everyone uses this tool and updates their work processes internally. SUS2023 pays the licenses and we provide the necessary training. That way, we can 'speak the same language' and follow each other's processes" says  Rosland.

New planning tools for big builds

For use in the construction of SUS2023, we developed new and effective methods of visualization in our planning tool, named 'Safran Takt', which is built from our well-established Safran Project. The updated tool introduces many new ways to visualize and formulate plans. 

Christian Moller, Software Development Manager at Safran, explains how it works for SUS2023:

"Every week we input all the required tasks and highlight what contractor is undertaking each one, using different colours. We then place them in the weekly schedule so that we can see what has been completed and what tasks are coming up in the near future. These activities are called wagons, and all the wagons are put together as a "train" that rolls on from week to week. Starting with a few trains on each track, this progresses to several trains on parallel tracks and several wagons on each train. The wagons can be adjusted if needed – with the accompanying tasks that belong to it being transferred simultaneously" 

Numerous hospital developments; both A-houses and hospitals in Østfold, Radiumhospitalet and Vestre Viken, have been led by Safran planning teams using this specialist software. The last major project we undertook was the construction planning of the new veterinary college at Ås. These previous projects have presented unique challenges, which has helped us refine and perfect our planning methods — giving us substantial experience to bring to the SUS2023 project.

The train goes on..

On the screen in the control centre of the hospital, Bjorn Rosland and Trong Dahl Olsen monitor the "trains" on a few tracks, that slowly, have started to move – indicating the groundwork which is currently taking place across the site. Eventually they’ll see the trains for concrete, façade, interior design and many, many more gain momentum. The colorful wagons will increase in number as the weeks roll on in 2019, going from spring to autumn and into winter, with more and more trains and wagons being moved around. 

“With shorter, more manageable intervals, everyone has much more control over their individual goals. It’s much easier to recover from a delay of a few hours than attempt to recover from problems that emerge weeks or months down the line. I don’t lose sleep if everything doesn’t happen according to plan. If we all co-ordinate and use our planning tool correctly then we will be able to quickly adjust as we see fit so there is no danger of any derailment” says Bjørn Rosland.

The latest planning approach, Safran Takt, is a new, exciting way to plan and deliver complex projects that involve the coordination of many different contractors. Safran will be announcing the general availability of this dynamic tool to other customers very soon.