MEPCA toured The Scalpel, Lime Street, to see how a collaborative effort between CBRE, Turck Banner and Fletcher Moorland delivers condition-based maintenance to the cutting-edge skyscraper.
The Scalpel was purpose built as the headquarters for insurance company W.R. Berkley and completed in 2018. Designed by Kohn Pederson Fox to passive design principles, the building stands 190m tall (10m higher than the neighbouring Gherkin) has 42 floors and offers over 59,400 m2 of high quality, modern and sustainable mixed-use space.
MEPCA was invited by Turck Banner, specialist manufacturer of sensors and automation products, to find out how an innovative approach to asset maintenance has improved the facilities management of this impressive building.
CBRE, the company responsible for facilities management of The Scalpel, led the tour. It started and ended in the control room, out of which CBRE’s team provide The Scalpel with proactive, condition-based maintenance using the sensor and controller technology of Turk Banner and the software and support services of Fletcher Moorland.
John Dennis, Account Manager at CBRE, explained the benefit of the system they have in place: “You can see the knock-on effect of anything going wrong very early” and this enables them to deliver a “cost-effective way of repairing the pump before it gets to the failure point.”
Importantly, as Matt Fletcher Managing Director of Fletcher Moorland was quick to point out: “The first thing to realise is condition monitoring doesn’t stop failures. It gives you data to make good decisions to stop failures.”
Before looking behind the scenes in one of the plant rooms, Tony Coglhan, Managing Director of Turck Banner, asked CBRE what the drivers were for choosing Fletcher Moorland.
Daniel Mayer, Engineering Manager at CBRE, explained that, while Fletcher Moorland’s Meerkat solution “stood out,” it was actually “the value of the service, the engineering experience” that was most important.
In Plant Room B2, Tony Coglhan provided an insight into the technology involved: nodes attached to the pumps wirelessly transmit data to the Meerkat box, supported by Turck Banner’s controllers.
Using the Air Handling Unit (AHU) pump in front of us to illustrate, Daniel Mayer further explained that the sensors attached to it are on every pump in the building. The sensors monitor the pump vibrations and sends that data through the GSM network (provided by Turck Banner) to the Meerkat cloud server. If the vibration level breaches a set threshold it is communicated via the Meerkat dashboard. Increased vibration is an early indication that something is starting to go wrong: “as the bearings start to wear, the acceleration, the vibration velocity will start to increase”
After a visit to boiler room on floor 36, we ascended to the chiller room, the highest point of our tour. It was here that the Meerket system most recently demonstrated its value when a condenser pump failed.
The fault was picked up before catastrophic failure. From the vibration data collected, CBRE were able to determine that the bearing was failing prematurely. Advance notice of the issue provided CBRE with ample time to have the pump surveyed, order the parts and equipment needed, and schedule its repair.
This perfectly illustrates the benefit of the Meerkat solution; condenser pumps of this size cost between £20,000 and £30,000, on top of which there is the added cost of the seal kit and lifting equipment needed to carry out the replacement.
MEPCA are grateful to Turck Banner, CBRE and Fletcher Moorland for this insightful tour. It demonstrates the clear benefit of data-led predictive maintenance for all industries. As the method evolves, adding further metrics for proactively managing asset wear, it promises to extend asset life and reduce maintenance costs considerably.
