Collaborative working with our supply chain on the Department for Education Framework has resulted in a prestigious award – and the first time ever time the award has been won by a main contractor.

The CIBSE (Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers) Award for Collaboration, recognises examples of teamwork – the people, products and projects that demonstrate engineering excellence in the built environment. They are the only industry awards that focus on actual measured performance outcomes, and not just design intent or performance specifications.

For the first time, a main contractor (B+K),  building performance analysis consultant (Integrated Environmental Solutions, Glasgow) and BMS controls subcontractor (Integrated Building Management Systems, Newark) came together to tackle the performance gap as part of an integrative process.

We refined the way data was collected and transmitted from several DfE schools, to achieve more granular operational insights that could be understood easily by all stakeholders. The team then used this data to create energy profiles for the schools, which could be fed back into the IES Virtual Environment (VE) building simulation software.

Many projects already use IES-VE to model a building during the design phase. However, by integrating iSCAN – a single platform to optimise the operational performance of buildings –  this collaboration brought real-world data back into the existing model for cross-comparison and validation that the buildings did operate as intended. The partners have now developed a framework with the principle aim of eliminating the performance gap.

The judges were impressed by the way the team came together ‘to identify and resolve real challenges applicable to an important sector, education’. They noted that the trio had ‘assessed a wide range of metrics relatable to non-technical stakeholders’ and that ‘the potential for other applications, was very strong’.

Bowmer + Kirkland Framework Delivery Director, James Vaux-Anderson, said: “We are very proud of this award and this is a very exciting collaboration. The impact of this project could be massive. To benchmark similar types of buildings and operate them efficiently you need to understand so much and understand it at the right time.  We have a potential solution to eliminate the performance gap for our client the DfE and other stakeholders.”