“If It Can Be Built Offsite, It Should” – Engaging Engineers with Offsite Manufacturing and Lean Principles for MEP Installations
Early engagement between designers and contractors is fundamental to delivering Lean offsite manufacturing. Ardmac, a specialist contractor delivering complex data centre and advanced manufacturing facilities, focuses on maximising a project’s pre-manufactured value (PMV %) – and has taken to upskilling partners in Lean offsite manufacturing too.
Across nearly half a century of operations, Ardmac has grown from a small company operating in Ireland only to leading providers of data centre solutions and turnkey construction of manufacturing facilities with offices across Europe and a headcount of 500+ employees.
What makes Ardmac a leader in this space is its embrace of offsite manufacturing as a preferred methodology, with the company’s solutions designed to meet the unique and demanding requirements of the data centre and advanced manufacturing industries.
How does Ardmac achieve that? In 2022, the company made the bold decision to begin embedding offsite pre-manufacturing into workflows, starting with a targeted 40% pre-manufactured value (PMV). Ultimately, Ardmac wanted to reach PMV of over 85%, delivering ready-for-install solutions that reduce project complexity and improve certainty.
As an example, Ardmac now maximises preassembly of mechanical installations for projects by prefabricating the likes of multi-service modules, plant skids, and fully wired containment racks in its controlled offsite manufacturing facility and simplifying onsite connections with less site welding, brazing by using prefabricated connection strategies.
This is linked to an embrace in recent years of Lean principles designed to eliminate waste, minimise non-value-added activities, and prevent rework or overproduction in the factory.
But an embrace of offsite manufacturing and Lean principles, to reduce material waste and optimise processes, this requires a change to traditional workflows for the contractors Ardmac works with. MEP contractors need to move from site-led, sequential workflows to a front-loaded, design-led approach to maximise the benefits of prefabricating mechanical installations. This means focusing on detailed coordination and system design early, ‘locking’ technical designs sooner to reduce the time and resource cost of changes onsite, aligning with manufacturing schedules, and relying more on digital models than drawings.
David Higgins, Head of Offsite Manufacturing at Ardmac, discussed how the company involves MEP contractors earlier in planning to support Lean, offsite manufacturing.
“We actively involve M&E contractors at pre-construction and design stages, ensuring their expertise informs the development of optimised solutions from the outset. The key shift is moving from solving problems onsite to resolving them before production begins. Offsite manufacturing only works when designs are fully coordinated in advance. That means prioritising standardisation, clarity, and collaboration over late-stage flexibility.”
Head of Offsite Manufacturing at Ardmac
To work effectively in an offsite manufacturing environment, MEP contractors require strong BIM and digital coordination capabilities; a solid understanding of Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA) principles; strong planning and sequencing skills; and they must be comfortable working with standardised designs. Data literacy is also pivotal as construction projects are increasingly led by digitally modelled performance data.
This aligns directly to Ardmac’s own approach where coordinated digital tools, particularly BIM, provide a single source of truth of project execution and delivery. This enables full design integration, early clash resolution, and accurate quantity assessment. This ensures all stakeholders are aligned and supports efficient, scalable, factory-led production.
To facilitate the upskilling of MEP contractors who may be new to offsite manufacturing, Ardmac offers early engagement workshops to align on key offsite manufacturing principles, alongside sharing best practice and standard details from past projects. The company also leads on collaborative model reviews and coordination sessions, while providing clear visibility into manufacturing processes and constraints.
“Our approach is partnership-driven, recognising that successful production relies on collective capability. Manufacturing demands a high level of planning and coordination. Through offsite manufacturing, each element is fully detailed in advance, enabling M&E contractors to work in parallel across multiple areas. This coordinated approach minimises bottlenecks, reduces congestion in zones onsite with a lot of M&E professionals working at once, and ensures efficient delivery.”
Head of Offsite Manufacturing at Ardmac
Rockwell is one such contractor partnering with Ardmac on projects led by offsite manufacturing. A trusted Irish delivery partner for the design and commissioning of mechanical installations on construction projects for 40 years, Rockwell recently expanded into electrical work after the acquisition of a small specialist engineering firm. Although Rockwell had worked with Ardmac prior to this acquisition, gaining expertise in electrical installations meant Rockwell could move to providing integrated M&E solutions.
Kenneth McGuirk, Electrical Director at Rockwell, explained what this meant:
“The integrated delivery of M&E activities in one prefabricated solution means, with all contractors and schedules of work aligned, reduced project duration. Durations for onsite construction can be reduced by up to 80%, and due diligence on product quality and safety is done before going to site. Delivering integrated M&E solutions makes Rockwell a provider for greater project efficiency.” v
Electrical Director at Rockwell
One of the biggest shifts in mindset Rockwell had to adjust to (and an area that has helped the contractor to excel) is a digital-first approach. Rockwell delivers training for incoming engineers, from electrical tradespeople to Mechanical Engineers to other construction professionals, in tools such as Last Planner for lean construction and Blue Beam for digital design. These increase efficiency in offsite manufacturing and ensure that structure designs are delivered ‘just in time’ without any wasted resources or production time.
“There should be no fixing onsite anymore. With offsite manufacturing, each component should be prefabricated to precise detail, trackable to the digital design, and arrive onsite with a unique ID so everything can just be ‘plug and play’. We find the best engineers have both a thorough understanding of modern digital tools and a practical construction or trades background, so they can fully understand the digital drawings in real life. That’s what we try to teach.”
Electrical Director at Rockwell
This upskilling has been key in solidifying the partnership between Ardmac and Rockwell, ensuring Lean, offsite production can deliver benefits in a range of construction projects.
As for their own engineers, Ardmac invests in professional training in DfMA and Lean methodologies, along with regular opportunities to utilise the most advanced BIM and digital engineering tools. The company’s training is also hands-on, with engineers gaining practical exposure to processes in offsite manufacturing facilities, to apply lessons learned from previous projects and drive constant improvement on future developments.
Looking ahead, David was asked how he saw the relationship between main contractors, specialist MEP firms, and offsite manufacturing evolving as Lean construction becomes more widely adopted. He was bullish in his anticipation for Ardmac’s approach.
“The future of construction delivery will be defined by collaboration, standardisation, and manufacturing-led thinking. MMC is not just a method—it’s a capability shift across the entire industry. We really believe that if it can be built offsite, it should be built offsite.”
Head of Offsite Manufacturing at Ardmac
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