Laboratory Furniture for Main Contractors
A subcontract package that arrives coordinated, on programme, and right first time
Laboratory furniture is a small package with a disproportionate ability to hold up a job; it lands late in the programme, it interfaces with mechanical, electrical and plumbing works, and by the time anyone discovers a clash the surrounding trades have usually finished and gone. We have built our business around not being that subcontractor.
We work directly for main contractors across the UK, including Multiplex Construction Europe, McLaughlin & Harvey, Synergia Projects and Ash Contracting, as well as supplying end users direct.
Clashes found in the model, not on site
We model our furniture in Autodesk Revit and coordinate through Navisworks Manage, so conflicts with services, structure and other trades surface during design rather than during installation.
On the Advanced Research Centre at the University of Glasgow for Multiplex, that meant over 3,100 items of furniture across four floors clash-detected before anything was manufactured. On a made-to-order product, an interface problem caught in the model costs a revision, whereas the same problem caught on site costs a remanufacture and the programme time that goes with it.
We can work to your BIM Execution Plan and deliver to your standards and naming conventions. Our perspective on all this, written for contractors rather than for us, is in our article on the benefits of BIM for subcontractors.
The model is built and coordinated by Nathan Sprawling, Systems Manager, who is responsible for our BIM and bespoke design work — and who your BIM coordinator will be dealing with directly.
Prequalification
We hold the credentials your PQQ process asks for:
• Constructionline Gold
• Cyber Essentials certified
• Made in Britain member
• CLEAPSS member, for education projects
• Managing Director Gary Sprawling accredited with the Institute of Local Exhaust Ventilation Engineers, where the package includes LEV or fume extraction
Manufactured here, to order
Everything is made to order in our own facility in Essex; we hold no stock, as nothing we build is standard. Cabinetry and Trespa worktops are cut and fabricated in house using CAD/CAM-lead HOMAG CNC machinery, whilst our steel framework is designed in house and fabricated by a settled network of long-term UK partner suppliers.
For a contractor this means no import lead times, no container risk, and a factory you are welcome to come and see; it also means a supply chain short enough that a late variation tends to be a conversation rather than an escalation.
Installation
We install nationwide, and have worked in conjunction with regional fitting teams where a project's location or programme made that the sensible route, as on the Roslin Institute Innovation Centre for McLaughlin & Harvey. Where you would rather your own teams carried out the fit, we can supply the package with full drawings and O&M documentation under a whitelabel arrangement.
A team that stays put
We are a family owned and run business of roughly 15 employees, who between them wield well over a century of collective experience; they come from a range of backgrounds, from lab technicians to steel fabricators and electrical engineers, whilst some have spent entire careers in the laboratory furniture niche. Staff turnover is very low, with some of our team having worked together for decades.
Most of our work is repeat business, and much of our marketing is word of mouth; on a package this specialised, the person who priced your job is likely to be the same person answering the phone about it two years later.
Recent contractor projects
• University of Glasgow, Advanced Research Centre • Multiplex Construction Europe
• Roslin Institute Innovation Centre & Campus Hub • McLaughlin & Harvey
• University of West London • Synergia Projects
• Lordship Science Centre, Writtle • Ash Contracting