Healthcare Design - August 2023 - 21

GBBN
Lupidi saw a way to address this issue. Ultimately, the project team decided
to use the ICC to prefabricate 90 percent of the exterior walls as well as the
mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire suppression, technology (MEPFT)
full corridor racks and mini racks. Those racks are routed overhead
between the patient room headwall and bathroom, carrying electrical
conduits, domestic plumbing, and medical gas.
MAXIMIZING FLOW
Industrialized construction in the onsite ICC began in April 2022, with the
free-spanning structure itself measuring 80 feet wide and 200 feet long.
Inside, three proprietary assembly lines engineered and built by Danis
were set up, with one assembly line built for the exterior wall panels, which
later would be converted to deliver the interior walls, and another two lines
for the MEP racks.
All materials were precut or partially assembled before they arrived on
the site and then brought to one end of the ICC to begin prefabrication
with other trade assemblies. Because there was no overhead crane inside
the ICC, everything in the facility had to be mobile and able to be moved
by one person, including the large-format walls. The solution was to put
everything on engineered carts or rolling assembly lines, which move the
units down the lines as different trades work on the units. At the end of the
ICC, the assembly lines extended 40 feet outside the tent, where finished
components were picked up by the project's tower crane and placed immediately
into the building-an important detail because the ICC didn't have
warehouse space.
To help with production flow, Danis used Takt planning, a scheduling
method designed to create an anticipated flow, mapping out the delivery of
components by the different trades to the assembly line at specific times.
BY THE NUMBERS
During its six months of operation, the ICC was used to prefabricate 25
percent of the critical components on the Kings Mills project, including
90 percent of the building's exterior walls and 1,770 full corridor
racks and 1,440 mini racks. In fact, production of the exterior walls went
so quickly that four weeks after the superstructure was completed, the
building envelope was substantially watertight, enabling interior fitout
to start; a more traditional timeline would be approximately four
months, Lupidi notes.
Without the constraint of ensuring the prefabricated racks or wall
OPPOSITE: The
16,000-square-foot
temporary structure
was adjacent to the
main hospital building,
allowing prefabricated
components to come off
an assembly line and be
immediately picked up by
the crane for installation
in the facility. ABOVE:
Built to serve unmet
inpatient needs in the
rapidly growing Northern
Cincinnati suburbs, the
Mercy Health Kings Mills
project is expected to be
completed in November.
The 206,000-square-foot
project includes a new
hospital and adjoining
medical office building.
panels would fit on a truck for transportation,
the project team was able to think outside the
box on sizing, too, delivering 30-foot-long
racks and 15 foot-by-32-foot large-format wall
assemblies that each weighed 3,000 pounds.
Illustrating the benefits of onsite prefabrication,
Lupidi notes that Danis had another
healthcare project under construction at the
same time as the $200 million Kings Mills hospital.
At 156,000 square feet, the smaller project
was also employing prefabrication but at
an offsite prefabrication center, which meant
it had to use more traditional-sized building
components. " That building took 970 exterior
wall prefabricated panel assemblies, " he notes.
" Kings Mills, which is 30 percent bigger, took
177 panels. "
While helping save money and expedite the
construction timeline, the process also made a
positive impact on labor usage. When the ICC
was in production mode, there was an 81 percent
improved manpower utilization. More
specifically, the conventional average manpower
needed onsite for a $7 million per month
project is 203 skilled trades; average onsite
manpower at the Kings Mills project was 112
skilled trades. " For the amount of people we
had onsite, we were still able to produce the
same amount of revenue with significantly less
people, " Lupidi says.
Ironmonger says the Kings Mills project is
expected to be completed in November. " I keep
telling our operations team that we're throwing
them the keys Nov. 16, " she says. The hospital is
scheduled to see its first patient in early 2024. 
Anne DiNardo is executive editor of Healthcare
Design. She can be reached at ANNE.DINARDO@
EMERALDX.COM .
AU GUST 2023
21
Healthcare Design - August 2023

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