Press Release, September 2009

ICON plays its part in opening new doors at Waitrose

Rationalising and recording information about doors and ironmongery for every Waitrose store in the UK was the challenge facing architectural services provider Bamber and Reddan and management information specialists ICON.

The idea was to allow for specific individual door types for back-of-house and sales areas in stores, so that all situations would be covered in the Waitrose Building Standards for new build, extensions, store improvement and fit-out projects.

The doors were also looked at in relation to compliance with Part M of the Building Regulations.

Bamber and Reddan, who provide full architectural services for retail, commercial, education, residential and mixed use developments in the UK and Ireland, were called in to manage the project.

“Previously there were a lot of different door set types and sizes, as well as ironmongery sets, with often too many options for the various situations in the stores, for both back-of-house and sales areas,” said Bamber and Reddan’s Cornelius Clancy.

“Our role was to take the original Waitrose door specifications and reduce the total number of different door sizes by looking for common parameters; then to produce new drawings and specifications for the various door types required.

“This required liaising with Bernard Novell, Building Standards Manager at Waitrose, Tom Plank at suppliers John Plank and Sons and Steven Hagan at Icon, to decide what information was required overall for the Waitrose Building Standards.”

The ICON system has a range of utilities to help with the management and collation of data for large building projects. It’s designed to ensure that all necessary steps are taken and recorded in the project management process, including surveys, health and safety, and CAD libraries.

The ICON solution allows the management of construction information during the three key stages of a building’s lifecycle:

• The design and specification of buildings
• The project roll-out of new builds and refurbishments
• The ongoing management of built properties (comprising planning, construction, maintenance and disposal

Developed in conjunction with design standards and project managers, it provides access to accurate, real-time information for all members of the project delivery team, resulting in improved confidence, communication, safety, efficiency, product quality and budgetary control.

The work was carried out with all Waitrose Projects in mind because Bamber and Reddan were working on various Waitrose projects at that time.

Cornelius Clancy explained that the individual door set types and ironmongery sets were rationalised in more detail and then set up in an intuitive schedule system by ICON to cover all situations and be compliant with Part M of the Building Regulations.

Cornelius also stated: “Bamber and Reddan’s success is based on the trust the company’s teams receive from clients, for consistently and reliably designing and delivering projects to the highest standards.

“The emphasis is on strong teamwork, effectiveness and delivery. Each team is headed by a director and senior managers to ensure clients’ receive the high levels of service they have come to expect.”

That’s a great fit with ICON. Many of the country’s biggest retailers are turning to the Market Harborough based company for its online information management system to assist with the project management of their new developments.

ICON managing director Chris Lovelock says that the company not only strives to provide a standard system that’s flexible and reliable, but one that works with clients to resolve unique issues.

“We have to create a system that overcomes concerns and provides real benefits for each client. Sometimes the sheer size of an organisation demands that a system is intuitive enough to eliminate the need for excessive training. It has to be designed for use by operators at all levels.”