Industrial construction.

A warehouse looks like the simplest building on a construction schedule. Portal frame, sheeting, a slab, a few roller shutters. That reading is what produces the industrial projects that finish on time and then do not work. The racking that cannot be installed to the design height, the very narrow aisle truck that will not track, the certifier who will not sign off because the commodity being stored is not the commodity the sprinkler system was designed for.

The building is the easy part. The specification is the project. So we run the operational questions first, in the order below, and we do not let design proceed past the point where an answer is still missing.

This is the table we work to. It is not a risk register for show; it is the order in which we chase answers, and the reason we ask uncomfortable questions early.

Sprinkler design for racked storage is driven by what is stored, how high, in what packaging, and in what rack configuration. Change any of those and the design basis changes with it. A ceiling-only system suited to one classification may require in-rack sprinklers for another, and in-rack pipework is not something you retrofit into a live, fully racked warehouse without emptying it.

The consequence reaches past construction. A tenant who changes what they store. Or stacks a level higher than the design assumed. Can invalidate the basis of the system that the building was certified on. We write the design basis into the handover documentation in plain language, so the operations team inherits a constraint they can actually see.

Incoming supply

Connected load has to be estimated before anyone can lodge with the electricity distributor, and the distributor’s response time is outside everyone’s control. On a facility with refrigeration, automation or a charging fleet, this is the item most likely to sit on the critical path from day one.

Switchboards

Main and distribution boards are fabricated to order. The design has to be frozen well before anyone wants to freeze it, which is why we take the load schedule seriously at concept rather than treating it as a detail-design problem.

Forklift and fleet charging

An electric MHE fleet is a substantial and often overlooked load, with ventilation and separation requirements of its own. It belongs in the load schedule at concept, next to the racking layout that fixes where the charging bay can go.

Roof-mounted generation

If solar is contemplated at any point in the building’s life, the structural allowance is cheap now and expensive later. We ask the question even when the answer is no, and we record the answer.

Compressed air, process and trade waste

Manufacturing tenancies bring services that a distribution warehouse does not. Trade waste in particular runs through a separate approval with the water authority and does not follow the building approval timeline.

Dock height is set by the trailer mix, and a fleet that mixes rigids with semi-trailers needs either adjustable levellers or a decision about which vehicle is inconvenienced. Apron depth is set by the turning path of the largest vehicle, checked with a swept-path analysis rather than by eye. Pavement design is set by wheel loads and by whether laden containers will be set down on it. A point-loaded container corner is a different design problem from a passing truck.

And the falls have to work. A hardstand that ponds is a slip and a stormwater problem at once, and the fix after the fact is a saw cut and a re-pour across the area that matters most to daily operations.

• Separation, physicallyHoarding, dedicated site access and a fixed boundary that site personnel and forklift operators can both see. Not a line on a plan.
• Traffic management written with the operatorForklift routes, pedestrian paths and delivery windows are the operator’s knowledge. We write the plan with them and re-issue it whenever the work front moves.
• Isolations booked, not assumedEvery service isolation is scheduled with operations, with a nominated person on each side and a written permit. Unplanned isolation is how a construction programme becomes a production loss.
• Hot works under permitIn a building with combustible stock, hot works is the highest-consequence activity on site. Permit, watch, and a stand-down period after.
• Fire systems never silently impairedIf a sprinkler or detection zone must be isolated, it is recorded, time-bounded, and the operator’s fire safety adviser knows before it happens.
• Out-of-hours where it is genuinely cheaperNight and weekend work costs more per hour and less per day of disruption. We price both and let the operator choose on the numbers rather than on the assumption.

South Australia

Our home base, and where the JCGAU builder licence sits. Development approval, building rules consent and the interaction with the local council are familiar ground.

Victoria

Building surveyor appointment, occupancy permits and the Victorian variations to the National Construction Code. Where a project attracts state investment, Local Jobs First reporting can apply and is built into the programme rather than bolted on at the end.

New South Wales

Design and Building Practitioners obligations, declared designs and the registration requirements that follow from them. The compliance regime is heavier than the other two states and it changes what has to happen before, not after, construction starts.

Local content and Aboriginal participation

Government and institutional clients increasingly set local content, apprenticeship and Aboriginal business participation targets. These are contract deliverables with reporting attached. We treat them as programme items with named owners, because a target discovered at practical completion is a target already missed.

Australian-owned, Australian-run

JCGAU is an Australian company with people on the ground in all three states. The people who price your project are the people who run it.

None of this needs to be finished. It needs to exist well enough for us to tell you where the risk actually sits, which is a more useful first conversation than a number.

• The operation, in one paragraphWhat is stored or made, how it moves, and how much of it there is.
• The materials handling fleet, current and intendedIncluding whether the fleet is expected to change within the lease term.
• The racking layout, or the supplier’s nameEven a sketch. The supplier’s tolerance requirements are the ones that matter.
• The vehicles that will come to siteThe largest one, and how many an hour at peak.
• Any dangerous goods, in any quantityIncluding what is stored transiently. This changes the building, not the detail.
• The site, and what is already on itExisting services, contamination history, easements and the survey if one exists.