McCafferty Consultancy Ltd is 6!

Here we are, celebrating our 6th birthday!  2010 seems a long time ago; but at the same time, the past six years have gone by in a flash.

Things continue to be busy here, with a range of work steadily passing through the circuits.  We would like to acknowledge and thank our wonderful clients for making this possible, and also express gratitude to the friends and family that have offered such great support over the years.

 
Much of the work is still concentrated on 3d modelling and earthwork analysis, with the majority of this activity being for residential housing development sites.  We recently carried out a series of exercises and built a number of models for a housing site of over 330 units.

In terms of civil engineering, we have been proud to have been working with BAM Nuttall on a number of major projects since late 2014, and have been pleased to have been selected to carry out 3d modelling and volumetric analysis on a number of major projects throughout Scotland by the top ranking company.

We continue with our utility mapping service - around 150 locations in the UK have now been plotted - including a recent project at Grangemouth, that required over half a million metres of buried utility apparatus to be produced in CAD...

Continuing in our marine and offshore activities, we have produced a number of 3d models for sub-sea and harbour improvement projects, and have prepared data for GPS and machine guidance systems.  The image on the right is from a pier protection scheme for a Scottish Highlands road bridge.


 



At the start of 2016, a new website was launched to replace the original version.  If you haven't checked it out yet, take a look at www.mccafferty.uk.com 




So - the first six years are now behind us... let's see what the next six have in store!

 

5.5 years later

Time, thou anticipat’st my dread exploits.

The flighty purpose never is o'ertook

Unless the deed go with it. From this moment

The very firstlings of my heart shall be

The firstlings of my hand. And even now,

To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done...

Followers of The Bard will maybe spot the topical reference to Macbeth... topical, because just yesterday I was looking at the cinema listings, and this seems to be the film of the moment.  But why open this post with such a quote?  Well, shamefully, it has been  a couple of years since I updated this blog!

The passage above is spoken by Macbeth and tells of his new determination to act immediately and to start following his thoughts with actions.  He goes on to tell how he plans to raid Macduff, seize Fife and kill, well... pretty much everyone.  I will be much less dramatic, and merely seize my thoughts to the point of finally mashing the keyboard and hopefully producing a brief blog update (how the world has changed since those bloodthirsty days of old!).

Time has flown, and it is now just over five and a half years since the birth of McCafferty Consultancy Ltd.  Despite the absence of blog, twitter, Facebook, or YouTube updates, we are still busy analysing construction sites and mapping assets up and down the country, and have taken on some really interesting projects since the last posting.

 
We have now carried out volumetric analysis on around 100 residential housing sites in Scotland, producing crucial information relating to the earthwork movements required on these.

 

We have also worked on some major, large-scale civil engineering projects - including hydro schemes, electrical substations, windfarms, and even the A9 dualling project.  

  

Our portfolio has extended into offshore and subsea, where we have been engaged to produce models to allow for the construction of sea roads, harbours and carry out essential dredging and maintenance projects.

Utility avoidance continues to be an active and busy are of the business, having now provided CAD plans for countless projects across the UK.

What about the BIM???  Well, BIM remains a subject of great interest, and one that we are keen to continue to work at, raising awareness and enabling organisations to realise the benefits that can be achieved.  We were approached by a global contractor to develop a pre-construction conflict avoidance process that was borne out of a BIM-aware approach to project delivery.  

Using our expertise in 3d modelling, and drawing on our knowledge and experience in project delivery, we created a process that was able to successfully identify potential conflicts in subterranean infrastructure that was proposed for a major development.  This process would allow for the avoidance of problems that might only have been discovered during the construction phase, and permit a re-design before any material, resource, or crucially - money, was committed on the site.

Interestingly, I've been thinking this week about how organisations are looking at ways of being able to track and record financial expenditure towards various build assets.  This is becoming a very important task, and is presenting some major issues for the organisations trying to undertake these exercises.  Essentially, what is required is the ability to know where assets are located, how much value is attributable to them, when they were formed and how they have been maintained - with the ability to export, share, and reuse this information...  Yet, "BIM" isn't something that's being said.  The association of intelligent, accurate and dynamic data into assets, and the interoperability of this data is what BIM is about... maybe people are more engaged in BIM than they realise...

 

So life carries on.  We continue to turn out the projects, and we are continually grateful for the support and the business we are given by our clients.

The office move is complete, so this is being written from the softer and more comfortable new surroundings (see right).

And with a picture taken many years ago of Glamis Castle, finally, a blog update is written... what's done is done (Act 3, Scene 2).

Update - been a while!

 
An update is long overdue here, so here's a quick update on what's been happening at McCafferty Consultancy Ltd.

We have continued to provide mainly CAD and Volumetric services to our existing clientbase, but have been pleased to welcome some new clients from the utilities and drainage sector.

Utilities still remains to be the biggest sector that we are serving.  Mapping and planning of underground services is a vital service, with designers and contractors depending on the information provided to plan and deliver a wide range of construction projects safely.


We are pleased to say our partnership with National One Call is going strong as they continue to deliver their extremely useful "dial before you dig" service.



We have recently been awarded our eleventh onshore windfarm CAD project for utilities mapping, and look forward to many more.  Other exciting projects have been the "Portsmouth project", where an impressive 11799 objects were plotted.  This was a total of 1,221,952m of known buried services - that's over 759 miles of cables and pipes!



Additionally, in this sector, we are currently working on a nice looking project based around the Reebok Stadium - home to Bolton Wanderers FC, and are just about to start five projects covering Greater Manchester.

Away from utilities, we have been working to provide detailed measurement and volumetric analysis services, still predominantly for the private housing sector (this being one of our main areas of expertise).  We are very keen to expand our client base in this sector, so if you or someone you know are involved in developments that would benefit from an accurate earthworks assessment, get in touch :o)
 
This month, a new service was requested and successfully delivered by McCafferty Consultancy Ltd. as we undertook our first measured survey project.  An existing client had a requirement for an as-built drawing to be prepared, so came to us to undertake a site survey and produce the plans.  This went well, and the relevant drawings were produced and delivered to the clients' satisfaction.


We are now looking to continue this service, and are currently tendering for larger projects of a similar nature.  With our background, we can handle a range of this type of work, from simple as built measurements, to topographical / built environment surveys - even 3D laser scanning.



This year has seen further investment in our IT, with the addition of another high-performance workstation to cater for the increasingly large projects that are being commissioned.  We have invested considerably in the latest software packages to ensure that we can handle and deliver the widest range of projects as efficiently and accurately as possible.


So, while the blogging has been neglected, it remains business as usual here.  It just remains to say thanks to our clients for the continued business, and thanks to our friends for all the support.

You can also catch us on Twitter @mccafferty_uk and why not check out our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/McCaffertyConsultancy - as well as the usual www.mccafferty.uk.com

Not just BIM?!?

Did you know... McCafferty Consultancy Ltd. is not just about BIM?  In fact, in terms of BIM, most of what we do here is try to promote BIM and educate how the processes can be used to provide additional value to construction companies, consultants, practitioners and the industry as a whole.

We love construction, and the goal is to see our industry operating as intelligently and as smart is as possible, utilising the latest in management practices and leveraging the latest technologies to gain maximum value and achieve the highest standards possible.

The majority of our workload is focused on providing CAD services and volumetric analysis for construction companies and specialist service providers.  In fact - and don't go crazy here - a great deal of this is even 2D!

We regularly turn out some pretty nice 3D work, mostly in our volumetric packages, where we form detailed models to represent proposed construction sites and incorporate existing survey data.

Take a look at a feature video...

Another, perhaps lesser known, service that we provide is our area takeoff service.  This is something that is particularly useful for groundwork companies or developers, and involves the preparation of site-wide take-off drawings, that are categorised into different physical areas.  A detailed spreadsheet then accompanies the take-off drawing, detailing the individual and aggregate measured areas across the proposed site.  This information can be useful during planning, development, tender and ongoing build stages.

Take a look at a feature video...

These are just a couple of the other services that we are able to provide, but if you think they could be of interest, or even if you wish to discuss our other capabilities or investigate how we can help your business, please feel free to get in touch.