The Birmingham Schools Project

Between 2007 and 2009, Amillan worked with Balfour Kilpatrick to install Category 5e structured cabling at 12 schools across Birmingham. Transform Schools, which is Balfour Beatty’s concession company, was appointed the preferred bidder for the £56 million project. Amillan had already worked on a number of projects with Balfour Kilpatrick and when they were appointed as the Mechanical and Electrical contractors, they chose Amillan to provide the structured cabling.

The Challenge

The challenges in this project were two-fold. Balfour Kilpatrick, as the M+EContractor, needed a structured cabling partner who had the skill and resource to service such a large project within a tight timescale. Having established a very good reputation for themselves in the education market, they needed to partner with suppliers who would enhance their reputation by providing quality solutions.

The schools on the project faced a different challenge. They needed to ensure that a robust cabling infrastructure was installed as it forms the foundation of the entire ICT environment. Ideally, they also wanted to have a local supplier so any additions, moves and changes to the cabling infrastructure in the future could be done quickly and easily.

The challenges that were common for both was the need to work with a reputable supplier with financial stability, recognised accreditations and a proven track record of delivering quality solutions on time and within budget. Balfour Kilpatrick chose to work with Amillan on all the 12 projects.

The Solution

Amillan provided Category 5e structured cabling to all 12 schools on the project. These were a mixture of new building projects and refurbishment programs.There were nine primary schools, two secondary schools and one early years centre.

The schools varied in size and as an average, secondary schools had approximately 1,200 outlets while the primary schools had about 450 outlets each. A total of 6,000 students were provided for in this project.

The project began in 2007 and Amillan finished cabling the final school in October 2008. During the project, Amillan worked concurrently on a number of different schools, all at different stages of their projects. This required skillful project management from Amillan and we adhered to Balfour Kilpatrick’s working schedule throughout.

The Benefits

Just as the challenges were two-fold, so too were the benefits.

Working with Amillan provided Balfour Kilpatrick with the following benefits:

Assurance

Amillan are a privately owned, financially secure business that has been operating for 25 years. This gave Balfour Kilpatrick the assurance that their supplier had the commercial capability to make the project a success.

Trust

Having worked together on other projects, Balfour Kilpatrick knew that Amillan was a trusted partner with a proven track record of delivering complex projects, giving Balfour Kilpatrick peace of mind that they were working with experts who could deliver.

Efficiency

With a dedicated cabling team, Amillan were able to provide the highest levels of efficiency in procurement, project management, account management and support.

For the schools engaged on the project, working with Amillan provided them with a different range of benefits:

Local partner

Based in Birmingham, Amillan were able to get to site quickly even at short notice.

Quality

With industry leading accreditations, Amillan provided a quality solution and a full range of services that adhered to the health and safety requirements in schools.

Complete communications

Amillan can provide the full communications solution for schools -voice, data and applications. The following are just some of the solutions that Amillan can provide:

• Telephony
• Data
• Wireless
• Communications room design
Unified communications
• Interactive whiteboard and projectors
• Digital signage

Proven to change alongside technological advances, Amillan will always stay ahead of the market by adopting the very latest products and solutions to ensure the Education sector uses the best solutions to teach the next generations.