LM’s approach to innovation is aligned with two fundamental commitments to infrastructure delivery: firstly, to use digital design (also known as BIM), on an unprecedented scale and secondly, to use offsite manufacturing to deliver time, safety, stakeholder and cost-related benefits. Laing O’Rourke’s award-winning BIM team is already Level 2 BIM compliant.
The joint venture also benefits from its industry leading Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA) approach, which is ideally suited to providing a standard set of bridge, station, tunnelling, viaduct and embankment solutions. Laing O'Rourke’s expertise in structural innovation and offsite manufacturing is further complemented by Murphy’s commitment to delivering safer, smarter and greener solutions.
Excellence in Engineering
LM’s in-house design teams and consultancies offer a significant competitive advantage. Laing O'Rourke's Engineering Excellence Group (EnEx.G) is working with the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and Imperial College to develop new approaches across the wide spectra of construction and engineering design.
Murphy has an active programme of working alongside industry and academia to develop innovations such as advanced fibre-optic structural-monitoring systems on assets such as the Crossrail tunnels.
What differentiates LM?
LM is a tailor-made joint venture, bringing the unique skills of internationally acclaimed engineering and construction specialists together to help realise the UK’s new infrastructure framework.
LM has the strength and depth to meet the benchmark of world-class standards and operational resilience required for new projects. We understand infrastructure contracts, and the complexities associated with stakeholders and other interested parties, and together they bring a wealth of experience with them in a wide range of sectors – rail, heavy civils, utilities, aviation, maritime, oil and gas, mining, highways, power and water.
We have redeveloped international airports, installed some of the world’s largest oil and gas infrastructure projects, regenerated critical water and wastewater assets, and worked on major highways schemes across the world.
Our people make a difference to our work – they are driven by a desire to succeed, and to re-shape the world of high-speed rail engineering and construction. We are proud to employ some of the brightest minds in the business, and with their knowledge and expertise, LM can challenge and reshape traditional methodology, to safely deliver new projects, on time and on budget.
Our delivery of the modular bridge concept at four locations around the Birmingham Interchange site for HS2’s enabling works is testament to the success of this strategy.
Manufacturing capabilities
Central to the Design for Manufacture and Assembly approach, LM has an industry leading, unique self-delivery capability that drives greater levels of design standardisation and construction quality.
LM has the benefit of using digital engineering to feed virtual designs directly to the manufacturing plant, using an intelligent DfMA solution. By adopting this integrated approach to work, designers are able to model every aspect of new stations and structures virtually and then manufacture the major components off-site, in a controlled environment.
This ensures every item is made to a far higher standard than is possible on-site, the whole build process is more efficient and there are sustainability benefits – this way of working means there are fewer vehicle movements and less time is spent on site in comparison to traditional methods.
Off-site manufacturing has made significant positive contributions to rail sector projects including Crossrail (Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Liverpool Street and Custom House), Staffordshire Alliance and the £1bn upgrade of the Manchester Metrolink network.
Research & Development
Both LM joint venture partners are renowned for their approach to pushing the boundaries of engineering through research and development
They embrace the talent in their businesses and sponsor engineering leaders of tomorrow through educational programmes at some of the world’s top universities. These are structured to support individuals at all levels and form the centrepiece of the company’s aims to nurture the leaders of the future.
In-house technical specialists in the joint venture apply new and innovative techniques to complex engineering challenges with the increased use of digital engineering (building information modelling) opening up a whole new world of research, with the ability to create structures in a virtual world far ahead of actual construction. This offers considerable savings in time and money across the programme, in resources, manpower and logistics.