Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT)

‘Smart Campus’ Strategy, Planning and Technical Requirements

Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) engaged HH Angus to develop the ‘Smart Campus’ strategy, planning and technical requirements. These deliverables will guide NAIT forward as a leading polytechnic in Canada to attract students, donors and researchers, while supporting environmental causes and the student experience.

The Angus Connect team led a multi-disciplinary Smart Campus consortium of consulting firms that brought together deep expertise in digital solutions and engineering disciplines. Some of the exciting aspects of the Smart Campus project included a campus integrated command centre, IoT sensor rich environment, energy management, smart building standards with BIM and Digital Twins, a future state network architecture including a spectrum management plan for Wi-Fi and cellular, with a focus on 5G-enabled devices. The incorporation of these emerging technologies will assist NAIT in achieving its organizational goals.

This project required a broad engagement of stakeholders and subject matter experts; a consulting team of 24 subject matter experts and project management joined forces to prepare a smart campus strategy.

Key services provided and deliverables included:

Smart Campus Design Guidelines, documenting how smart features should be incorporated throughout the design
Integration Design: Integration Requirements, Use Cases, and Integration Matrix to inform a future Smart Campus Integration Hub architecture and Master System Integration responsibilities
Analytics: Analytical Model development to inform future Digital Twin insights
Governance

It quickly became apparent that setting up the right decision makers and creating an advisory committee would be key to a well thought out strategy. Our team led the governance, oversight and direction setting with the committee, and, the project was managed through virtual engagement.

LOCATION
Edmonton, Alberta

KEY SCOPE ELEMENTS
Smart campus strategy | Planning | Technical requirements

Young creative business people meeting at office.

Visioning Workshops

The Angus Connect team has deep experience in organization-wide and campus digital strategy & visioning, technology specifications, smart buildings technologies, command centres, networking infrastructure design and integration, and energy management. Our consultants facilitated visioning workshops with the Steering Committee and senior leadership to understand the needs, goals and objectives of the organization. These sessions included discussion of best practices, industry standards, and showcased current and emerging technologies through the use of case studies. From these sessions, our team was able to synthesize the vision, principles, key evaluation criteria and future state (opening day) initiatives.

Systems Architecture

Additional workshops were held to gain a better understanding of the current systems and network architecture, with attendant discussions on gaps/pain points and ongoing projects. Using the outputs from the visioning workshops and the systems architecture workshops, our team developed a conceptual model of systems architecture with a basis of design report to guide the client from their network today to the network they need for the future Smart Campus.

Niagara Health System

ICAT Strategy

“Angus Connect’s approach to developing the ICAT Design Program for the new South Niagara Hospital was both forward-looking and grounded in reality, giving us a solid foundation as we move into Stage 3 of our redevelopment project. We really appreciated their fresh perspective on emerging technology, and in-depth knowledge of the opportunities and risks inherent in these types of projects.”

Sime Pavlovic, CIO, Niagara Health

Niagara Health (NH) operates five hospitals and community care facilities in the Niagara Region, serving a diverse population of nearly half a million people and the second highest percentage of seniors aged 65+ in Ontario. The new South Niagara Hospital is expected to consolidate three of the existing sites into a state-of-the-art facility located south of Niagara Falls.

Angus Connect was engaged to help NH achieve their ICAT vision by translating the future state vision into a forward-looking and feasible ICAT design program which could be easily translated into Project Specific Output Specifications (PSOS) as part of Stage 3. Niagara Health was able to capitalize on a unique opportunity, having recently constructed the new St. Catharines Site hospital (2013) which incorporated many current ICAT solutions at the time – the lessons learned from this redevelopment project were addressed as part of the ICAT design program, along with governance and change management recommendations.

In order to complete this work, we participated in the development of the ICAT vision and principles, then developed evaluation criteria and prioritization of ICAT solutions. Our team took a novel approach to stakeholder engagement, categorizing technology options as bronze, silver or gold in order to indicate various levels of implementation and to stimulate productive discussion regarding the functional requirements and use cases for clinical, business and building systems. The output from these sessions was summarized into solution profiles which detailed system requirements, key outcomes & performance indicators, governance, change management strategies, potential risks and challenges (along with mitigation measures), and proposed scope to support Stage 3 documentation.

Finally the ICAT solutions were mapped onto an eight-year implementation plan which addressed both pre-construction and post-construction activities, in addition to those in scope for the redevelopment project. Our team also generated a comprehensive budget cost estimate which included evaluation of potential funding sources based on our previous experience working on Infrastructure Ontario and MoHLTC-funded projects.

SERVICES
ICAT Strategy | Planning, Design and Compliance (PDC)

PROJECT FEATURES
Status: Completed 2020 | Multi-site hospital system which competes with US hospitals due to its proximity to the border | Unique opportunity to incorporate into the design program lessons learned from recent construction of St. Catharines Site hospital

LOCATION
Niagara Region, Ontario

KEY SCOPE ELEMENTS
Angus Connect successfully delivered a detailed ICAT Design Report in less than three months, including a roadmap, equipment planning and budget cost estimates | Angus Connect presented its findings from the ICAT design at the Niagara Health Innovation Conference in February 2020

SickKids Hospital

Digital Strategy and ICAT Roadmap

Project Horizon is a massive campus redevelopment that will transform the experience of patients and healthcare professionals, and enable the state-of-the-art healthcare facility to embrace new technologies and processes.

Angus Connect was engaged by the world-renowned paediatric clinical and research hospital to develop a comprehensive digital strategy and ICAT roadmap to support Project Horizon - New Patient Care Tower. This new facility is expected to be 22 stories on the existing SickKids campus in downtown Toronto, and to be integrated with the existing facilities.

Angus Connect is developing the Digital Strategy, Vision and Guiding Principles in accordance with the Project Horizon Vision and SickKids’ Strategic Plan. This will culminate in an ICAT Roadmap, which will inform SickKids of current and upcoming technologies to support the delivery of patient care integrated with research and learning. Once complete, the Roadmap will include a high-level Implementation Plan and Budget for incorporation into SickKids’ Project Horizon Stage 2: Functional Program Submission, and to form the basis of future stages of Project Horizon. The outputs of our Design Program will inform the specifications for the project.

Project Horizon is a multi-year project with the objective to transform SickKids’ physical facilities in order to support the future delivery of paediatric care and address myriad infrastructure deficiencies and limitations that impact quality and safety. The project will consist of the demolition of three buildings and the construction of two new buildings in a complex sequence that will span more than a decade before patients can be accommodated in the new facilities. With extensive experience delivering ICAT digital strategic plans for hospitals across Canada, our team is collaborating closely with SickKids to deep dive into the future of healthcare delivery and understanding their organizational needs today and those anticipated for the future in order to deliver a comprehensive and flexible ICAT roadmap to support Project Horizon. The team is also able to draw on HH Angus’ decades-long experience with large P3 healthcare design and construction projects.

SERVICES
ICAT strategic visioning and planning

PROJECT FEATURES
Size: 22 stories on existing downtown campus | Status: Ongoing

LOCATION
Toronto, Ontario

KEY SCOPE ELEMENTS
Comprehensive digital strategy and ICAT roadmap | Integration with existing facilities | High-level implementation plan and budget | Functional Program Submission | Jurisdictional Scan

Boy with broken arm and cast playing in hospital on a modern tv set.

Visioning for the future

Angus Connect is providing SickKids with a Jurisdictional Scan of peer organizations from countries around the globe. We worked with our network of global partners (Subject Matter Experts) to understand and identify leading organizations in particular technologies and to make contacts. A market scan of the current and emerging technologies that will change the way healthcare is delivered in 10, 20 and 30 years was also developed as the basis for a Visioning Session with the Leadership Group. This includes concepts such as virtual care, artificial intelligence, robotics, machine learning and 4D printing.

Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal

(CHUM)

Designing the mechanical, electrical, and security systems for one of North America’s largest P3 acute-care hospitals required a comprehensive understanding of the crucial demands placed on a hospital’s electrical system; knowledge of the intent and intricacies of codes and standards; value-engineering approaches gleaned from alternate project delivery projects; and lessons learned from complex redevelopment projects.

The Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (translated as University of Montreal Health Centre, or CHUM) is a mega-hospital complex designed to replace three existing hospitals in Montreal. One of the largest P3 hospitals in North America, it occupies more than 2.5 city blocks with more than 334,000 m2 (3.5+ million ft2) of floor space.

The CHUM project has been honoured with ~30 awards, including Canada's top engineering award, the Schreyer Award 2018 for HH Angus, plus an ACEC Award of Excellence and three Illumination Engineering Society 2018 Awards for HH Angus’ lighting designs for the Passerelle Skybridge, the Steeple, and Interior Lighting.

The hospital complex consists of a main 20-storey acute care block, with five levels underground. The upper floors house 775 beds in single rooms, and the lower floors contain diagnostic and treatment functions, including a large emergency department, 39 operating rooms, 7 MRIs and a full cancer centre with 12 bunkers. Distinct blocks house ambulatory care clinics, office space and logistics. Our scope also included two large data centres.

The facility has been certified LEED® Silver. HH Angus responded to a number of restrictions and requirements in the RFP with alternative approaches that were subsequently implemented, benefitting the project in terms of better functional use of space, flexibility for the future, cost savings and significantly improved energy efficiency.

SERVICES
Mechanical Engineering | Electrical Engineering | Security Systems Design

PROJECT FEATURES
Size: 3,800,000 ft2 | Status: Phase 1 - 2017 | Ongoing renovations and upgrades | Winner - 2018 Schreyer Award, Canada's top engineering project award

LOCATION
Montréal, Quebec

KEY SCOPE ELEMENTS
Mechanical, electrical and security system designs were provided to facilitate concurrent development | More than 50 Revit® models linked | Project included components that would help future modification of the facility | Certified LEED Silver

A proven P3 approach

HH Angus developed an approach to deliver consistency and standardization of mechanical and electrical products with multiple contracts and installation contractors. To facilitate the concurrent development of multiple parts of the project, more than 50 Revit models were linked. This allowed work to proceed on construction documents for the core and shell of the building (including services), while design development continued in the clinical areas of the building.

Experience creates long-term efficiency

The RFP mandated a number of restrictions on the ventilation system that would have required two full intermediate mechanical floors and would have severely compromised future flexibility. We worked with CHUM and the proponent team to develop an alternative approach from which numerous benefits resulted, including the ability to modify occupancy and enable future renovations, which allowed an extra clinical floor to be constructed under the zoning height restriction.

Delivering more value

The RFP required a distinct air handling unit for each functional department, as well as restrictions on unit size and floors served. HH Angus proposed the use of larger, 100 percent outdoor air units serving multiple floors. We proved the merits of this approach to CHUM from an infection control perspective.

Proving a better solution to save energy

The RFP did not allow the use of heat recovery wheels due to perceived infection control concerns. We used 20+ years of successful experience with heat wheels to prove the approach to the client and compliance team. The RFP was modified to allow the use of heat wheels, enabling a much more cost effective and energy efficient solution.

Saving the client money

The RFP mandated a standby air handling unit for each critical care space, which would have required much higher capital and operating costs over the life of the building. We recommended manifolding a number of air handling units together to share the redundant capacity. This approach considerably increased overall reliability of the systems while reducing operating costs.

Robust, reliable, cost-effective electrics

Similar components in the electrical infrastructure were procured in separate equipment tender packages to obtain best pricing directly from the corresponding vendors. The installation scope was divided into sectors within the building and awarded to separate electrical contractors. This “carving up” of the design scope into multiple tender packages required a high degree of coordination with the DBJV, and was effective in keeping this massive ongoing project on track with budget and schedule.

Multifunctional security system design

Our Angus Connect Division designed a fully convergent IP-based (Internet Protocol) security system and the supporting IT infrastructure required for a large-scale Cisco high availability, medical grade network. We designed an IP-based integrated multimedia security system that includes several thousand IP-based cameras, intelligent card readers, and other security devices located throughout the hospital complex. This system includes PoE (Power over Ethernet)-controlled architectural door hardware connected to Cisco’s high availability medical grade network.

Discrete segments of the security system are reserved for clinical observation, parking control, visitor management, patient wandering and duress applications. Multiple control facilities were provided across the hospital, using multicasting over VLAN, configured on Cisco LAN.

The security system was designed to support sophisticated client “use and workflow cases”, providing interoperability, SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and SOI (Service Oriented Infrastructure).

Angus Connect integrated all aspects of the security systems into a seamless and efficient operation, leveraging the most current technology wherever possible to improve efficiency, reliability and safety, thus simplifying information flow and access to users.

Ericsson Canada

Global Information, Communications and Technology Centre

HH Angus served as Prime Consultant on Ericsson’s greenfield modular data centre testing facility in Montreal. This was one of three such sites for Ericsson oriented to telecommunications research and development; the first two in Sweden were operational in late 2014.

As Prime Consultant, HH Angus engaged and oversaw the structural engineers, civil engineers and architect, as well as the noise, vibration and air quality consultants.

The Centre, in Vaudreuil-Dorion, was built with modularity and scalability in mind, and to serve as the global facilities’ data centre.

Situated close to the firm’s R & D Hubs, the new facility was intended to connect 24,000+ Ericsson engineers worldwide, provide greater efficiency in research and development, and allow customers to connect remotely for testing interoperability in real time - for trials, early access, and new business services.

The Quebec site totalled 40,000 m2, of which 20,000 m2 was built out. The project included a 3530 m2 administration and support building. The company estimated that the combination of architecture, design and location would result in a significant reduction of 40% in energy consumption. Heat recovery strategies were implemented, such as waste process heat used to warm the building. In addition, a rainwater harvesting system provided water for both irrigation and process cooling.

One of the key challenges met on this project was managing communications. Four nations were involved (Canada, Sweden, the United States and the United Kingdom), and the team was spread over seven time zones, from Phoenix to Stockholm. While English was the working language of the project team, subgroups within it were variously working in Swedish, French and English.

PROJECT FEATURES
Size: 430,560 ft2 | Status: Completed 2016