Tag: HH Angus

Voir ci-dessous pour des informations en français

In light of the increasing number of cases of COVID-19 in North America and the announcement by the World Health Organization declaring COVID-19 as a pandemic, HH Angus is taking reasonable precautions to ensure the safety and security of our employees, clients, vendors and guests across all our office locations while maintaining a consistent level of client service. We are executing our Business Continuity Plan that covers maintaining office operations, remote working for all our staff, and delivering service to our clients during weather, natural disasters, and other emergency situations where our offices are shut down for extended periods of time. Our Senior Management Team is meeting daily to respond promptly to the latest conditions and to ensure that we continue as best we can to deliver on our commitments to our clients.

Highlights of our plan include:

Remote Working

We have been closely monitoring this situation and have made the decision to instruct our staff to work remotely beginning March 16, 2020 until further notice. We have technology implemented that enables our employees to provide service remotely for all our clients and projects if they are unable to be in our office physically or report to the project site. This includes access to our design software, network, email, audio and video conferencing, and other communications technologies. Our remote working protocols and equipment are being implemented to enable our employees to continue to deliver service to our clients. All our communication channels related to on-going projects remain unchanged. If you have any questions or concerns about a project we are working with you on, please reach out to your HH Angus contact. We will coordinate with you to make arrangements specific to your project including replacing, where possible, in-person meetings with tele/video conferences. If you require information but do not have an existing contact at HH Angus, please email info@hhangus.com, or reach out to one of the key HH Angus contacts listed at the end of this announcement.

Travel
HH Angus has suspended all international and all non-essential domestic travel until further notice. Personal travel is discouraged and any staff returning from travel outside of Canada must self-isolate for 14 days.

Meetings
We have encouraged our employees to not participate in large gatherings such as conferences or networking events and, where possible, to utilize video/teleconferencing or similar communications technologies for external and internal meetings. Our technical staff will continue to visit project sites but will contact the client in advance to ensure that the site is still open and inquire as to health and safety precautions that are in place to ensure that there are no restrictions preventing their visit. We will assess each site meeting on a case-by-case basis to assess compliance with our firm’s existing protocols to protect the health and safety of both HH Angus staff and client staff.

Office Environment
We have intensified cleaning standards for our offices. We have installed hand-washing signage based on best practices in all washrooms and have increased hand sanitizer stations, where products are available, across our properties in order to help minimize the spread infectious agents.

As mentioned previously, we have asked our staff to work remotely as of March 16, 2020. However, certain staff will be on office premises to facilitate deliveries and perform network maintenance. If you require coming to our Toronto office in person, please speak with Reception by telephone (416-443-8200) in advance. Our Vancouver, Montreal, Dallas and Chicago staff will not be available in their respective offices. Please get in touch with your contact in each region for any inquiries, or call Toronto Reception (416-443-8200).

Reporting procedures
We have established a reporting protocol with our employees, should anyone be exposed to coronavirus directly or indirectly, or is feeling unwell for any reason. Any employee travelling out of the country for any reason is required to self-isolate for 14 days upon return to Canada. We will continue to monitor the situation closely, and adjust our response as required.

For more information, we encourage you to review the following resources:

Health Canada
World Health Organization

We will update this information page as the situation evolves. We are committed to helping our staff, clients and communities manage through this crisis to the best of our ability.

Key HH Angus Contacts:

Paul Keenan, President – paul.keenan@hhangus.com | 416 209 4374

Tom Halpenny, Vice President Operations & General Manager – tom.halpenny@hhangus.com | 416 580 0811

Sameer Dhargalkar, Vice President, Marketing & Business Development –sameer.dhargalkar@hhangus.com | 416 904 4592


COVID-19 - Réponse de HH Angus

Compte tenu du nombre croissant de cas de COVID-19 en Amérique du Nord et de l’annonce de l'Organisation mondiale de la santé déclarant la pandémie mondiale de COVID-19, HH Angus prend des précautions raisonnables pour assurer la sûreté et la sécurité de nos employés, clients, fournisseurs et invités dans tous nos bureaux tout en maintenant un niveau de service constant pour nos clients. Nous mettons en œuvre notre Plan de maintien des activités, qui assure le maintien des activités de bureau, le télétravail pour l’ensemble du personnel et la prestation de service à nos clients en cas de désastres météorologiques ou naturels, ou de tout autre situation d’urgence, dans les endroits où nos bureaux sont fermés pour des périodes prolongées. Notre équipe de direction se réunit quotidiennement pour répondre rapidement aux dernières conditions et pour s'assurer que nous continuons du mieux que nous pouvons à respecter nos engagements envers nos clients.

Les points saillants de notre plan comprennent: 

Travail à distance 

Nous suivons de près cette situation et avons pris la décision de charger notre personnel de travailler à distance à partir du 16 mars 2020 jusqu'à nouvel ordre. Nous avons mis en œuvre la technologie qui permet à nos employés de fournir un service à distance pour tous nos clients et projets s'ils ne peuvent pas être physiquement dans nos bureaux ou se présenter sur le site du projet. Cette technologie donne accès à notre logiciel de conception, aux lecteurs réseaux, aux courriels, aux conférence audio-vidéo, de même que d’autres technologies de communication. Nos protocoles et équipements de travail à distance sont mis en œuvre pour permettre à nos employés de continuer à fournir des services à nos clients. Toutes les voies de communication relatives aux projets en cours demeurent les mêmes. Si vous avez des questions ou des préoccupations concernant un projet sur lequel nous travaillons avec vous, veuillez contacter votre contact HH Angus. Nous vous aiderons à prendre les dispositions propres à votre projet, notamment le remplacement, si cela est possible, des réunions en personne par des conférences audio-vidéo. Si vous avez besoin d'informations mais n'avez pas de contact existant chez HH Angus, veuillez envoyer un courriel à info@hhangus.com, ou communiquer avec la personne-ressource de HH Angus donnée à la fin de ce communiqué.

Voyages
HH Angus a suspendu tous les voyages internationaux et nationaux non essentiels jusqu'à nouvel ordre. Les voyages personnels sont déconseillés et tout membre du personnel qui revient de l’Étranger doit s’isoler pendant 14 jours.

Réunions
Nous avons encouragé nos employés à ne pas participer à de grands rassemblements tels que des conférences ou des événements de réseautage et, dans la mesure du possible, à utiliser la vidéo / téléconférence ou des technologies de communication similaires pour les réunions internes ou externes. Notre personnel technique continue de visiter les sites de projet, mais doit d’abord communiquer avec le client pour s’assurer que le chantier est toujours ouvert et s’informer des mesures de prévention mise en place pour la santé et la sécurité afin de s’assurer que rien n’empêche la visite. Nous évaluerons chaque chantier au cas par cas afin de vérifier la conformité aux protocoles existants de notre firme en matière de protection de la santé et de la sécurité du personnel de HH Angus et du client.

Environnement de bureau
Nous avons intensifié les normes de nettoyage de nos bureaux. Nous avons installé une signalisation de lavage des mains basée sur les meilleures pratiques dans toutes les toilettes et avons augmenté les postes de désinfectant pour les mains, où les produits sont disponibles, sur nos propriétés afin de minimiser la propagation d'agents infectieux.

Comme mentionné précédemment, nous avons demandé à notre personnel de travailler à distance à partir du 16 mars 2020. Cependant, certains membres du personnel seront dans le bureau pour faciliter la réception des livraisons et l’entretien du réseau informatique. Si vous avez besoin de venir à notre bureau de Toronto en personne, veuillez parler à la réception par téléphone (416-443-8200) à l'avance. Nos employés de Vancouver, Montréal, Dallas et Chicago ne seront pas disponibles dans leurs bureaux respectifs. Veuillez communiquer avec votre contact dans chaque région pour toute demande de renseignements ou la réception de Toronto (416-443-8200).

Procédures de signalement
Nous avons établi un protocole de signalement avec nos employés, si quelqu'un est exposé directement ou indirectement au coronavirus, ou se sent mal pour une raison quelconque. Tout employé voyageant à l'extérieur du pays pour n’importe quelle raison que ce soit est tenu de s'isoler pendant 14 jours à son retour au Canada. Nous continuerons de surveiller la situation de près et d'ajuster notre réponse au besoin.

Pour plus d'informations, nous vous encourageons à consulter les ressources suivantes :

Santé Canada
Organisation mondiale de la Santé

Nous mettrons à jour cette page d'information à mesure que la situation évolue. Nous sommes engagés à aider notre personnel, nos clients et les collectivités à traverser cette crise au meilleur de nos capacités.

Personne-ressource de HH Angus :

Mohamed Kamel, Directeur du projet – mohamed.kamel@hhangus.com | C 514 863 9202

Is your facility and its electrical infrastructure prepared?

As electric vehicles (EVs) become more prevalent, they present a challenge for institutional-type facilities that have significant on-site parking, in terms of how to address the charging requirements of EV owners. Toronto’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (SHSC) is one such facility. With a three million ft2 campus and 4,535 parking spots, vehicular traffic exceeds 10,000 cars per day.

In 2018, SHSC was experiencing power outages in parking lots due to EV owners using adapters and extension cords to charge their vehicles from housekeeping receptacles. Recognizing the growing demand for on-site charging and wishing to promote green initiatives, SHSC investigated available incentive programs for an EV charging project.

HH Angus was engaged to assist SHSC in delivering this project. The first decision was to identify the type and number of charging stations that would best meet the needs within the established budget. One of the first decisions was which charging level to provide of the three levels available. Level 2 was selected, offering a full charge in four to six hours.

Key considerations for the supply of EV charging stations included physical construction and design features (for example, retractable charging cords were an important feature); service agreements; built-in wireless connectivity; and warranty coverage. It was also necessary to address the increased electrical load for the parking lots through power distribution upgrades and modifications to existing switchgear.

An important decision with direct impact on the installation design was the selection of dual-head EV charging stations, which allow two adjacent vehicles to be serviced by a single charging station. SHSC eventually installed 20 dedicated EV charging stations.

The entire project was successfully completed in approximately four months. By undertaking the necessary project planning, institutional facilities can help ensure their parking areas are ready to meet the requirements of EV owners and further support of green initiatives.

Read the full article in MRO Magazine August 12, 2019  

 

Authors :

Philip Chow, P.Eng., P.E., was the lead engineer on the project and is a senior project manager at H.H. Angus & Associates Ltd. He specializes in electrical projects and construction in critical facilities and can be reached at philip.chow@hhangus.com.

Bavan Poologarajah,EIT., was the senior electrical designer on the project and worked on the project from initial concept design to final commissioning. Bavan has worked on a number of electrical projects in critical facilities and can be reached at Bavan.Poologarajah@hhangus.com.

Sending you our very best wishes for a healthy and happy holiday season!

From your friends at HH Angus

This year we turned our card into a delightful set of DIY desk decorations with special holiday messages.

Some assembly required.
(Because we’re engineers and you know how much we like that!)

Click here to download DIY desk decorations

As another year draws to a close, we particularly want to thank you – our clients, project partners and industry friends – for your role in helping HH Angus achieve the milestone of 100 years in business, which we celebrated this year. We’re grateful for the opportunity to build long-standing relationships and to deliver the kind of dedicated client service that builds trust and respect.  

Over this holiday season, we wish you and yours the very best, and look forward to another great year ahead as we begin our second century – Happy Holidays! 

We’ve grown significantly since we announced the opening of our Vancouver office. Click here for more current information.

We’re delighted to announce our expansion into British Columbia with the opening of our new Vancouver office.    

While our office may be new, HH Angus is no stranger to working in BC.  We’ve been successfully delivering projects in Vancouver and across the province for over a decade. Completed projects include Penticton Regional Hospital David Kampe Tower Phase I, commissioning of the TELUS Kamloops Data Centre, Royal Jubilee Hospital Patient Care Centre, and Fort St. John Hospital & Peace Villa.

Current local projects include the Royal Inland Hospital New Patient Care Tower, Royal Columbian Hospital Redevelopment Phases 1 through 3, Lions Gate Hospital power plant replacement, and ongoing mission critical facilities work in the Greater Vancouver Area. We’re also excited to be on one of the pre-qualified teams for the new St. Paul’s Hospital P3 project.   

– Top left & right: Royal Jubilee Hospital, Patient Care Centre - Victoria, BC
– Botton left: Penticton Regional Hospital, David E. Kampe Patient Care Tower - Penticton , BC  
– Bottom right: Royal Inland Hospital New Patient Care Tower - Kamloops, BC

Expanding our presence in Vancouver allows us to better serve our clients on their BC projects. With over 100 years in business, we bring deep expertise in a range of sectors including healthcare, commercial, education, hospitality, mission critical and research facilities, industrial, sports and recreation, and transportation.

 The services we offer include Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Sustainability (LEED, WELL, Net-Zero, Living Building Challenge, low carbon district energy, energy modeling and CFD analysis), Lighting Design, Information and Communications Technology, Smart Buildings, Vertical Transportation, Tenant Improvements, Commissioning and BIM Development. BC’s progressive attitude towards sustainability aligns well with HH Angus’ approach to sustainable design, particularly when it comes to incorporating high performance, low carbon building design and energy solutions. 

“Our Vancouver office is the next logical step in growing our capabilities beyond the large projects we have successfully completed in the province over the years,“We’re looking forward to collaborating even more closely with our current clients and partners while also creating new relationships.”

- Nick Stark, Vice President, HH Angus

We’re delighted to be featured in The Canadian Business Journal’s September issue. The article highlights HH Angus’ accomplishments, our 100 years in business, and explores our plans for the future.  Paul Keenan, President and Sameer Dhargalkar, VP Business Development and Marketing, are interviewed.

Established in Toronto in 1919 by Harry Holborn Angus, HH Angus & Associates Limited has firmly established itself as one of the preeminent engineering and building designs professionals in Canada.

It was 100 years ago when Harry Holborn Angus opened his practice, specializing in mechanical and electrical consulting engineering services. Since then, the firm has enjoyed continuous, sustained growth throughout the decades to where we are a century later.

HH Angus continued to grow through the early years before transitioning to HH’s son Don Angus and now it is led by CEO Harry G. Angus, who has been with the firm for more than 40 years. The family legacy has seen the company blossom from a sole proprietorship to a firm that now has more than 250 people. In addition to the Toronto head office, HH Angus also has established bricks & mortar presences in Montreal, Chicago and Dallas. Due to a large number of projects in British Columbia it was recently decided an office presence in Vancouver would best meet the demands of those western endeavours.

What else was happening in 1919? Canada’s Prime Minister was Robert Borden. Dial telephones were introduced by AT&T and Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity was confirmed when the Royal Astronomical Society witnessed the predicted effect during a solar eclipse. And, there was no Stanley Cup champion declared as the finals between the Montreal Canadiens against the Seattle Metropolitans had to be suspended after five games due to an epidemic of the Spanish flu.

Fast forward to 2019, when The Canadian Business Journal spoke with HH Angus President Paul Keenan and Vice President, Marketing & Business Development Sameer Dhargalkar about the company’s incredible success story over the years as well as its current projects and aspirations for the future.

“We’re a Canadian-based firm and we’re very proud of the contributions we’ve made to the growth of Canada and some of the engineering firsts that we’ve been part of in terms of the infrastructure development of this country and others,” 
Paul Keenan
President, HH Angus
Project Development

As part of the overall process of a construction project, architects design a building’s outer shell and then they turn to HH Angus to design and integrate the operational systems and the internal infrastructure, blending the two designs into one convergent finished product. It is the responsibility of the structural engineer to design the skeleton to ensure every component is stable and remains in place. The consulting engineers then ensure everything behind the walls is properly in place, including the heating, cooling, and any specific operational needs the building may have, such as IT infrastructure, security systems, communications, vertical transportation and lighting design.

Although he’s been with HH Angus for 25 years, Keenan is still relatively new to the president’s chair, having taken over from Harry G Angus this past April. The combination of his skills, industry expertise and executive management abilities made him the ideal choice to serve as the day-to-day leader in starting the next 100-year journey.

“I’m the first non-Angus to take on the role. It reflects the maturity of the firm as we continue to diversify while the family component of our business remains very strong,” he says.

Keenan and the entire team at HH Angus have a shared passion and devotion to continue the tradition of engineering excellence and continuing to grow the infrastructure and support of this country and around the world, which becomes more competitive with each passing day.

Reaching the 100-year milestone is a marvellous achievement and a proud milestone for everyone involved, but according to Keenan it’s really just the starting point of the next 100 years with an eye to focusing on the challenges and opportunities ahead. The entire industry has evolved considerably during Keenan’s time as a professional engineer.

“When I first walked in 25 years ago we still had drafting boards,” he recalls. “We’re now two full iterations along in terms of the basic technology of how we deliver the work. The pace and rate of change of communications has fundamentally altered the construction and design business.”

Client expectations regarding timely and efficient deliverables continues to accelerate, which is not unique to engineering or construction but it has certainly deeply manifested itself in this line of business. The engineering fundamentals have remained consistent but the mechanisms to carry them out have become radically divergent.

It is the task of the architect to design a building and then turn to HH Angus as the consulting engineers who design and integrate such commodities as the operational systems and the internal infrastructure.

“An analogy would be that we are the circulatory system – the brains and the beating heart of a building,” explains Keenan. “You’ve got the exoskeleton and the skin, but how the communication flows through the wires and who determines what the temperature is and how to deal with the environmental conditions and what makes a building safe – those are the types of systems that we provide.”

As an example, if dealing with a banking client, HH Angus provides the electrical redundancy – the emergency power systems – to do everything to ensure that the essential data centre of the bank never goes down and that it consistently achieves its reliability targets.

“The costs of a building, typically the mechanical and electrical systems, can come out to more than 40% of the total construction costs so what we do is a good chunk of what that building represents,” notes Dhargalkar.

“With a healthcare building it can be 45% and sometimes it’s more than 50% of the entire cost of the work being done in constructing the building,” adds Keenan.

The process of interfacing with architects to make an energy-efficient building begins on Day One. The architects have fundamental ideas on the massing and the components that will be part of the shell and how the program of the building works together. HH Angus is a part of those early planning stages and discussions to achieve the aspirations of it being a low-energy building, or a Net Zero building and determines how everything can be neatly packaged to achieve the targets expected by the client.

“Oftentimes when you design a building you think about the construction and design of the building that you’ve handed off but we, as mechanical and electrical engineers, more so than any other consultants, can stay with the building throughout its life cycle, which can easily be 25 to 30 years-plus,” offers Dhargalkar. “There are upgrades and helping the building’s owner with such things as energy efficiency and helping them in managing the costs of operating a building.”

Pillars of Strength

Employee retention at HH Angus has always been notably above the industry norm. It’s that type of continuity and commitment to excellence in meeting and exceeding client expectations that has led to the firm being acknowledged by its peers with a number of awards, including the prestigious 2017 Schreyer Award for its outstanding contribution to the work provided on a Montreal hospital and most recently being named one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies earlier this year.

There are three main pillars that Keenan wants to focus upon as the company forges ahead and continues to grow. The first pillar is doing right by the people at HH Angus. The second is aligning the firm’s services with its clients and the third objective is to chart a successful course to be in business for the next 100 years.

“It’s important that we get the right people with the proper skills and talent working for us,” he emphasizes. “For those employees now with us we want to help them develop new skills. I think over 30 of our employees have been with us for more than 30 years and that speaks to the culture of the family company and the environment that has been created.”

Keenan and Dhargalkar are in agreement that HH Angus has a sound reputation for taking the right level of risk on each individual project. The company is known for accepting complex projects that can be challenging and in some cases have never been done before.

“We did the first skyscraper in Canada – TD Centre in downtown Toronto,” points out Dhargalkar. “We worked on the SkyDome (Rogers Centre) and got to work on the first P3 hospital project in Ontario. A lot of firsts have come through but it’s because of our people – we are innately curious.”

Equipped with confidence in their experiential skills and abilities is what orchestrates the professionals at HH Angus to respectfully challenge what a client may initially be thinking because oftentimes there are better solutions, resulting in a more efficient final result and a savings in terms of materials, space and costs.

Over the last 20 years HH Angus has established a particularly strong foothold in healthcare and in the data technical business. As the company has matured so too has the marketplace and as such the diversity potential has expanded in the realm of public, commercial and institutional projects.

“We have intentionally set out to grow other areas that are of commensurate size and feel that we are in a strong position to cope with changes within the construction business. The next few years will see a strong focus on transit,” reveals Keenan.

“The transportation side has really grown for us over the last several years, We’re involved with several stations on the Eglinton crosstown (in Toronto) and we’ve done some of the early design work on a couple of stations for the downtown relief line for the Toronto Transit Commission. We’ve also done airports and bus terminals.”
Sameer Dhargalkar
VP Bussiness Development & Marketing, HH Angus
Angus Connect

A vital component that determines success is the ability to recognize, develop and implement innovative technologies. Significant growth has been achieved over the past five years with the company’s Angus Connect, which provides Information, Communications and Automation (ICAT) Technology consulting to a wide range of industry sectors. This proprietary vehicle drives the planning and design of information, communications and automation technologies to take a client’s project from the conceptual phase all the way through to occupancy and beyond.

“It essentially started in healthcare with the Smart Hospital. Where we differentiate from other mechanical and electrical engineering firms is that we provide the up-front, strategic consulting side for the owners. It has since transitioned over to commercial, hospitality and other sectors as well,” remarks Dhargalkar.

“The way that we think about the information and the idea of a database that is storing the collective engineering information about a project is a fundamental shift at a production level for the business,” says Keenan.

Throughout a wide range of Canadian business industries the disruption of the next piece of technology is without doubt rooted in artificial intelligence. There is an element of the unknown; so much continues to evolve on a constant basis. Keenan points out the necessity for the company to remain ahead of the curve and work closely with their clients to understand how AI will both disrupt their clients’ businesses – and their own – and properly assess the level of support required, which includes updating skillsets within the organization.

At HH Angus dedicated groups have been formed and they are constantly examining various emerging technologies, including building information modelling software and digital twinning.

“We’re looking at artificial intelligence machine-learning aspects and what it means from a design process and using it day-to-day and what kind of value it brings to the client. We’re also looking at virtual reality technology,” says Dhargalkar.

“A big component of all this is partnerships,” adds Keenan. “We’re a fair-sized company but we’re still only 250 people so it’s crucial to find good partners. We’ve got a research project with Ryerson University to explore some of this digital twinning together and I think that’s the future for companies such as ours.”

Looking to the Future

According to Keenan one of the foremost and exciting challenges facing the industry is capacity, with an insatiable appetite for infrastructure renewal and expansion. HH Angus faces the prospect of having a plethora of new projects being put on the table, which means it’s imperative that the team is able to provide solutions to carry out the expanded workload and meet timelines.

“How do we deal with the disruption of other technologies? It all goes back to the talent piece. If we ensure we bring in the right people with the proper skillsets and develop a strong culture it will be successful,” says Keenan.

Within the healthcare sector HH Angus is part of an expansive project at the Royal Columbian Hospital in British Columbia. The firm is also in the process of pursuing two other substantial projects in this space – one on the east coast and one on the west coast. Commercially, the company is working on several large casino gaming and hospitality projects in Ontario.

The constant drive to attain sustainability and implement the most energy-efficient designs reflects upon a direct response in terms of what is important in society but also represents sound engineering principles. Sustainability as a race without a finish line; it’s an ongoing process, constantly improving and seeking new solutions for clients and society as a whole.

“Society and the group around us have moved some of those traditional constraints and so that opens up a world of new possibilities. People are prepared to invest in sustainable designs and low carbon solutions. We want to continue down this path and do the best type of engineering we can do,” reflects Keenan.

“We are fortunate that we have a very strong energy group within the firm. We’ve seen a lot of interest and demand from our clients regarding low-carbon energy solutions such as how we can reduce the footprint for our clients,” says Dhargalkar.

HH Angus continues to challenge technological convention, and encourages employees to envision change by asking questions, fostering creativity, and promoting inventiveness — all with the singular goal of delivering innovative, effective, and efficient design solutions. A robust company that is able to cope with this capacity while being able to withstand challenges and vagaries the market dishes out is essential.

“We want to be able to continue to attract and retain top talent. We have some growth targets and coupled with that is a focus on aligning our work with that of our clients. We want to create additional productivity improvements, which includes technology as well as enhancing relationships with clients. That encapsulates the main focus over the next three to five years,” envisions Keenan. “HH Angus has been able to succeed for 100 years and it’s now beginning work on the next 100.”

Link to original article - http://www.cbj.ca/EMAG/2019/Sep/32-33/