Innovative engineering solutions from OCS

OCS engineering wins accolades from Mitsubishi UFJ Securities International for 'tremendous efforts' in design and installation of new trading floor.

OCS Engineering, a division of GBP600 million OCS property support services group, has been highly praised by Mitsubishi UFJ Securities International plc ("MUSI") after successful completion of an ambitious multi-million pound total refurbishment of the international trading floor at its London headquarters.

MUSI is part of the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, one of the world's largest financial institutions.

Graham Yellowley, Director of Technology at MUSI said, "OCS Engineering has been magnificent.

The project, which in terms of blades is the largest single deployment that we are aware of in the City, has been a major success and this is principally down to the teamwork ethic demonstrated throughout the programme.

The trading floor looks superb and the traders are extremely pleased with their new environment.

But this is just the visible part of the works.

OCS Engineering has also delivered on both the MandE engineering and the necessary associated building works to the highest standard; similarly they have worked hard to deliver the allied infrastructure works within a very tight timeframe.

All credit to them for their tremendous efforts on this achievement".

The contract, valued at more than GBP5 million, required the building of a new 51,000 square feet trading floor, including the installation of new hydraulic trading desks throughout and twelve new meeting and management rooms.

This work covered the entire second floor of the company's premises in Broadgate in the City of London and enabled MUSI to increase capacity to almost 400 traders The programme of innovative engineering solutions was based around a robust strategic approach adopted by OCS who were involved in the project planning process from the outset.

The strategy set out to build a state-of-the-art trading environment which would also deliver cost savings, energy efficiency and improved response times for the busy traders.

OCS Engineering developed the project design with their appointed design partner Cundall Johnston and Partners.

The project included strip out; cellular completion; ductwork for all services; comfort cooling and electric/power distribution.

OCS were also responsible for building dedicated computer rooms to house upgraded UPS support; network and cabling equipment; APC technology with state-of-the-art Blade servers utilising in-row cooling and the provision of a fire suppressant system and energy proficient cooling units to the computer rooms necessitating a new roof-based chiller.

The in-row cooling approach took advantage of the APC High Density, fully-enclosed, hot aisle solution (a cube).

As Mark Smith of Cundalls explained, "This philosophy effectively reduced the load per desk from the usual 500W to 200W.

The combined effect of this approach and locating the Blade centres within the new SER rooms also removed processing from each desk and allowed more traders to be accommodated on the floor.

Electrically, the solutions needed to be more complex to deal with a mixture of new and old load and an aged infrastructure.

The project team took advantage of some existing APC Symmetra UPS and supplemented this with similar modules.

"The advantage of this was that we could accommodate an N with shared +1 UPS and battery arrangement per SER room.

These would locate on-floor in a very small footprint, give us the advantages of the inherent monitoring functions, and add to the network which would be installed with the APC cubes.

The downside was that we couldn't synchronise the UPS on their load bus as this model doesn't have that facility", said Mr Smith.

To overcome this issue, and to feed the SER PDU's, the project team designed and tested a scheme which had a Static Transfer Switch at each PDU with the alternate path being fed from the shared +1 UPS module.

With this arrangement, the STS which changes over first sends an inhibit signal to the other STS stopping it from changing over should there be a need.

This solution allows concurrent maintenance and also fits well within the space and structural constraints.

For the fit out of the trading floor, most of the work was at floor level giving a neat and tidy solution.

The existing ceiling was retained with new lighting installed and the VAV was supplemented as necessary in line with the increased occupancy.

With the existing 24hr chilled water system unable to support current and projected loads, modifications will expand the capacity.

A second chilled water circuit will be added in parallel to the existing system with the demand balanced across each.

The desks were supplied via an underfloor busbar system from a dual fed PDU.

All of the Mardix-supplied PDU's incorporate the latest iPDU technology which, when added to the new control system, allows MUSI full monitoring and control of their critical infrastructure.

OCS Engineering, through its specialist BES Projects division, has previously undertaken similar projects as well as ongoing comprehensive maintenance for MUSI and this contract builds upon this existing strong relationship.

"The teamwork between us and OCS Engineering is much stronger than the usual 'partnering' relationship.

This makes for clearer decision-making, understanding and sharing of risks", said MUSI's Graham Yellowley.

This project reflects MUSI's continuing global success.

Without a major refurbishment the headcount at its Broadgate headquarters would have exceeded the space available.

The London trading floor links with the company's highly successful trading network covering North America, Europe and the Far East.

In order to maintain continuing critical links with dealing offices across different time zones, OCS Engineering managed the project within a phased programme that required minute planning to ensure complex service issues were addressed at every stage and phased re-occupation as each location was completed.

Commenting on the project completion, Richard Burl, managing director of OCS Engineering, said, "MUSI demonstrated trust in our strategic approach and in our disciplined and professional approach in developing and managing an extremely challenging and difficult programme of works.

The on-site team are an exceptional group of quality engineers who committed enormous effort, energy and a steely determination to achieve the impossible - it would be very hard to find a more dedicated and professional unit.

The project was achieved against extremely tight time constraints with all credit to both MUSI and OCS who combined to operate as one.

Following the success of the Floor 2 project for MUSI at No 6 Broadgate.

OCS Engineering is now working on a refurbishment of Floor 3 (24,000 sq ft) and will later commence work on the fourth floor (33,000 sq ft).

Congratulating the OCS Engineering team, OCS Group chief executive Chris Cracknell said, "The design and installation of such a complex refurbishment programme utilising leading edge technologies required painstaking attention to detail and completion within a critical timescale.

Our team have demonstrated not only that they are capable of such a project but that they can work seamlessly with the client to ensure that real value and professionalism is added.

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