Lend Lease is working in partnership with Queensland Health as the Stage One Managing Contractor on the new A$1.76 billion Gold Coast University Hospital in Australia. The 750 overnight-bed tertiary level hospital will provide new and expanded health services and will be part of the new, integrated Health and Knowledge Precinct planned for Southport.
The development is being marked as one of the largest health infrastructure projects currently underway in Australia. Ampac was selected as the preferred designer, manufacturer, and supplier of world-leading fire detection and alarm systems for the hospital, based on superior commercial and technological advantages and benefits.
The system comprised of 2 distinct networks, one which relied on copper technology, one network which relied on fibre optic networking. The 2 networks were seamlessly integrated to ensure that the standard cutting edge networking solutions Ampac provides was the backbone of reliability for the project. The Gold Coast Hospital network consisted of both FireFinder and EV3000 technologies.
The system comprised of 25 separate panels, one for each building, and a total of 93 smart terminals as nurse call stations were installed to meet the requirements to immediately communicate alarm conditions to the hospital staff.
The project was offered to Ampac on the provision that it could deliver a rock-solid reliable solution to the networking requirements of the hospital. This involved creating a network with a mixture of copper and fibre technologies which poses a challenge for the audio signals, which had been an exercise that had not been attempted previously at this level before in Ampac. A NEW smart terminal design was created to meet the requirements of the nurse call stations.
In order to ensure the strict timelines and specifications of the project were met, a dedicated specialised team of experts was formed to closely manage the project and make sure all of the deliverables were achieved with ease. A Factory Acceptance Test was performed with the presence of the Customer and end client to sign off and ensure all of the expectations were met or exceeded. The Project was a complete success and the customer was happy with the performance and expected outcomes.
