Making manuals that work

Digital handover documentation

Christiaan Brandt

Christiaan grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, and moved to England in 2006.

Having grown up around building development projects run by his father’s business, he has an immediate understanding for what is needed to make O&M manuals both meet the demands of the contractor, and be of use to the end user.

In his spare time Chris is a psytrance music producer and DJ.

Articles

What are O&M Manuals?

When any significant building work is undertaken, either as a NewBuild, a Cat A refit (of the basic structure) or a Cat B refit (tenants fittings), it is a legal requirement in the UK that an O&M (Operations and Maintenance) manual be provided as part of the Health & Safety documentation for the building.
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Home User Guides

It is not only the O&M manuals that are going digital. It is the user guides for apartments too. The requirements of companies such as Paradigm are increasingly to provide detailed bespoke manuals for each apartment.
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Regulation 38 and the 'Golden Thread'

Regulation 38 what is it? And what does this means for the future of fire safety and preserving the Golden Thread' of information?
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RiDR

Rapid intelligent Data Retrieval A bespoke search and retrieval system that enables rapid access to all the information collected across multiple O&M manuals. Our objective is to increase the value of these documents beyond Handover.
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O&M manuals for clients with large property portfolios

Clients with large property portfolios are increasingly determined to take control of the documentation relating to their properties and store them in data base silos with a common access and structure
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Building Long-Term Relationships

Find out about the benefits of our Framework Agreements
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What are residual hazards?

Since CDM 2007 there has been an increasing emphasis on providing a residual risks section in the health and safety Manual. Some sub-contractors find this particularly confusing because of the apparent similarity with the risk assessment that they are required to make before they start work.
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New building regulations will be in effect from 15th June 2023

New Building Regulations require documentary proof that the build quality conforms to the build plan. Photos during the build and increased certification.
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What Makes a Good O&M Manual?

Our objective is not to create great literature – many manuals are longer than War & Peace. Our aim is to capture large amounts of detail so that any of the wide variety of future users can find what they need whether it be the details of a floor tile that needs replacing following an accident with some inks, or a major overhaul of the Air conditioning.
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Why should you spend on a professional O&M Manual?

Is it worth the cost? It's a no-brainer justifying our O&M services.
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The Future Homes Standard 2025

The new Future Homes Standard being introduced will require significant additional information to be collected and documented to pass Building Regulations.
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Information that we need to start creating your Project Manuals

A quick reference for Project Managers of the information that we need from you to start our work
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End of Project Checklist

End of Project check list Having put together all the O&M information from all the subcontractors, there are several areas that need to be cross-checked, especially for the inclusion in the H&S file.
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About Us

In 2019 we celebrated our thirtieth year in business, Denaploy are arguably the Construction Industry’s leading provider of digital O&M documentation.
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The Expectations of Quality in Documentation are Increasing

Talk to any old time project managers about O&M manuals and you get the same response; a box ticking exercise in which it is only by the most extreme luck that you will find anything useful when you need it. As we move into the digital world everybody has much higher expectations.
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Thinking about printing O&M manuals

Modern O&M manuals are created as digital documents replete with hyper links, search tools and the type of navigation structures that we have become used to when browsing the internet. Denaploy is one of the leaders in this trend and as a consequence has documented approaching £1bn of construction projects for some of the most demanding customers in the industry.
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As built drawings PDF or DWG?

The final As Built drawings have always been a critical part of an O&M Manual, and it has always been clear that these need to be the final version of the drawings
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Digital Home User Guides

People have a right to expect good quality documentation explaining how to use and maintain their property and the old way of throwing a few bits of product literature into a file is no longer acceptable.
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BREEAM

BREEAM (Building Research Establishment's Environmental Assessment Method)
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What is a CIBSE TM31 Logbook?

Log books provide a simple, easily accessible summary of a new or refurbished building rather than the detail contained in O & M manuals.
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Construction Bloopers

This page is dedicated to the construction blooper. It's just a bit of fun and not to be taken too seriously
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News

Constructionline Meet the Buyer Crawley

Another jaunt for Constructionlines Meet the Buyer event in Crawley
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Denaploy on Tour-Constructionline Meet the Buyer Leeds

Denaploy on tour again! This time for Meet the Buyer but in Leeds.
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The Nation Mourns for the Queen

Our longest standing Monarch unfortunately passes away.
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July 2022 Heatwave

Temperatures soar and hit peak levels here in the U.K.
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Constructionline Meet the Buyer Derby

Denaploy on tour for Meet the Buyer.
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Denaploy on tour-Ireland's National Construction Summit

Annual trip to the National Construction Summit in Ireland.
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CIS and VAT reverse charge from 1st March 2021

Please note that the provision of documentation services provided by Denaploy Limited are specifically excluded from the CIS and therefore the VAT rules applicable from 1 March do not apply. We will therefore continue to apply VAT to our invoices.
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Manuals for Small Projects

Small Projects in the region of £200k+ can be really difficult for documentation. They are big enough to require careful documentation, but too small to justify the cost involved.
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Denaploy's New Offices

Denaploy are pleased to announce that we have moved our entire Operations & Maintenance Manuals department into new offices.
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Common pitfalls in preparing O&M Manuals

Advice to Project managers - 3 Steps to good quality O&M manuals
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Documentation in the event of Covid-19 lockdown

As we prepare for a Covid-19 lockdown, we need to take simple precautions for the eventual restart whenever it comes. We want to help by collecting as much information as possible on the current status of the project
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Policy update on Covid-19

The impact of Covid 19 is growing every day, so our response is under constant review. So far it is business as usual apart from lots of working from home.
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Earth day 2022 and Sustainability in construction

A key talking point at the moment in the construction industry is of course net zero and sustainability.
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Case Studies

Constructionline Gold Member Accreditation for Denaploy

As far as we are aware we are the only O&M Provider to hold this level of accreditation.
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Denaploy and Kier Unite for RCA Flagship Building

After working on a large number of projects together Kier and Denaploy unite again for the RCA
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Thousands saved on refrigerators thanks to O&M Manual and RiDr system.

O&M Manual and RiDr system saves client thousands through refrigerator changes.
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THFC manual - Holding the ace for BASE, MACE and STACE

Denaploy was appointed by BASE, one of our valued regular clients, to manage the documentation for this major stadium project
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Recent Projects

Over the last 10 years we estimate that we have documented over £2bn of construction projects for many main contractors and some of the most demanding clients and consultants in the country.
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Denaploy Flashdrives

One of the reasons O&M manuals are so disparaged is that they are never there when you need them!
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Data Supply Chain - BIM Systems

One of our clients is a company that builds and fits-out high-end, exclusive homes in some of the most exclusive areas of North London. They approached us to create the O&M manual and User Guide for one of their latest luxury homes for a well-known TV personality who has a penchant for Apple products.
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Dagenham Park C of E School

A new school built by Laing O’Rourke in record time using Laing O’Rourke’s model for delivering primary and secondary schools, using standardised building components manufactured and assembled at Europe’s leading construction offsite pre-assembly facility
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BSRIA Performance indicators

O&M manuals have a terrible reputation. If you mention them to most people in the construction industry you’ll be met by a resigned shrug. They are considered a painful legal necessity and an afterthought to the main job of getting the building project completed. Nobody likes doing them and it requires a completely different skill set to those normally expected of a project manager.
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Denaploy Digital O&M Manuals

About Denaploy and our processes
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O&M Manuals for Schools

Undertaking projects for schools have some special requirements and these are also reflected in the documentation production
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St Bernard's Hospital

A new build hospital unit within the Ealing Hospital complex.
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