AgriBio is one of the premier bioscience facilities in Australia, fostering the delivery of high-quality scientific research.

The facility is managed by Honeywell who procured our services after a lengthy tender process. Our Melbourne team provided an extensive internal repaint to restore the modern look and feel of the facility. 

The challenge

The Honeywell tender’s scope involved a full internal repaint, including all areas in the atrium. This provided a significant access challenge, as the atrium roof was over four storeys’ high. Several other areas within this building were not accessible from the ground.

The nature of the facility brought on other challenges, such as the requirement for an immaculately clean work environment and the utilisation of certain paint products. This was amplified by the COVID-19 restrictions in place, which required the implementation of a COVID-Safe plan.

We provided a non-conforming tender bid that excluded certain areas within the building. Honeywell accepted our alternative solution, acknowledging the value-for-money in the revised works schedule.

Solution

The roof and other height-challenged areas within the atrium formed part of the exclusions within our non-conforming bid. While this mitigated access issues in some instances, there was still a need to utilise scaffolding and spider booms within this facility. Our operations teams used boards to prevent the booms from exceeding any load tolerances, preventing any damage to the building’s flooring. In addition to the atrium, we repainted offices, meeting rooms, breakout spaces, staircases, from the ground level up to level four. Laboratories throughout the building were also repainted at the discretion of Honeywell.

We selected a range of Dulux products that were low-VOC and water-based to cater this facility’s needs. Our painting experts applied Dulux Aquanamel, Dulux Professional and Dulux Luxafloor ECO2 and matched all colours to the previous painting specification.

Our COVID-Safe plan involved mandatory face masks, social distancing where possible and frequent hand-washing, and disinfecting. Click here to find out more about our COVID-Safe measures. Any issues were handled by our full-time foreman, who ensured any issues were remedied and tool boxed on-site to the satisfaction of the customer.

Results

The project spanned for four months with up to eight painters on-site at any one time. The finished product speaks volumes of our experience in facilities like these. Honeywell’s Project Manager provided some insight on working with Higgins.

"I really appreciate Higgins for completing all the painting works at AgriBio without any major issues. It has been a really good experience working with Higgins team for their understanding about the operational requirement and the expectations of our client. I would highly recommend Higgins Coatings for any commercial painting requirements."

 Project Manager, Total Asset Management - Honeywell