Asante Three Rivers Community Hospital in Grants Pass, Oregon needed a new administrative office quickly integrated into its existing medical campus. Asante decided that the addition was to be supervised by their chosen architect, with the overriding objective of the project to ensure a seamless aesthetic integration with the overall campus, from design to exterior finishes. Although Asante had never utilized modular construction, they opted to look to both stick-build and modular construction for the potential solution.

"This was our first experience with modular office space and we solicited proposals from many potential vendors," said Dennis Hayes, construction project manager for Asante Health System. Hayes said that their project objective was to compare both costs and timeline and then balance that against the overriding objective of creating a well-integrated campus addition. "We as a team requested information on where different vendors would have these units built. [We] then spent a great deal of time interviewing the proposed team [as well as] visiting all proposed manufacturing sites and discussing construction practices with their management and field teams." It was an involved process that included Hayes, Asante's architect, and the appropriate Asante management personnel.

According to Hayes, the modular construction solution that Pacific Mobile proposed "stood out well above the rest." Several aspects were particularly appealing:

Project Control
Asante wanted to be included in every step of the building process--from inception through design and completion. Hayes stated that the modular process allowed them to be "very involved in all design phases of this project." According to Duane Harris, Sales Manager for Pacific Mobile, "Customers are not bystanders. They help drive the process." In most cases, Pacific Mobile ends up collaborating with a client that knows exactly what they want going into the project. Quite often they even have an architect in mind to oversee it. Just like those clients, Asante chose the architect while Pacific Mobile put Asante's team and its manufacturing group together for collaborative work on design, approvals and delivery. In the end, Asante's architect had complete oversight on the project as well as the assurance that he would be able to make the exterior design choices so critical to the integration objective. In this case Pacific Mobile actually delivered a wooden structure, and the Asante architect completely managed the exterior work.

Traditional Construction Quality
Asante was looking for a quality building and learned first hand that quality construction is exactly what modular manufacturing can deliver. Hayes noted that once the Asante team had gone through the interviews and visited the factories, as well as reviewed references, the process stood out for its quality. Pacific Mobile itself offered over a quarter-century of experience providing custom modular structures that are still in use today. In fact, Hayes went on to say that by the time the factory tour was complete, his team solidly understood why their Pacific Mobile contact had consistently pointed out that "we can do anything a traditional construction company" can do.

Time Savings
According to Hayes, "the time saved with this process was the key." In this situation the time advantage played a pivotal role in Asante's decision because speed-to-completion was a big consideration for the project. Pacific Mobile shares that in most situations the customer will experience a 20-30% time savings with the modular construction process. And the fact that that Asante would end up with a building in all respects comparable to stick-build construction just solidified their decision. Asante was able to experience full function of a new, quality space in less than 2 months--impressive and practical results for the project team.

Minimal Site Disruption
Modular construction provided another benefit to Asante in terms of their need to have the building placed on hospital grounds during operational hours. With stick-built construction there is a lot of noise and activity surrounding the site where construction occurs. This poses both disruption and safety concerns, usually for several months. With modular construction, however, these issues are all but eliminated because the construction is being done at the factory. The noise disruption is drastically reduced. As for the time frame for installation, it takes about 1-2 days for the foundation to be laid and building placed. So, a few days are the entire amount of displacement hospital administrators have to manage for both patients and staff.

As for the success of the project, the results speak for themselves. In a short 58 days, Asante Health System was able to move its administrative staff into a brand new building complete with several file rooms and one large conference room. Best of all, the permanent, quality-constructed addition looked like it had been build right along with the original campus. Hayes and his team were happy with the outcome. And he said they would certainly consider using modular construction again. As for the results, Pacific Mobile is not at all surprised. Having provided modular construction solutions in the medical field for 25 years, they have found that their buildings work particularly well in medical complex situations for all of the above stated reasons. In fact, Harris states it well when he contemplates on the fact that every time Pacific Mobile has been given the chance to propose a process that is "every bit as good as stick-built" with time-condensed results and savings in addition, "why wouldn't they use it?" Aptly put by one modular construction veteran.

(c) 2007. Modular Building Institute. All rights reserved. Pictures copyright Pacific Mobile Structures. All rights reserved.