FedEx Sort and Clearance Facility

A sort facility has to work from its first shift.

FedEx’s sort and clearance facility at Dubai South handles parcels on tight daily cycles. Dubai South and FedEx wanted one contractor to design and build every building service: power for the sort systems and the offices, cooling from a district cooling plant on the same plot, water and drainage, fire protection and the building controls.

What made it hard.

1. 01

   Everything ready at once

   A sort hall cannot open in stages. Power, cooling, fire protection and controls had to be complete, tested and accepted together before the first shift.

2. 02

   A cooling plant inside a building contract

   The district cooling plant and the ETS room sat in the same contract as the building services, so the plant, the chilled water network and the air side had to work as one system.

3. 03

   Design, approvals and site in parallel

   As the design and build contractor, we carried the design. Drawings, authority approvals and orders for long-lead plant had to stay ahead of the structure, so the site never waited for us.

What we did about each one.

1. Challenge 01Everything ready at once
   Our response

   Tested as one building

   Our commissioning engineers tested each system on its own, then the links between them, such as the fire alarm’s signals to the air handling units and the controls’ view of every item of plant, before the building was handed over.

2. Challenge 02A cooling plant inside a building contract
   Our response

   One design for the plant and the building

   We designed the cooling plant, the ETS room and the air side together, sized to the sort hall’s loads, and ordered the chillers, pumps and switchgear early to protect the programme.

3. Challenge 03Design, approvals and site in parallel
   Our response

   One model, one programme

   Our engineers coordinated the five services in one model and took them through to shop drawings, so clashes were solved on screen; our planners tied every submission and delivery to the main contractor’s programme.

From the first drawing to handover.

1. 01DesignConcept to shop drawings for five services and the cooling plant, coordinated in one model.
2. 02ApprovalsSubmissions to the authorities for power, fire protection and the cooling plant.
3. 03ProcurementChillers, pumps, switchgear and fire systems ordered early, against the programme.
4. 04InstallationServices installed behind the structure; plant rooms built and fitted out.
5. 05Testing and handoverEach system tested, then the building as a whole, with manuals, as-built drawings and training for the facility team.

FedEx’s first sort facility in Dubai, with every building service and its own cooling plant delivered by one contractor.