MEP Co-ordination - Basics

For the Electrical and Mechanical engineers who had just entered the building construction business, MEP might be a new term to them. MEP basically is Mechanical Electrical Plumbing in full form. Mechanical goes for Air Conditioning system.

Electrical for Power related systems.

Plumbing for Water systems.

(Initially if Plumbing system included fire fighting later it is considered a seperate entity. So MEP is now also known as MEPF.)

Lets eloborate these three/four segments wrt to MEP Coordination :

M - Mechanical - Piping and Ducting

E - Electrical - uPVC ducting, Busbar, Cable Ladders, Trays and Trunking,

P - Plumbing - Water supply, Sewage, Vent, Rain Water, Condensate drain & Fire fighting (seperated)

F - Fire fighting - Water used for life safety

There can be further classification in Mechanical piping and ducting like inlet and outlet or Supply, Return or Fresh air etc resp. But as far as MEP co-ordination is concerned, these can be confined to ducting and piping.

Now basically, all these services has a source and an end product. And also the route taken from source to the end product has been designed by the engineer, keeping in mind several factors to keep the efficiency and reliability high (this will be discussed in future topics)

Why we need MEP co-ordination?

Keeping in mind that there are more than 10 different physical paths through the same area or corridor (say), the chances of clashing with each other are very high. So, we do a small engineering exercise so that there is no clash and the key factors (efficiency and reliability) are least effected. This exercise is what we call MEP co-ordination.

Advantages:

Avoid unwanted reworks.

Save labour and cost based on above.

Streamline the MEP works.

Helps in better planning.

What can be done in MEP co-ordination?

In simple words, we take a good study of the individual service routings. And we see how it can be re-arranged in a way that the services doesnt clash with each other and also with Structure and Architecture. We also make sure that a service is least effecting the other wrt maintenance in future.

The key factors (efficiency and reliability) along with vision of future maintenance of individual services makes MEP co-ordination design and installation a quality job.

NB: The finalisation of a successful MEP co-ordination can be considered only after RCP co-ordination. This will be discussed in the future blog

Efficient MEP co-ordination : How and Things to consider.

This will be discussed in the next blog.