Working inside operating facilities
How do you build inside an operating hospital?
Infection control sets the program. An ICRA risk assessment is completed before mobilisation, containment and pressure differentials are agreed with infection prevention and clinical leadership, and works are staged around theatre lists and admission patterns rather than imposed on them.
Can you work inside a school during term?
Yes. Most works happen in the term break; what cannot be, happens after the last bell and before the first. Children and trades never share a corridor, and the handover date is the first day of term, not a target near it.
How do you handle rail possession windows?
The program is built backwards from the window with contingency inside it, not after it. Missing a possession usually means waiting a month, so we plan to finish inside the window rather than near it.
Can you work inside a police station or emergency services facility?
Yes. The constraint on those sites is response capability, crews turn out and the station stays operational. Works are staged around turnout and shift change, and access is agreed with the station officer rather than assumed from the program.
What happens if something changes mid-job?
On a live site something usually does. The budget and the standard were agreed before anything started, so a change is discussed against those two answers rather than absorbed quietly and argued about at the end. You hear about it when we do.
Scope and scale
Do you do small jobs?
Yes, and they get the same four questions as a $12M ward. Reactive call-outs, programmed maintenance and minor works are a core part of the business, not the thing that fills gaps between projects.
What size projects do you take on?
From a single call-out to projects up to $20 million. On state government work the ceiling is our Victorian Government Pre-Qualification (Construction Supplier Register), which is held to $8M. Outside that register we deliver to $20M. More than 1,000 projects have been delivered since 2002.
How do you handle maintenance and reactive call-outs?
The same way as a project, at a different size. A call-out gets one extra question before the tools come out, what do you actually need here, and a call back to you before anything beyond the work order is touched. Programmed maintenance and minor works run under the same site rules as the major work.
Credentials and coverage
What accreditations do you hold?
ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001, Federal Safety Accreditation, Pre-Qual CSR to $8M and HealthShare Victoria No. 572. Certificate numbers and expiry dates available on request.
Where do you work?
Victoria, and South Australia (postal address 25 Grenfell Street, Adelaide). Projects have historically been delivered in Queensland.
How long has Ducon been operating?
Since 2002. More than 1,000 projects delivered.
Do you work on Defence sites?
Yes. Ducon holds Federal Safety Accreditation, which is a requirement for Commonwealth-funded building work, and has delivered a Defence portfolio valued at $27.5M. Clearance requirements are handled per base and per package.
How do you price work?
Against the four answers, not against an assumption. The budget question is asked before anything starts precisely so the price reflects what completed actually means to you, sometimes a full replacement, sometimes just the door handle.
Working with us
What are the four questions?
What can't stop while we're here? When can we actually be there? What are we working with? What does completed look like to you? The answers become the program, the staging plan and the measures of success, agreed up front, evidenced at the end.
Who will I actually deal with?
The site manager running your job and the project manager behind them, both named before work starts. Ducon is small enough that the person who founded it in 2002 still knows every job on the board.