Coordinating critical infrastructure across multiple data centres in North America

Data Centres Engineering Services Nearshoring Site Services United States of America

Few expansions put coordination to the test quite like this one. A client was expanding its data centre network across North America, with several sites under construction at the same time, at a scale beyond 1GW. It involved hundreds of millions of dollars in critical equipment and called for tight coordination between estimating, procurement and on-site execution. That coordination is what this case study describes.

The context

The client was expanding its North American data centre network, with multiple sites under construction in parallel, at a scale exceeding 1GW. Each site involved hundreds of millions of dollars in OCFI (On-site/Central Facility Infrastructure) equipment and every purchase, every delivery and every validation had a direct bearing on the start-up date.

The challenge

The real problem wasn’t buying the equipment. It was coordinating those purchases, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, across multiple sites, at the same time, without losing control of budget, schedule or quality. Without unified processes linking estimating, procurement and on-site execution, the risk was concrete: cost overruns, delivery delays and misalignment between teams. any one of these risks would be enough to stall go-live.

What we did

To meet that challenge, Advannor stepped in as an integrated engineering partner and took ownership of the full chain across every site. Rather than treating each discipline in isolation, the work was structured so that all the areas followed a single, consistent process. In practice, that meant:

Estimating: takeoff support and validation of quotes from equipment suppliers.
Procurement: design of sourcing processes, execution of global supply chain sourcing, and purchase of OCFI equipment worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Materials Management: oversight of deliveries and coordination of tracking with site teams.
Budget Control: a budget tracking system spanning the full cycle: estimate, order, execution, and validation.
On-site execution: site supervision, EHS oversight, and electrical/mechanical validation.
Commissioning: scalable procedures established across North America, and execution of equipment commissioning (MEP systems, TAB).

The outcome

By the end of the programme, every site was working from the same procurement and materials management processes, instead of each one running its own version. That consistency carried through the entire build: from pre-construction planning to go-live, budget, schedule and quality stayed under a single line of accountability, rather than being split across multiple parties on the ground.

How we worked

Delivery ran through a single team from the first estimate to the final validation, rather than a rotating set of specialists across phases. The people managing budget and schedule on day one were still on the programme when the last site reached go-live, so decisions made early on sourcing, on sequencing, on risk didn’t get lost or reinterpreted along the way.

That continuity, an Advannor hallmark, is what let cost, schedule and quality stay aligned across sites that were, in practice, running on different timelines.