Week 4: Edges and Arguements
Period Covered 10 – 12 April 12
Summary: Edges and Arguments
At last I have been on site for a continuous period of time and as a result feel like I am now bedding in and understanding the daily rhythm on site and getting to grips with the detail. Though my role has not altered, my responsibilities have grown – as a result of knowing a little bit more but mainly covering people who are away on Easter Leave.
During this period I have completed the following:
- Supervision of GMF ground work contractors – bulk & detailed excavation and pile cropping
- Application of SQE RM Course – Completed Task Risk Assessments for elevated work
- Review of drawings – answering Sub Contractor queries
- Concrete Pour Quantities and ordering deliveries for site
- Safety Supervision
- Programme co-ordination meetings
Work on site. Work is frantic at the moment with a big push to complete the service tunnel which as I mentioned before is the first milestone for the project and will be how the State judges John Holland. The good news is that there seems to be a real sense from the sub contractors that they will do what it takes to get it done for the handover (first section of tunnel to be handed on 28 Apr) however I have a feeling real life (Murphy’s Law) and a fundamental procurement problem with the waterproofing solution (more to follow) will mean we may miss the deadline.
Issues/observations. I have picked out three things that have interested me in the last couple of days:
a. When is a fall from height a fall from height. The rules at working at height have recently change in WA and from an arbitrary 2m, the rule now states that it is when the risk is felt to be too great. I have been giving this some thought and it is a very subjective view on what constitutes working at height and more pertinent to the groundworks when is an edge an edge and require a barricade: And then when a barricade is required is it a soft barricade (bunting/Mesh) or a hard barricade (Water barrier, Earth Bund). The photos below hopefully illustrate this a bit better…but all of this means on site plenty of discussion from subcontracors before they do what we tell them.
b. Safety v Relations with Subcontractors. Having just come out of a safety meeting which had specifically directed that steel fixers walking on 1.2m high reinforcement cages was not to be tolerated, I felt on pretty safe ground when on my safety walk around I saw two fixers doing exactly this. What I was not prepared for when I told the supervisor this was not to happen was a heat exchange about what did I Fxxxking know and to shut the f**k up. Moral courage tested but not broken I stood my ground and expected him to see the error of his ways, what really happened was that he collected his team and tools and walked off site!!! This left me thinking momentarily if I really had done the right thing.
Thankfully a radio call to the site manager headed them off and after another heated debate a safe solution was found – so though the end result ended in the work being done safely. I have reflected that I still need to work on how I talk to Sub Contractors.
As an after thought a lesson for when I design – it was obvious whoever had designed these capping beams had not considered a safe method of work for the steel fixers to construct the reinforcement cage.
c Programme Changes. A weekly team and subcontractor programme meeting occurs, however the programme changes on an hourly basis. This is being mainly driven by the site manager who is keen to capitalise on any opportunity to “speed” up the programme. In some cases the benefits are massive but I am concerned that by constant, spur of the moment programmes changes this unsettles the sub contractors and at worse is not communicated to all on site, leading to an eventual delay!
My Experience. It is been a busy few days since Easter but it’s been great to get some consecutive days on site. Responsibilities and experience are growing steadily but I still have loads to learn to ensure this progress.
The site has recently been delivered site radios so I having been teaching everyone voice procedure… we’re not quite up to SOC 4, obstacle crossing yet but we’ll get there….so now even my armoured engineering experience has been useful!!
Further Work
- BIM Meeting tomorrow with AEC systems as part of TMR research
- Thesis Topic – I am starting to research into a pile thesis, I have discovered that the service tunnel and the hospital have been designed as separate structures and have different load profiles, as they will be connected I have been informed that the piles have been designed separately to ensure settlement occurs equally and differential settlement is avoided. The settlements will be monitored so this can be compared to the design values (A phone call to JM to follow very soon)
- Consolidate work on site
Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog 
Stephen
HAS vs the practicalities of getting the job done is an ongoing area of dispute subject to, I suspect, the law of diminishing returns i.e. some HAS is undoubtedly benficial but too much counter productive. The steelfixer was well out of order and probably under other pressures which led to his extreme and uncalled for reaction. Colourful language I’m afraid is very much a part of the building site culture – enjoy it while you can!
Is there anything like a health and safety file on site containing a method statement and risk assessment for the activity? In the UK this would be required under the CDM regulations. The practical benefit is that the construction process is thought about prior to starting and risk areas identified and managed before injury can occur.
Jealous of the nice weather in your photos – we have a real pea souper in Chatham today 😦
Roy
Steve
Good to hear that you have found something to act as a starting point in your hunt for a thesis subject. When you investigate this piling with an eye to writing a thesis, remember you are looking for a question to answer through the prism of this technique. Don’t allow yourself to be drawn into just describing something that is new to you. The ultimate bjective will be to identify and evaluate possible alternative uses for which this technique could be used, or to identify some means of improving upon the currently used methodology.
Jim
Hi Steve,
I note and agree with Roy Hills comment. a tack I usually take is to point outto a supervisor what I have seen, explain the difficult position this potentially places me in as a professional and ask how they think we can best resolve my proble,m without comromising my integrity i.e. we can’t simply pretend I didn’t see it but I will accept a good reason why it is OK espescially if can agree that this might be clarrified by a method statement which they will produce…
Programme change is much the same as shifting missions and the military adage ‘order and counter order lead to disorder’. Flexibility and mission change is only good if the pain of change is outweighed by the gain… Good luck with the introduction of SOCs – let me know if you need Batco….
Steve
Good to see that you are getting stuck in on site. As far as H&S is concerned you need to ask yourself how you would have felt if one of the workers had fallen off and injured himself, or even died, as a result of you doing nothing.
As far as a thesis is concerned you need to look around and come up with 3 alternatives and produce outline abstracts, indicating which one you would most like to do. As Jim said the aim is for deep critical analysis and not just a description.
Regards to all
Neil