Archive
Picking up pace…
Things are really picking up pace now. This last week (and a bit) has focussed mainly on three projects, the EDC solarwall, Ashley reservist centre and C4 ISR request for equitable adjustment, with the other projects sitting on a back-burner for now.
EDC Solarwall
The thing that really got the workload increased was kind of self inflicted but very important. There is a quality assurance procedure within USACE that ensures that all projects are adhering to the practices as laid out in the Project Management Business Process and ordinarily folk find that things become routine. However, because this project has originated from another office and has become a joint effort, the boundaries appear to be a little blurred and there is plenty of scope for things to fall through the cracks as one office assumes the other is doing their job right. Things aren’t helped by the fact that the originating office is going digital while we are still big fans of huge filing cabinets full of rain-forrests. Whilst conducting a review of the file for my own education a ton of grey areas and missing items became apparent, such as;
- Letters of delegation – to prove what authority we actually have here at this office.
- Correct Org charts from Contractor (and associated qualifications) – Required before we can give notice to proceed.
- Wage rates to accompany the award letters – we will need to verify wages and conduct employee interviews
- Clarification of who is responsible for construction submittals – needs to be our office but is currently set to Alabama
- Some submittals on technical issues have been given to the Contractor but are not recorded in the computer system – this means we (in our office) can not see what decisions have been made in order to process subsequent submittals
- Accident reporting chain is not clear – could result in accidents being reported twice, making the project look bad.
- Not all info is in the system for payroll complience – It is held in Alabama but will need to be executed here.
- Property trtansfer and warranty letters – again, set to Alabama but we are the local office that will have to deliver.
- Accurate schedule info held and available by Contractor but not up to date in the shared computer system – is a poor use of the tools made available to us all. Contractor must update, thus affording visibility at all levels.
- Definable Features of Work incorrectly logged in the computer systems. – Not immediately presenting an issue but when trying to analyse the schedule in future we would not be able to make sense of it. This would be a problem if we run into arguments further down the line and need to prove complicity.
So I’m currently trying to iron out all of the above, which is great for my own understanding of the procedures and will help to avoid issues in the future. If this is one of those rare occasions where the project is executed with minimal disruption, accidents or problems, then none of the above would really matter so much, but without resolving these items we will be in a world of hurt if the project starts falling to pieces. A ot of these things would simply not be an issue if the project had originated here in our office, but as it is external a lot of what we would take for granted is just not there.
I also invited the contractor to come and visit the site to identify lay-down and storage areas and to discuss some initial safety issues etc. The walk around the facility brough up some good questions whicvh has given me more research to conduct. All in all though – we’re making really good progress. The 100% design submissions are in for review and it’s all systems go.
Ashley Reservist Centre
Another visit to Ashley (entailing 8 hours of driving for a 4 hour visit) has opened my eyes yet again. In the last episode of the Ashley Saga, the Contractor was threatened with an interim non-satisfactory review – which means they can forget any future Government work unless theyu buck up their ideas. As a result they have boosted their staff and now have a second superintendent, a second quality control rep and an independent roofing specialist to help them get through the current problems. This has also coincided with the (potentially) problematic ConRep from the Government side having to go for an operation, which means that we have transferred another ConRep in. So far all the additional horsepower and change in personalities has been billed as a positive thing….until you get there and see that it’s all just the same sh1t dressed up differently.
The contractor will now be having a modification for the roof, meaning more cash and possibly more time. Funny old thing – anything that could go wrong with the roof is actually going wrong and it’s all the Government’s fault (if you listen to the contactor). The minute you call their bluff they suddenly figure out that the design given by the Government is buildable and that materials specified actually do exist. They arebasically stalling in the hope that they can add extra dollars to the modification. At one point I had to interject in the meeting azs the contractor tried to get the project engineer to agree to a design change. And this is another thing that is wrong with this ptoject……
The designer of record has ultimate responsibility for hte design….but there was no money put aside for any design work after the original design was finished. Now when the contractor finds a better way of doing something or has a design related problem – nobody from the originating office wants to know. This means nobody is assuming reponsibility for changes. If the project engineer agrees to it – he becomes culpable if it’s wrong. The PE in question is young and relatively inexperienced. So now everyone is frustrated because we are now forced to build things that are less than optimal, that the contractor knows he coulds do better at no addiitonal cost, but we’re now stuck as the Contractor and the PE joust the residual risk between each other. I am speaking higher up the chain but everyone just seems to accept that it’s wrong and shouldn’t be the case.
We have also had core samples taken from the defective loading ramp for petrographic analysis as per my recommendations of old. I am now really glad we’re doing this as the independent company that does the quality control for the contractor has been called into question. There is an acusation from elsewhere within the Corps that they have been falsifying data to cover mistakes. The tests we are having done at independent labs will prove or disprove data that was taken when the ramps were placed. If the quality control data has been skewed throughout the project then the whole thing might as well be knocked down….though I doubt we’ll do that.
C4ISR Request for Equitable Adjustment
I’ve managed to sift through the tome of the adjustment and have formulated the response letter. Final comments were that I am still being too nice and need to learn to be more blunt with them. I again received positive feedback about my analysis tools that I developed and the District scheduling expert has said he will steal my format next time he has to do anything similar. My next step will be to formalise each item of negotiation and develop action flow charts and decision points for each. These should drive the negotiation limits when it finally gets to that point.
OK – now I’m sick of typing – so moving on…
And in other news:
Ulli has finally defeated the beast that is the Maryland Vehicle Administration! A cheer went up in the office when we got the news. A cheer went up in the appartment community when they found out and a facebook revolution almost happened as waves of support came in. Upon being told to ‘take a ticket and get in line’ for the 15th time she finally snapped and used logic instead. She looked for the biggest office with the nicest door and barged in and gave whoever was on the other side of the desk both barrels and told them the British Embassy was on their way. She threw in some tears for good measure and a lot of yelling later the poor manager fixed all her problems….I think she’ll miss queuing up there.
I make my first appearance at an open-mic night at a local winery – look out for a drop in sales and possibly police involvement.
Adrian is now scaring the bejeesus out of us all as he is now the ripe age of 16 and legal to drive in Murka. Ulli hides the real truth about how bad he is. We look forward to him sharing some of the driving when we take our family holiday to North Carolina in a couple of weeks time….if we make it there alive.
Finally – and you can thank Richard and Roy for this… the country and western song review is back. Here is a list of the top five songs from this week:
1 – Get Off the Table, Mabel (the $2 is for the Beer)
2- Love Me Like My Dog Does
3 – I Lost Freida on the Freeway
4 – I Bought the Shoes that Just Walked Out on Me
5 – How Can I Get Over You if You Won’t Get Out from Under Me?
If you made it this far – you probably skipped straight to the end! Take care y’all.
McFry
Blog 24 July
Blog 24 July
1. Intro
Apologies to all my avid fans for not blogging for a while, things have been getting pretty busy and thus interesting for me on site. I will try and keep this succinct, but also cover all the detail that will give you an idea of the site. I apologize for the length of this blog!
2. SSP Progress
The SSP is starting to move out of limbo, though we have yet to agree to the contractors proposal to the change order we sent (seeing as his quote was 4 times higher than our estimate). The commissioning agent has received their back-pay and so is now willing to come back to site, and continue the final stages.
2a. “Matched Flow” discussion.
I called a meeting to discuss the current issues with matching the 2 flows through the heat exchanger. This is heat exchanger is designed to transfer from one tank to another, whilst emptying and filling the tanks. As such having matched flow is essential to prevent either having to spend more time heating the filling tank or having to use copious fresh water to cool the discharge before it hits the sewer. This had been highlighted previously in the commissioning process and a change order agreed to correct it, however we have found that it is still not working as well as we would expect.
It is basically a controls problem, similar to the ones we discussed with Steve and the main problem is the speed with which it can reach its set point. This time was not originally specified, and so currently takes around 10 minutes to reach full flow. This is slowing the rest of the process to an unacceptable degree. It looks like we may have to issue an additional change order stating the time it should reach set-point in (ie full controlled flow)
The learning point: is that specification must truly reflect your expectations, especially on innovative plant equipment.
2b. Failed Cook test.
One of the cook tanks that is used to pressure cook the effluent appears to have failed its “Bio-Challenge” test. This is intended to simulate using the cooker to sterilize 8000 US Gal of effluent. It is conducted with temperature probes to monitor the temperature that the tank maintains, and also a set of small glass vials each of which has a biological sample which must be sterilized. The temperature did not stay above 250F for the full hour and the sample still had live spores. This is hopefully some form of failure in the testing rather than an equipment failure. More information will be coming soon which will allow me to analyze it properly.
Learning point: that commissioning and testing is best handled by a third party with no previous attachment to the contractor.
2c. Proposal from SSP
Having sent a Request for Proposal (RFP) from the contractor they have returned a quote 4 times higher than expected ($2M rather than $500K and 264 days rather than 60). I have been “getting into the weeds” of this proposal and found many laughable mistakes (or they may be attempted extension of reality, such as 25 hour working days). As I had stated in previous Blogs the contractor is way behind schedule and appears to be acting fairly irrationally, and trying to recoup some costs by blaming everything on the USACE as well as trying to charge huge fees for the slightest effort. They have also just replaced their onsite project manager, again a strange move when so close to completion, so we will have to educate the new project manager about the details of the project.
Learning point: that all submissions from a contractor must be fully scrutinized, as dependant on how honest they are they may try all manner of tricks.
2d. Schedule adjustments
We have also been looking into the schedule adjustments made to the SSP by the contractor. Again there are many errors which are either extreme lack of intelligence, or lack of honesty. An example would be that all work on site had to stop whilst they waited for a change order from USACE, and thus we have delayed them. Clearly in reality only certain elements (which in this instance are not on the critical path) had to be stopped. Scheduling tricks like this are littered all over, and so they have created a story which paints them as blame free.
Same learning point as above.
3. USAMRIID progress
3a. Temporary Cooling.
The application of the bio-containment coatings (paint) is on the critical path for construction. The paint has quite tight limits of temperature and humidity in which it can be applied. Currently the weather is hot and damp and so preventing the application of the paints in some areas. MTJV (lead contractor) has rights to use the permanent systems for temporary cooling. They are attempting to turn the system on before it is truly ready, and this is of concern as they are likely to do some damage. The insulation on the chilled water line is not yet vapor tight and so will condense water, remain damp then become mouldy. We have been directed not to tell them to stop, as they will then expect reimbursement for the delay, as it is difficult to prove their system is not ready, so instead I am closely monitoring to point out damage early and so prevent further damage.
Leaning point: easily measurable criteria are required at any decision point or control point (such as turning on the system or not). Contractors will negotiate and haggle over anything!
3b. Electrical Problem (tripping early)
The Central Utility Plant (CUP) provides all the electricity, steam and chilled water to all facilities on the camp. We recently had a problem with tripping the HV feeders. This resulted in a brief game of defensive finger pointing, with everyone checking their equipment and calculations whilst stating they were sure it was another person’s fault. It was eventually solved by the CUP raising their settings, though they were initially adamant that their settings were correct. I have been trying to get all the relevant data, for academic study, but each of the organizations are unwilling to share their data.
Learning point: Basic engineering is often clouded by politics, this slows progress.
3c. Commissioning Progress: Merrick Issue log
I have been leading the Corps management of the Merrick Issue log. Merrick is the commissioning agent for the construction and so they find many and varied problems. In order to generate the answers whilst keeping costs down, I am attempting to answer each question within our office before elevating it to the Architects and Engineers
3d. Differential Pressure sensor.
Due to the high containment nature of the building, each area has its air pressure controlled very accurately. I am solving some of the problems that have been found whilst installing this system, namely that the sensors may become “Pegged Out” during an equipment failure event, leading to a possible containment failure. Clearly this is unacceptable, it may require a $500K change order, I am investigating all methods to keep this cost down.
Learning point: All possible failure Conditions must be designed in, this will save money over the course of the project.
3e. Duct lining in 6th Floor.
In one of the mechanical areas there is insufficient space between the air handling unit and the duct directly above it to fit insulation. The insulation is required to prevent the duct condensing water during the hot moist weather that is common here. We are exploring solutions; the most likely appears to be adhesive duct liner that will insulate the inside of the duct. The customer and designer are reluctant due to the poor track record of duct liner for decaying and becoming flaky and brittle. We are having to explore all other methods, and also reassure the customer.
Learning point: information and expectation management is important to prevent the customer becoming concerned. Technology can move forwards but certain bad reputations will stay attached to the concept, in this case the new duct liner is proven to be adequate, but it is still a duct liner and thus considered a poor solution. This original problem could have been avoided by a 3D drawing and modeling package.
3f. Wall and Riser close ins
I have become the USACE plumbing lead for most of the ceiling and wall close ins.
3g. Plenum Walls inspection problems with QC
The air intake plenums for AHU’s have prefabricated sheet aluminum insulated walls. These have been allowed to corrode whilst in storage or transit, leaving a white substance on the surface. The quality control of the sub contractor and lead contractor both seem to have failed to stop this, so it has fallen on me and one of the other young engineers to perform some really low level QC.
3h. Pipe, pressure line and Duct tests
I continue to conduct pressure and flow tests on the various systems that are being installed, this includes Compressed air, Compressed Nitrogen, CO2, Water systems, Air ducts (both standard and bio-containment) and Air Handling Units
4. Other News
4a. Storms
We continue to have really good storms out here, almost tropical, with continuous lighting, we in fact got evacuated off site last Wednesday due to a storm warning, the office got hit by lightening, though no real damage done.
4b. Sarah’s Job
Sarah has managed to get a job lined up, so that’s a real relief for her as it has been a while. She is working for Randstad Recruitment, in an office that is ¼ mile from our house so very convenient. She is not that impressed with their working practices!
4c. Sarah’s playing in Carousel
Sarah has been involved in the local Frederick Towne Players, who are currently putting on a performance of Carousel. They are generally surprisingly good for a small town community theatre, but still have a few characters in the crew which make it funny!
4d. Bacon Sundae
As part of my cultural learning I am partaking in some of the local delicacies, most recently a Bacon Sundae. This is a Burger King Special, combining bacon and an ice cream sundae. It is as you would expect…
4e. July 4th Celebration
We had a great day off celebrating the American independence, being asked by Americans if it is a day of mourning back in the UK. They really go for it in a big way with the whole town in the Park for sunset fireworks.
Dewatering dramas
This will be short and sweet and is a bit of praise for John Moran.
Situation – JHG have created a cofferdam and have a dewatering plan
Issue – It isn’t working
Serevena becomes involved and asks 3 questions:
1. Where is the flow net? Do we know/understand the flow path?
2. What is the ground all about? Where are the bore hole logs? Do we know the permeability?
3. What is our pump capacity? What are the depth of our sumps?
Answers to the above:
1. Don’t have one and therefore no understanding.
2. It doesn’t matter as the water leaking through the pile clutches is the biggest factor.
3. Not sure, very deep.
So, Serevena has an epiphany and remembers all about flow nets and groundwater control. Ex Cofferdam was worthwhile!
So I ask the senior project engineer about this. He tells me to get back in my box and that all we need to do is lower the sumps. That was the last plan and it didn’t work. Until now we have been undertaking trial and improvement. This is going to change now, and I will make it happen!
John, do you fancy a bit of consulting work???
Weeks 18 & 19 – 8th to 22nd July – Holidays and H&S incidents!
Week 18 resulted in me spending most of my time as part of an investigation team looking into why one of the crew decided to climb inside a pile to sort out an issue with the reinforcement, noting that a pile is classed as a confined space! Happy joy joy feelings all round that saw me snowed under with the associated paperwork and having to re-write the activity method statement in quick time. Net result was that the individual concerned is no longer a JHG employee. The only other thing worth mentioning is the one “win” that the whole site had which was the pouring of a flood light foundation. On paper this is the most simple of tasks complicated by an overly interested client in what is just a bit of steel and some concrete. What made this pour even better was that it was in the pouring rain. Australian’s don’t normally work in the rain so when my supervisor said to me the boys aren’t keen I responded with ” I’ll do it with them!” And so I found myself fully embracing all of the leadership training bestowed upon me standing in the pouring rain helping out with the pour. I got a huge sense of satisfaction from this, gained further respect from the work force and also reasserted the position of the civils crew as the team to go to when something needs to get done! What was most satisfying though was watching all of the other crews leave the site by the ferry, watching on to see us at work; I hope they all felt guilty!
This saw me through until the start of the R&R period for which I was eternally grateful. Team Serevena went on a well deserved holiday to Heron Island using a special “locals” discounted rate. Apart from the rain everyday we had a good time, i got in a couple of dives and almost managed to swim with the humpback whales! i got to about 20-30m away from a pod of 4. It was great to spend some time with Lisa and the kids without any TV’s, phone os internet as distractions.
Week 19 was meant to start with a flurry of activity according to the works programme but sadly due to the aforementioned wet weather and a lack of proactivity on the site over the R&R period from the “covering” shift nothing was ready for when we returned. This has continued to be the case over the course of this week and I have ended up falling 5 days behind in the works programme and there’s nothing I can do about it. The reasoning is also attributed to a poor dewatering method (refer to previous blog about the old PM’s good ideas) and I foresee this as being an issue for the remainder of the project.
None of this really matters now though as yesterday (Saturday 21st July) all work was stopped on the site due to a major H&S incident. At 3am on Saturday the night shift were lifting a tubular pile off cut away from the King Pile wall with a segment of sheet pile attached. The tubular pile was rigged up but not the sheet. It was assumed that the clutch between the 2 was welded and as the crane slewed the sheet slipped its clutch and fell into an open excavation, approximately 600Kg of steel! No one was injured but the potential for severity has resulted in the JHG chief exec closing the site pending an investigation and full review of all method statements and risk assessments. The civils crew has a total of 47 live task risk assessments so this may take some time, coupled with the fact that the new PM and project director for the Gladstone area and the area manager for Northern Region wants to review a percentage of them all!
What does this mean?
I suspect that the next few days will be fun and games in the workplace as we become swamped with external investigatory teams and safety types analysing our every move. It is unlikely that any work will start again before Tuesday and even then every one will be on their tip toes not wanting to put a toe out-of-place. My house is in order as I have just reviewed the Activity Method Statements that I inherited but there may well still be room for improvement. Fortunately it is not one of mine that will be scrutinised alongside the aforementioned incident. Well off to bed now in preparation for what lies ahead tomorrow!!!
Pretty Steady: 16 June – 16 July
So it’s been a steady few weeks after all the excitement of the last month. Dewatering is working well and though I have picked up assisting in a few areas my work areas has been pretty consistent, in part as result of work on site slowing due to number of boundary/external issues with the client.
The good news is that work is starting to build up again. We have now completed the retention piling (less one small annex) so site is now boxed out. As a result our destiny is nearly in our hands rather than fighting against all the outside stakeholders!!
I say nearly as the problem of the moving chimney is back again…this led to a day when a 100 m exclusion zone was imposed by the client whilst mitigation strategies and emergency plans were revised.
This is a very interesting (if not worrying) part of the project. The chimney will be dismantled in October, when the new energy building is commissioned, but until then it is causing some concern.
A Plaxis (finite element) model predicted that the chimney would settle as the excavation was dug. However, the as built drawings of the chimney are not available and there is limited knowledge of the foundations.
All of this has made the model a little bit academic and as you would imagine finding an engineer that will categorically give a deflection limit has been impossible because of all the unknowns – the Australian code is not very helpful. As a result a 1/1000 rotation limit has been set which means a 68mm deflection of the top of the chimney is the acceptable limit. Deflection is currently 48mm but has slowed considerably since initial movement.
Currently the chimney is monitored twice a day by the site surveyors monitoring 3 points (bottom, middle, top) which tracks movement and they are responsible for raising the alarm. In addition to this the capping beam (at the top of the retention system) is monitored daily for any movement.
The project has a Chimney Emergency Response Team (CERT)…a naff name but the intent is correct. This is a group of nominated JHG personnel, consultants and contractors who are involved in the monitoring and corrective action if required. There are three levels of action:
- Below 62mm – continue to monitor twice a day
- 62mm < Deflection < 68mm – 24hr continual monitoring. CERT decides which mitigation method to use (Surcharge, ground anchors, jet grouting) Implement Mitigation Method.
- > 68mm 100m exclusion zone around the tower and consider dismantling chimney early.
As for the rest of the project the focus is now on firmly constructing the pile caps and cores, and I have picked up the responsibility for the deepest Core – Core A which will be dewatering nightmare!
This afternoon I briefed the team on the construction options for this, (un)fortunately the cofferdam option has been rejected and we are going to just dig a big hole (23 x 28 m, 4.5m deep). Though this has a number of advantages there is a very real possibility that the dewatering system will not cope and we will have one very large swimming pool!!
Also the 1 month tender freeze has been lifted by the client so my involvement in the Post Tensioning Tender will start to ramp up.
Finally, Fay and I popped across to Bali for a long weekend – a brilliant trip with plenty of activities, Bali is a fascinating country with amazing topology, I would recommend a visit if you ever get the opportunity!!
God Bless Murka!
I’m almost afraid to admit this on the blog…..but I had a pleasant week and a bit since the last post….I’m sorry.
I took a bit of leave to spend time with the family after 4th July and the subsequent week has been akin to the last week of school before summer holidays. We had ‘office call’ where all the outlaying office persoinnel were called in for a USACE update – which was a veiled attempt to make everyone feel safe and secure in their jobs. Reading between the lines, it seems that a lot of USACE offices hired extra staff during the Base Realignment and Closure (BRaC) project and now that it’s over there is a surplus of staff that need to be either re-assigned or laid off. The summer hires were told not to get their hopes up of getting a job here. A whole bunch of generic training was thrown in for good measure and the event was finished off with a quiz and a BBQ…..nice.
EDC SolarWall®
I’ve been chasing RFIs in relation to the 65% design solution that was submitted and we are now at a stage where the design is ready to be re-submitted with all 22 agenda items being addressed which should see a gear change in activity….provided the contractor has actually done something about the security clearances.
One thing that almost caused a delay was a poorly delivered comment from the Client that led the Contractor to beleive that the site conditions were different than expected. In the end it was just a query about available space for sealing the duct work work. This is frustrating as a hastily prepared conference was required to ascertain this before the sigh of releif came.
The recent modification to the design has resulted in over $14,500 being unallocated. This would ordinarily be great news for the Client, but as with all Government mechanisms….this means more admin. Ben has commented previously about the credits system which is aimed at minimising this. So we’ll sit on this until another hiccup shows and then there’s a pot of cash to deal with it. Then at the very end of the project we balence the books as per the final price….unless they go over budget ofcourse.
ECIP 732 / 760
My boss agreed with previous comments I made about the PMP that District produced and sent her own correspondence. This time they are taking relevant actions to ensure correct buy in and project risk management is covered. Perhaps I was too polite when I responded? Revised schedule completed.
C4ISR Tobyhanna
My CC1 of the matrix I sent out to District appears to have pissed off a few folk. There was a sudden rush of activity that was bypassing the guy who is ultimately responsible for producing the next set of work, so I sent a plain pictoral format flow chart showing what was expected of each stakeholder. Well it seems to have worked.
On a seperate issue – some representatives from District came to deliver some training, funnily enough, on contract adjustments and how they are administered and negotiated – so perfect timing. The odd thing about this was that they are trying to get us to adopt a certain way of working so that they can have more credence in changing policy. I always thought that you made policy then trained employees based on that policy, not the other way around. There is perhaps some politics at play here.
I have held the first coordination meeting to discuss findings so far and we have a coordinated approach to the initial response to the REA. The amount of documents that we now have to read through and analyse is huge and I understand why the contract admin guys always look like they want to hurt themselves. This is great experience – but by goodness I wouldn’t want to do it for a living!
I am now drafting statements to include in the response and ensuring that every stone is turned. I would like to plot a flow chart for each negotiable item to provide decision point for future use, but am not sure about the effort vs pay off curve at this point……I will try not to turn to self harm in the meantime.
Ashley Reservist Centre
This has finally come to a head. As a result of the last report I did on this project a ‘mystery snap inspection’ was conducted by District who concluded that the Quality Assurance and Quality Control is sub standard. This has resulted in an interim Non-Satisfactory performance rating. This means that unless the contractor sorts himself out, he is unlikely to ever be considered for Government work again. There is also an option to terminate the contract which will be another bag of fun learning for the Fryster. I just hope it doesn’t kick off until the C4ISR is put to bed or I might really hurt myself.
And in other news….
Lukas needed medical treatment for an ear infection but was point blank turned away from the local clinic when Ulli took him there. This is because we don’t have the correct medical insurance to cover this (No cash accepted). The advice from the embassy was to take him to the Emergency Room. ER for an earache? really? There’s a lot of talk on the news about Obama care and how terrible it would be to end up with a European style health care system. I know which I prefer.
We have started receiving weather updates on a regular basis now. We have severe weather warnigns much more frequently and they have proven valuable on more than one occasion for me, but just recently they have started to includse space weather reports as well…..I’ve never taken much notice of space weather before, but you’ll all be glad to know that the recent M-Class solar event will have no significant influence to us in our daily lives….but if you were planning on listening to the radio in the North pole then you’ve lucked out. You’ll also be glad to know that the magnetic field remains stable.
Birthday coming up in August….is it wrong that I am 34 years old and want a skateboard?
Don’t try doing your blog slow time online over the course of the day….it times out, you lose it and have to start again…..not cool. Really not cool.
God bless Murka.
More reinforcement..
Hi All,
Craziness this end once again – sounds like everyone is getting heaps of work. I must admit I think Roy beats me on the hours worked at the moment. My main issue is that my boss has gone underground to schedule an enormous amount of reinforcement – upper and lower piers, diaphragms and tie beams, all of which are different as there is no uniformity on this job. She has abandoned me for 4 weeks to sort out Thailand stuff on my own – very irritating and upsetting – also, no return date planned and v poor communication. As such, I’ve made a complaint/petition to the ops manager to see if I can move to a more on-site role….should be ok. Perhaps Steve would say she’s failed ‘communication 101’?
Anyhoo, I’m off to Darwin for a week as I started here 2 weeks early, I have some leave up my sleeve! I hope she will be back by the time I return.
Please see my blog at www.roselliott.wordpress.com for some reinforcement pictures….if you’re interested in reinforced concrete looking like a steel structure!
Weeks 14-15 (2nd to 15th July 2012)
Weeks 14 and 15. Shovel it my way please
The last fortnight has seen a good amount of progression on my existing jobs, a bunch more arrive on my desk, and a visit from the CI and SI.
New jobs
Mungo W160 Wellhead
This fortnight I’ve been getting to grips with the principals of getting oil out of the ground through a tube in a series of casings, sometimes within a caisson, and as with everything, everyone (Mon the project engineer, Abbas the petroleum engineer, and Gavin the drilling engineer) has a different idea of what we need to do. But I’ve got it sorted. The problem is that there’s a leak in the 10¾” casings around 2km below the sea bed, so a 75/8” casing is going inside the 10¾” casing and a new tube (4½” rather than 5½”) going inside that. This requires a new spool (designed by Cameron) which means pipework modifications to the gas inlet (we pump gas back in between the casing and the tube to lift the oil out).
So, after getting my head round the technical version of the above, I’m going to go out to Mungo (a Normally Unmanned Installation, or NUI) that ties back into ETAP, to do a cloud scan (think Batman’s phone) of the wellheads area so see exactly where everything is. I’m then going to get the drawings of the new spool (pipe) that goes onto the wellhead and work out how the new gas lift supply lifts, how the control mechanisms change, how this affects the stresses on the wellhead and how we go about the execution of the project.
And when I say “I” and “we”, I mean that I’ll lead a team from WG PSN to do all this.
Magnus Bunkering Lines
So, after next year’s TAR and my previously mentioned Magnus tasks, a flotel will pull up alongside with 100+ beds for drilling season. However, the place the flotel parks itself is slap-bang where the fuel oil and water resupply vessel would normally dock to. So, I need to ensure that there is a system in place to allow the resupply vessel to dock to the flotel, the fuel oil and water to transit through, and then onto Magnus.
Problems here will include the sizes of the attachments, lengths of hoses, quick-release mechanisms, flow rates, a variation in flotel docking and stability mechanisms and the fact that should we need to modify the flotels or hoses, we need to get hold of them! Drillfest starts in Sept 13. The flotel for the first 6-months will be Prosafe’s Safe Caledonie (Currently in Gdansk, and then onto the Andrew platform), after which we have COSL’s Rival, which is with Conoco Philips, undergoing marine assurance right now.
I’ve met with a Dutch engineer who’s on BP’s Renewals team (he’s new to the offshore industry) and a Northerner from England who’s BP’s flotel expert. I’m going to get some initial funding to have a kickoff meeting with WG PSN who will do the define and execute the modifications under my watchful hand.
What the hell happened with Andrew’s oil metering prover???
(Note, Andrew is a platform, not a person). For this project (yet to start) I’ll be working out why a £750k project of installing a metering prover ended up costing £3.3m, and looking like a dog’s dinner. Perfect for critical analysis, I think, and maybe even a good TMR…
In other news
Liz and I met a whole new part of society we never knew existed at T in the Park last weekend
Liz has completely taken over as Adjt 39 so we’ll be seeing even less of each other during the week
The period of blazing sunshine I reported about in April – that was the summer
Roadworks really are sh*t when you’re commuting by car – currently adding a third hour of driving to my day
And London to Brighton is my next challenge – no, not the cycle ride or the mini rally…
Weeks 15-17 – 16 June-7 July – Earning my spurs
So the honeymoon period is well and truly over on the MOF project. I’ve managed to pick up every bit of “unallocated” work going ranging from non conformance reports for link span pivots through to the co-ordination of electrical works. (note that the term “easy meat” can be applied to electrical works; this is simple primary school engineering unlike the technical challenges of hardcore civil works such as concreting!) Hours are longer (16 hour days, 6 days a week), breaks non-existent and the days/weeks fly by in what seems like no time at all! I am not complaining about this (although Lisa is) as it’s a good challenge, great for experience and a cracking eye opener.
The last 3 weeks have rolled into one solid mass of work from my perspective and it often feels like groundhog day to an extent, hence why this may not be as structured as normal and more of me downloading my thoughts in no particular order.
The first thing I must tell all about is welding. Now i didn’t know much about welding until approximately 3 weeks ago but i am now a ninja in comparison producing weld maps and traces in my sleep. Why the sudden knowledge gain, because all welding on-site was stopped by the client Bechtel when they realised that the site had been operating without a single weld procedure in place for 15 months! Ha ha you are chuckling to yourself, unlike the QA manager who has just received over 100 non conformance report for the weld splicing and other structural welds across the whole project. i feel some commercial bun-fights coming on…
What this actually shows us though is the poor state of affairs that the MOF project is in. The history (what i can gather from those there at the start) is that there were never design reviews, pre project procedures were never followed and that the vast majority of decisions were made in isolation by the PM at the time. This is no surprise as the PM has continued in the same vein throughout the project resulting in a 44 day delay to the project due to his whimsical decision to drop the designed dewatering plan and simply pump out to save time. Oops we all merrily chuckled to ourselves in a told you so kind of way only to realise that the heat is well and truly on us to make up some of that lost time over the next couple of months. Luckily for us the PM has now moved on to pastures new (not entirely his choice is the word on the street via jungle drums from the client) but he will not be overly missed; mainly because he never spoke (including morning pleasantries) to any one less important than the construction manager, made decisions that affected everyone without consideration for that effect and his good ideas were no more than that – ideas with no direction on how to implement or resources to deliver.
Enough about that – as Steve Dollimore might say “he clearly failed the Leadership 101 module in life”
Next on the agenda has to be the strained relationship between the principal contractor (Bechtel) and the sub-contractor (John Holland). Over the last 2 months it has deteriorated to the point where fisty-cuffs have almost appeared which is not good at all. Why this has come to this is simple; a lack of trust between the 2 parties combined with the fact that until now JHG have failed to deliver as per the ITP’s, often sub-standard as well as making last-minute design changes and failing to inform Bechtel until moments before ITP inspections. I have seen the effect that this has had on the morale of the workforce first hand and have taken a positive approach / stand against the Bechtel engineers in order to deliver something. The result is that instead of pouring 5-6 pile plugs at a time I set us up to pour 2 which is more achievable and manageable. This is giving a series of small “wins” across the project and keeping the workforce moving. It seems that little and often does really work!!!
Over the next few weeks I am going to endeavour to improve this working relationship by getting my head into some of the areas in which we are failing. A lot is to do with the passage of information and improving the timely communication of design changes/issue of revised design drawings. I plan to audit the endless list of approved RFI’s that the designers have sent back to us and forward the critical detail to Bechtel including getting the design drawings amended.
The final thing that is really causing friction is working in isolation and proactivity. Each of the crews seem to have little to no concept of the works programme and even less of an idea of their part within it. The programme has changed so much recently that almost all work fronts have lost their float and are on the critical path. This has happened to most of my areas of responsibility and the pressure is mounting. Fortuitously I have broad shoulders and can manage the added heat but others are cracking. this means that they are becoming solely focussed on their responsibility and failing to think of the areas that they impact in undertaking their works. It is an issue and needs resolving. So much so that the construction manager has moved his office to the coal face in order to sort out the issues and get the project moving once again as a cohesive organisation instead of the disjointed until it has become.
Whilst the above may sound largely negative I have actually got very little to complain about as I am taking the opportunities available to deliver effect and add value to the project. I have managed to gain the trust of the work force, my supervisor and the construction manager and just by sending out a weekly forecast of works I have manages to change people’s thought processes. Where the JHG employees lack training is in project management at the lowest level and using what I have learnt from both RD and the APMP/management training I am able to show the team the benefits of breaking tasks down into the constituent parts, identifying risk(s) and planning accordingly. My eyes have also been fully opened to the wonderful world of procurement and resources, something I have previously left for a QM to sort out. Whilst not as simple as ordering by NSN it holds many of the same principles and an engineer is judged here by his planning skills. Plan well and all is good, fail to plan and the whole project stops whilst awaiting for the delivery of a critical nut, washer or other constituent component!
Overall, life remains good for Team Serevena. Austyn has been on school holidays driving Lisa insane but starts back this Monday. Elliot is improving in his speech and is obsessed by dinosaurs. Harrison is doing well at 10 weeks, feeding well and getting big so fast! Lisa is keeping herslf busy with friends and arts & crafts as well as keeping the house together in my extended absences of ridiculously unsociably long shifts. We are off on our holidays again next week (Heron Island at a special “locals” rate)as the project goes onto a close-down from Thursday-Monday although the pressure is on for people to work through it to gain some momentum on the programme. As for me, nothing new to report, looking forward to the break and a bit of diving!
Stay safe,
Roy
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