Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

By the end of the week I finally felt like I was adding value to what I was doing and not just being a newbie asking lots of questions. I am still asking lots of questions which I can only see increasing in the next few weeks as things get a little more complicated but after 3 weeks I am now producing product that contributes to delivery! With a large amount of handrailing from previous AMS’s I have now completed the AMS for the Dickson Road piling which starts on tue morning. It has taken a full week to get everyone to sign off the method statement and there has been a lot of red pen learning throughout the week. The biggest hurdle was of course health and safety and to understand the various management plans and JH procedures that I need to understand and quote. It has turned out to be a 39 page document for 3 days work! Luckily Australia have recently updated their H&S act from the Occupational Health & Safety Act to the Work Health & Safety Act from Jan 2012, which my ‘white card’ instructor told me was practiaclly copied from the UK so it is fairly familiar. Environmental issues are also a large consideration with the main issue seeming to be ‘dirty water’ run off into the various creeks that the alignment passes through. Any water that leaves the site must be treated before being discharged into a natural water course by digging a holding pond and adding floculant. It has been very dry here and recent excavtions down to 10m did not encounter any water nor did the boreholes which were done 3 years ago so we are not expecting a wet bore. However, we are planning for the worse as you do so we are using a tremie and as the hopper will be at ground level we will pour directly from the agitator truck. We will also excavate a trench to channel any water to a sump or pond but as long as it doesn’t leave the site we will leave it aone or use it as dust suppression. The top of pile will be about 3m below the current ground level so we will be drilling about 9m deep. As there is a 1m projection and due to RTA (Road Traffic Authority) spec we have to overpour by 400mm (dirty/unpure concrete top to be trimmed) so we ended up ordering 8m cages incase we have to drill further to achieve the required 5m socket depth within the rock. We also ordered additional L bars which we will weld onto the top of the cages at the required length so that they will sit flush with ground level to making unhooking the load easier for the rigger.

I have started to spend JHG’s money this week ordering 44m3 of concrete with a message (I hadn’t got a clue what he was on about initially but a message just seems to mean ‘there abouts’ so that you can tailor your last truck to the exactish quantity you require + or – your original order). I have planned for 3 days to complete all 10 piles (5 for each abutment) which would have meant we could have wrapped it up by easter but apparently thu is a RDO (Rostered Day Off) for all in the construction industry – apart from those on a salary – so we will have a 5 day break before competing the last 3-4 piles.

Having generated worklots for the two abutment pile groups and having produced a concrete pour plan you are also required to send out notifications based on the relevent HOLD and WITNESS points prescribed by the spec. Quality control on this project requires that both the client (Transport for NSW) and the RTA/RMS (Road Transport Authority – recently rebranded to the Road and Marine Service). The client has its own ‘surveillance officers’ that work along the alignment that need to be informed about what you are doing so that they can view the work with some points being HOLD points in which we can not proceed until they are happy. As we are working on the roads and rail we effectively have two sets of parents and the RMS have employed Halcrow to carry out Project Verification on their behalf so they also need to be notified about what and when we carry out specific work and it is these characters who take a keener engineering interest to make sure the RMS spec is being adhered to.

Overall this week has been a little too desk bound for my liking but unfortunately neccessary and I feel like I am now contributing and getting to grips with the project/company specific procedures. Having the power to spend alot of money and being aware/conscious of what you are spending is an experience I have rarely worried about in the army but here it is at the forefront of my mind. This mornning I spent $7000 on stainless steel dowels!

Next/this week as I am writing this on a mon, I will be mainly site bound as we install the piles and I also intend to focus on understanding the contract a little more. It is a Design & Construct contract and I have managed to grab a copy of it for some evening reading tonight before meeting up with Terry Stroud the commercial manger by the end of the week.

The weather remains rediculously hot – I hear there is a little snow in the UK – but I’m glad the Ute has aircon. Although the fact that everyone has a white Toyota Hilux with a flashing amber light has meant it takes me a lot longer than it really should for an educated man to try to remember where I parked!