Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

A temporary blip on the blogging last week where I just plain forgot, so apologies all round to anyone that reads them!

A few issues have cropped up over the last 2 weeks in and amongst the frantic push to meet a $20m milestone payment by the end of June. I think my last post eluded to the colossal amount of work that was required to meet the deadline and the equally large chance of a storm pushing through to make meeting it that little bit harder. The long and the short of it is that it was an uber busy week but we eventually poured the 4^th slab in 7 days – for those of you who are interested, that’s approximately 100m³ of concrete. Good efforts all round.

The fallout from the epic push is that whilst all attention was focussed on reaching the milestone, very little was actually done to plan for future tasks. The following issues have arisen as a direct result of simply not have enough time/manpower to keep up with construction.

• Stair 9 Internal wall. The initial pours of Stairs 8 and 9 had many errors and were quite out of plumb in places due to an initial rush in the early phases of the project to get them poured. We have reaped the rewards of this by slowly closing out NCR’s with structural engineer input to bring them back into tolerance over the next few levels with no significant effects. The particular issue that could easily have been avoid was a lack of starter bars immediately next to the door (see image). I had a look at the initial setup of the formwork and discussed the missing starters with the steel fixers. I left it that if required, the error was theirs and they would have to drill and epoxy new bars in. As it turns out, they were not missing, the internal door had been set out wrong by the formworkers. By the time I had investigated this the steel fixers, pressured by site managers, drilled and epoxied and fixed the steel in the form. I had to order them to rip it out and cut the bars off when I found out. Sad faces all around. The issue now is who pays for the work conducted by the steel fixers. JHG won’t stump up because the work was conducted without JHG approval, so it looks like the formworkers will pick up the tab. I am speaking with commercial this week to discuss.

‘Missing’ starter bars at the edge of the wrong door set out

• Stair 10 Landing. When stair 10 was poured the couplers/starters were not installed as they were not delivered in time. The decision was to drill and epoxy new starters around the perimeter. A site instruction was written to the steelfixers to conduct the workswhich were detailed as N16 bars to be drilled 225mm into the wall (to internal edge of external steel) at 200 centres top and bottom of the landing. This work was completed and JHG informed that all work was in line with design and standards. On inspection it was noted that the bars were not at the correct spacing (but that could be put down to drilling around wall reinforcement) and also the ends were not aligned. ON closer inspection and a slight tug, a couple of bars came off in hand! To put this in context, the building is designed as a post disaster structure that feasibly could have a large imposed loading if people are rushing to evacuate the building. The landing is solely held up by the drilled and epoxied bars. This negligent work could have potentially caused additional collapse of the building. We are currently awaiting the outcome of a further investigation to ensure the work is completed adequately. To me this highlights the lack of personal pride in ones job and a complete lack of understanding of why they are doing something. It further highlights the problems with hiring 3^rd tier contractors and the lack of any checks to ensure competence when hiring.

The hand removed N16 starter. Now I’m no good at estimating length (Nicky tells me) but that ain’t 225mm!

• West Block column.  After the long drawn out negotiations with the client to decide the method an of pouring and finishing columns the following occurred 1 week afterwards. To top it off the Clients representative was at the stripping of the formwork with his Ipad looking for the density of blowholes in the surface finish – he got a bit of a surprise! It is assessed that the concrete was not vibrated adequately and the consistence was not sufficient. Therefore both JHG’s quality assurance and the concrete contractor for not carrying out the task correctly. The issue was escalated by the state to the WA Ops Manager who personally emailed the site engineer to express his dissatisfaction – not I would argue good management.  A suggestion that it would be a good feature column in the X-Ray department was not taken well.

The X-Ray Column

What this highlights to me is that a project must be adequately resourced to match the construction programme in both management and workforce. To not resource a project effectively is to delay the decision making process which will have a detrimental effect on progress.

The Construction Director who was pushing the programme (I think his job may have been on the line) has finally accepted that 2 engineers for the whole of the South block is simply not enough. A new engineer started who will be solely responsible for the Core C riser and jump form, and the rumour on the jungle drums is that a further engineer who was destined for the basement may be poached temporarily to reinforce the South team until the basement kicks off. Time will tell.

In other news, we had the Dollimore’s over for their last night in Australia this weekend. We had a fun night out with a few guys from the NCH to say goodbye, and a final breakfast at the beach in Cottesloe. Then it was time to head back to AER for me so I had time to finish in time for the Lions game. We set up the projector in the house and had a few mates over for a BBQ – Great game! Actually looking forward to work tomorrow now after the abuse I got last weekend!

Home Cinema – al the better result when surrounded by Aussies!