Archive
Getting started in Aberdeen
Despite the attachment to BP being on the fourth turn of the handle it feels like things have got off to a relatively pedestrian start. Perhaps this is because I’m used to military handovers where your predecessor can’t wait to get away fast enough, and they purportedly cover all you need to know in a one week HO/TO. It seems that BP are keen that I’m properly trained first before I’m given any real responsibility, which I suppose is a good way to do business. And so, I have spent most of my time conducting training to become a project engineer as well as attending as many meetings as possible to try and glean as much as I can from how others do their jobs.
I have been assigned to the Clair Installation team within Projects and Modifications, which is the same team as Imran. You can see a picture of it below, which so far is as much as I’ve really seen.
Team America!
Last week saw the ‘topping off” ceremony for the HQ project. ie the last piece of steel being lifted and fixed into place…this is a common-place all in team love session! Designers, struct engrs, clients etc travel from miles to come and put their autograph on the steel; work across site stops while all workers gather for a quick TY from the PM and Site Engr. With stars and stripes fluttering in the wind the graffitied I-beam is lifted and fixed into place – completed with a compulsory face stuffing session of sodas, subs and cookies! Good stuff for team bonding!
Now that temps are more like spring/summer (despite a one night sudden sub-zero drop and more snow!!!) work on site this week is going full steam, although I’m starting to believe more and more that there’s no way the contractors are going to meet the deadline of occupancy in 14 months – the pre-cast concrete curtains are still to be fitted; awaiting site clearance for space and lots more steel fabrication and welding. Though the contractors wont admit it to us, it is becoming evident they are under pressure particularly when today they started dropping rebar on the 3rd storey without finishing the steel connections on the ground floor! I look forward to the schedule conference in a couple of weeks. Concrete has been laid on ground areas A-D, while steel and formwork are being set-up for the foundations for the amphitheatre.
I am STILL awaiting approval for access to USACE computer systems and to have an email so I continue to be rather ‘impotent’…8 weeks after arrival in country…the top brass have now waded in and the bureaucratic system is slowly starting to move so I have been told it should be by the end of the week! In a contd quest to make the most of it I joined one of the PEs on a pre-bid meeting/visit to a levee repair on the northern Pennsylvania/New York border (a 9 hour round trip in a day!). Levees are big ticket items that regularly involve congressman wading in to deal with complaints raised by local residents. I have been absorbing issues of staged construction, repair, grading, erosion and sediment control (E&S) as well as nuances/issues of the ‘Public Law 84’. I was amazed at the accuracy of grading and levelling needed on the 14500 miles of national levees…one slight divot or undulation and a river can target it and rip it open when in flood. Below is a completed levee repair (protecting the town of Athens) that is awaiting spray-seeding; note the grading of 1:2, rock armour at the toe, grass matting above the toe to control erosion in the interim. The remaining matting has been blown off in recent storms.
QUT CIP 2 – Blog 1
Well despite only having been on site for a couple of weeks, I feel like i have enough to warrant my first blog.
Project. A $60m contract to build a creative industries precinct for the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). The project is to construct a multi-purpose education facility comprising of teaching spaces, office accommodation and specialist teaching studios for the creative arts faculty (music, dance, drama and visual arts).
How the finished building should look.
The project comprises 3 Lots; Lot 1 – an upgrade to the existing plant room in another QUT building, to provide sufficient additional output for the new buildings; Lot 2 – a new, high tech, six storey building containing dance studios, study areas, research and support facilities etc; Lot 3 – the restoration of three heritage listed single level timber buildings and the construction of a single level building, all to house a visual arts facility. Ultimately the building will act as a hub for the hundreds of lycra clad hotties you currently find around Brisbane.
Environmental Issues. As an added complication, the site needs to achieve 5 stars under the Green Building Council of Australia’s (GBCA) Greenstar initiative, which places restrictions on the build in 9 areas; management, indoor environment quality, energy, transport, water, materials, land use and ecology, emissions and innovation. One of my tasks to date has been to ensure that the electrical cable schedule for the build complies with the PVC best practice guidelines – fortunately I had a visit from KY last week so I could draw on his vast knowledge of all things PVC!
Contract. The contractual setup has John Holland Group as the principal contractor under a construct only contract. The work is all being done by sub-contractors so John Holland Groups role is essentially coordination. At the minute, as we are still building the structure and not yet installing services, it feels like John Holland Group is just passing messages between the sub-contractors and the design consultants (via the architect and the project superintendent). I’m sure we will start to add more value when we start installing the services in the next few weeks.
Team Composition & Structure. As we are co-ordinators on the project, the team is a small one with just 4 site engineers reporting to a senior engineer, 3 site foremen who report into a site manager and a 2 man commercial team reporting to the commercial officer. The dynamic can be challenging at times as the structure has the foremen and engineers in separate reporting chains. There are frequent communication frustrations between the foremen, who seem purely interested in pushing the programme and getting ahead of time, and the engineers, whose responsibility is it to ensure adequate checks are carried out before each concrete pour and to ensure arse covering the paperwork is in order. Neither the organisational structure, nor the site manager (an ex-foreman), force the foremen to keep the engineers updated on programme changes. As such there will be an almost daily unplanned scramble to get inspections done and paperwork signed. My attempts to get both parties to update progress/changes on a whiteboard on a daily basis have made some improvement to this, albeit reluctantly on most parts.
Subcontractors. I will wrap up this blog with a picture I took at an off-site inspection of some electrical kit I went to. I’m not sure what the orange box in the background is, but the young lass in the foreground is the electrical design consultant. Not bad!
Main Switch Board Inspection
Social. It’s pretty rubbish out here as you can imagine. I’ll just post a couple of pictures of the horrors I have had to endure.
Playing bowls with Pete at my local club. Cooking shrimps on the barbie with KY.
Driving my Ute on the beach. The missus making me touch the top of a mountain!
I’m on leave now for a week as the site is closed for the week between Easter and Anzac Day, so will blog after the CI’s visit.
Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog 