Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

I am coming to the end of my Phase 2 attachment and I have been lucky to have witnessed the majority of a contract that I planned, tendered and wrote the contract for be completed on site.  However, things have not gone exactly gone to plan!

One issue with my package, which is a package to install all heavy plant in the Energy Centre and Tunnel, is that it was planned and tendered before most of the plant equipment had been procured and before the RIBA Stage 4 design had been completed.  This meant that under the subsequent stage 5 design, plant positions have changed and the plant itself has generally changed in size and weight.

These changes have pushed the some of the required works out of scope and so the sub-contractor has asked for an instruction to undertake the works and of course extra cash!  A saving grace is that I identified this as a risk back in May 16 and so entered it onto the package risk register with an allocated risk of £50,000.  On my project, all package risk is pre-allocated by the client with a risk pot allocated for each package.  Sadly, not all of the risk I identified was approved by the Client as the Client has decreed that no package risk allocation is to be greater than 5% of the package total which reduced the available risk available for scope changes due to stage 5 design changes from £50,000 to £11,000 – which is not a lot.  I do not agree with this approach as some packages will always be high risk and with no means of mitigating this risk to an acceptable level.  Therefore the Client is not suitably preparing for future increased costs.

One example of these changes moving a task out of scope and requiring a change request was the installation of the five Cooling Towers on the roof of the Energy Centre.  In this case both the position of the cooling towers changed just two weeks before the lift and the mass of the heaviest lift also increased from 5T to 10T as the selected supplier had a different method of installation to that used to estimate the cost of install.  The combination of these changes meant that the allocated 150T crane would not be sufficient to suspend the load at the required radius and so a 500T crane was required.  A 500-ton cranes requires two additional flatbeds to set and an additional set up fee of £25,000 plus an extra £3,00o for each additional day.

These additional costs were first highlighted to the Client using the Early Warning System and I submitted a change request for an additional £28,000.   I had to brief this to the Client and explain why this had not been identified during tendering and eventually the Client agreed to use £11,000 from the risk pot and to publish an instruction with a cost value of £17,000.  This meant that the works could go ahead but it has highlighted to me the importance of trying to confirm the scope early or at least over-estimating the scope (e.g oversize the plant) to reduce risk.  That said, over-estimating in a fixed price-contracting  will  inevitably result in larger contract sums and so it is a balancing act to ensure an overall saving for the Client.

It has also demonstrated to me the importance of investing time into the Risk Register since if used correctly, the allocated risk pot can help get you out of a sticky situation and can be a useful source of funds if your scope proves to be insufficient.  Ultimately all construction work will involve risk and it is important to both correctly and accurately identify this risk, mitigate it where possible and then allocate project funds to any residual risks.  I would recommend pre-allocating funds to all residual risks so the money can be spent as soon as the risk materialises as any delays securing funds through change control will likely take time (at least a week on my site) and this in turn will likely increase overall costs and impact the all-important programme.

Anyway the cooling towers were successfully installed with the 500-ton crane:

But unfortunately I was not happy with the install during the QA inspection due to the misalignment of the Anti-Vibration Mounts (AVMs) and so raised this an issue with the sub-contractor.

During the inspection I identified that the AVMs were incorrectly handed which was causing the AVMs to rotate.  I therefore got the supplier to visit site to inspect them and they have since admitted fault and will be replacing the AVMs in March/Apr – a task that will likely fall to Will Stott to lead on during his attachment – enjoy!