Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

A few weeks ago we had two notifiable incidents occur within 24 hours.  Fortunately, there were no injuries but both were classed as the most severe category (1P) under the John Holland reporting system as they had the potential for workers or the public to be killed.  Details about the two incidents are included at the bottom of the blog but for the timebeing, I want to focus on the procedure to restart works.

What interested me most about the incidents was the Project Director’s response.  After conducting John Holland’s reporting procedure and informing the Client of the incidents he closed the site.  The next working day all directly employed staff attended a meeting where the incidents were discussed in detail.  The bottom line was that safety is always the priority and that these incidents were a ‘free pass’ as no-one was injured but we needed to to do better going forward.  He identified 5 key areas of concern:

1. Services
2. People and Plant Interaction
3. Lifting operations
4. Temporary Works
5. Pubic Interaction and Traffic

Following the meeting all construction managers, engineers and supervisors were tasked with reviewing their procedures, Safe Working Method Statements, Task Risk Assessments and work permits for their respective areas.  The workers arrived mid-morning and were involved in the process.  The afternoon consisted of site health and safety inspections to identify areas for improvement.  This allowed improvements to be made to the existing procedures, method statements and constructions site set-up.  A feedback session was conducted late afternoon for the directly employed staff.   No project productive works were completed that day.

The next working day a ‘soft-start’ was conducted which was a gradual return to works with the identified changes implemented under closer supervision from the supervisors and engineers.  For areas requiring additional time to review their procedures and documentation, the Project Director supported the delaying of the ‘soft-start’ in their area for as long as was required.

What impressed me about the way this was handled?

1. The Project Director was clear where his priorities lay and drove the process.
2. It generated increased involvement and attention from the construction managers and senior engineers that I hadn’t experienced previously on site.
3. The time to pause and review was critical.
4. Input and empowerment of the workers was essential.
5. The Project Director was willing to bear the cost of a non-productive day and liaise with fixed price contractors as required to ensure their buy-in.
6. A re-focus on the basics.  John Holland has a set of Global Mandatory Requirements (GMRs) that are used to manage key construction risks which are used when planning activities.  These headings formed the basis of the review.  On site we have a handy booklet but the GMR sub-headings can be viewed here.

I’m interested to hear if anyone else has experienced anything similar on site.  If so how was it handled and what did you learn from it?

Incident #1:

The first incident was a dropped load from a gantry crane at the pre-cast yard.  A worker was using a gantry crane to turn over a pre-cast mould bulkhead to weld plates on both sides.  There were a number of factors that caused the incident in a ‘swiss cheese’ scenario:

1. The worker operating the gantry crane is a dogman (rigger or slinger in UK/military terminology) but had not been used much in this role previously on site.
2. The worker had not operated the gantry crane before but the supervisor thought he had.  (Following the incident it has not been possible to determine if the individual completed the on-site training from the gantry crane supplier as no record of the training was maintained).
3. The worker was not aware of the designed lifting points on the bulkhead.
4. An engineer was asked about the weight of the lift.  The engineer remembered lifting a bulkhead previously so stated the weight he remembered.  No plans were checked and he estimated the weight incorrectly.
5. The worker decided to use soft-slings to lift the load.  He was aware of the potential for the metal edges to cut into the slings so used rubber to pack the metal edges against the slings.
6. As the load was picked up the rubber packing moved.
7. The soft-slings were cut/snapped on one side of the load resulting in a dropped load onto the foundation slab.

Following the incident works were halted, the load was made safe and the incident scene preserved.  Senior management were informed and external bodies notified.  The senior management team used a technique called 5 Whys? (similar to the combat estimate and asking ‘so what’) to get to the root causes of the incident.  A number of areas were identified that could have prevented the incident from occurring.  Examples include:

• A bespoke and accredited gantry crane operators course.
• Identifying designated gantry crane operators and alternative operators.
• All precast lifts are identified at the morning pre-start and discussed with the team.
• Two engineers are required to check the drawings and calculate the weight of each lift independently.  Their assessments are compared prior to conducting the lift.
• The use of soft slings is now restricted at the precast yard with a permit system adopted.
• More emphasis has been placed on ensuring the correct mix of qualifications and site experience (SQEP) across the work crews.
• Giving nominated personnel responsibility for tasks such as maintaining designated work zone signage.

These have now been incorporated as new processes or procedures at the precast yard with the Safe Work Method Statements and Task Risk Assessments updated accordingly.

Incident #2:

The second incident related to an excavator which hit an elevated LV cable when tracking from one working area to another and pulled it down to ground level.  This was classified as a 1P event as the pylon also had a HV cable which was not disturbed.  Again there were a number of factors that contributed to the incident:

1. In preparation for the weekend site closedown, the excavator operator was instructed to conduct environmental controls in a different area of the site.
2. The excavator driver was guided by a pedestrian spotter under the power cable to access the other area of the site and completed the environmental controls.
3. The excavator operator returned to their original working area but was not guided under the power cables.
4. The operator was aware of the power cables but lost sight of them as he was passing under the cables resulting in contact with the LV cable.

A similar incident review process was carried out and the following root causes identified:

• A change in planned activities (over here they call it Change Management*).  This is considered to be a contributing factor in most site incidents.
• No ‘goal-posts’ or overhead power lines signs were displayed.  The signs would have had little effect as the operator knew about the power lines but the ‘goal-posts’ might have given warning that the excavator’s arm was too high.
• There was no requirement to track the excavator across the top of the embankment.  Traffic barriers have now been installed to prevent access.
• The operator failed to adhere to the project spotter procedures when operating near power lines.

*This is different from the use of the term on Project ANEMOI where it refers to                    the deliberate/planned change of the design following a formal process.

A relatively quick update from Gatwick: The new Pier being built for the large A380 aircraft is approaching the end of the primary steelwork installation. Prefab passenger bridges connecting the building to the rest of the terminal have also craned into place. It is during this installation a fairly serious H&S incident was observed (see pic below). This shows a worker underneath a suspended passenger bridge frame. Under LOLER regs states there should be ‘a secondary means to support the load’ which clearly isn’t really fulfilled by the forklift. If the frame had been rested on trestles or props the risk could have been minimised. In short if one of the slings fail then there is nothing to stop the load injuring the worker. Clearly the worker was immediately informed of this and a near miss raised.

I have also been the client lead for some GI works at other site at the airport in preparation for ground works (aircraft pavement replacement and pile foundations) for the Pier 6 extension main build. These small packages of works have been separately contracted out to framework contractors who are well established at Gatwick. At one site, an aircraft stand, the GI involved concrete core sampling and in-situ testing of the subbase layer with a DCP. The GI works are now complete but the principal contractor seems to think that a H&S file is required. Firstly I’m not sure why they are raising this as it is prepared by the principal designer. Under CDM a H&S file is required where there is more than one contractor involved. There were two contractors involved on the works: the principal contractor (who also cored the PQ concrete to reach the subbase) and a subcontractor who completed the sampling and testing. However, I’m still not clear if a H&S file is needed in this instance. The coreholes were reinstated with a bentonite solution and I can’t see how there would be residual risks, as-builts (maybe corehole locations?) or maintenance requirements to document?

Clearly a H&S file will be delivered as part of the overall Pier 6 project by the principal designer, so this package of works would form part of that. The GI report would be delivered as part of the Pre-Construction Information for the groundworks contractor.

Looking forward I will be getting involved with the ground works contract for the main Pier 6 extension.

I just thought I’d share a quick blog on some interesting settlement issues I noticed walking through the ground level storey of a multistorey carpark last week. Whilst passing through, I noticed some serious concaving of the pavement between column rows, creating a wave like effect across the whole car park. On closer inspection of the columns, I noticed that the top of concrete foundations were protruding out of the asphalt surface. The reason for these ‘dips’ in the carpark are due to some very noticeable settlement of the underlying ground.

Across the wider area is a varying depth of Coode Island Silt (aptly named after the area known as Coode Island in Melbourne where I am working). Having done some research into the geology for TMR 1, the existence of this silt layer is not surprising, considering Melbourne was found on a huge swamp along a large river basin.

The Coode Island Silt is a large alluvial deposit along what is known as the Yarra River (main waterway passing through Melbourne) Delta. It is a highly compressible soil which is only lightly consolidated and has a high voids ratio, making it very prone to settlement and creep when stressed – think back to the graph plotting voids ratio against effective stress; no stress history on a soil with a high voids ratio will lead to high strain. This limits the use of shallow foundations across Melbourne, making piled foundations a favoured solution.

The inherent risk of both primary and secondary settlement is high for foundations formed in this soil and downward drag (i.e. negative skin friction) presents significant risk for deep foundations. From researching the GDRs produced for my project, downward drag from the Coode Island Silt consolidating is expected in less than 3 years. The forces induced will be a function of the rate and size of settlement at each pile location, the skin friction induced along the pile shaft (depth of the silt varies significantly across my site) and vertical movements under live loading; Negative skin friction is not considered for ULS design due to piles settling relative to the surrounding soil – as previously taught in Phase 1. This means it must be considered in SLS design to ensure long term settlement does not have negative affect – or cause issues like those seen in the carpark!

I hope this is of some interest to those who might not be working ‘in the ground’ and highlights the importance of the estimating stress history of soils.

Having got to grips with the EDF Hinkley Point C (HPC) Nuclear New Build (NNB) programme now I can tell you that every day it blows my mind as to the scale of what is taking place. Everything is in excess. For example, it was decided that if the reactor dome could be constructed away from the reactor common raft, before being lifted into place when on completion, it would allow multiple works packages to run in parallel, saving time and therefore cost. But how do you lift something like that into place when it’s ready? Easy… you use the Sarens Super Crane!

The Sarens SGC 250

The crane has a maximum load moment of 250,000 tonnes, allowing it to lift 5,000 tonnes at a radius of 50 metres. Even at a larger radius of 100 meters, it can lift 2,000 tonnes. Although at 100 metres, it wouldn’t stretch far across our site – so its going in on rails to transit between 3 separate 360° slew points.

Its difficult to find a photo perspective that does it justice but the Sarens link here does a pretty good job; https://youtu.be/BHwbu8iWrBo

Update in response to comment: Power is supplied ‘on-board’ using gen-sets…

This weekend saw the first of 15 consecutive weekend works, caused by a single decision early on in the project.

Early on in the project when the design for the precast elements was not complete, a decision was made to start piling. This was due to high standing costs for the piling barges and instructions from the client to start work. This meant that the first row of pre-cast was not able to be placed.

An aerial view of the deck showing the missing precast between the dock wall and the new deck

The solution was bringing in a 450t crane to lift everything into place. This is achieved during the weekly 24hr airport closure between 1200 on Saturday to 1200 on Sunday. 

This 24hr possession enabled the installation of 8 beams…. I question whether the management are ruing their decision many months ago.

It will be interesting to see whether BAM can claim the full costs of this back from the client, stating that this is due to a PMI telling them to do so!

Over the last 2 weeks we have started installing precast concrete piles on my site using, from what I can tell from research and talking with previous PET(C) students working in Melbourne, a very experienced piling contractor (Keller). The first 7 days of piling have seen several pile caps complete, with over 50 piles installed; a total of 548 are being installed over the next 12 months, excluding CFA and Steel Driven piles.

Those who read my last blog will have seen the QA and testing process implemented on site to ensure compliance of piles against the design specification. As the Project Engineer tasked with overseeing these works, I have been involved daily with inspections of precast concrete pile deliveries and PDA testing, whilst managing the site engineers.

Since my last blog, a concrete patch repair procedure has been accepted by the IREA (third party auditor) and the Nominated Authority (in house auditor), meaning blow holes can now be repaired on site. It should be noted, however, that cracks cannot be repaired using this at this stage.

As part of the Inspection Testing Plan, the Nominated Authority own the Hold Point of testing of the piles to ensure geotechnical design capacity is reached. This week, we have had a few issues arise. One is that some piles tested are not achieving pile capacity on either end of drive or on restrike (see my previous post for more info). This issue is being resolved with the subcontractor and the designers to see how this can be dealt with. My SPE seems to think that we can still get away with the results we have by proving the end bearing resistance with quick calcs … I’m not so sure how this proves geotechnical design capacity? To me, the summation of shaft and end bearing resistance has failed to mobilise enough capacity, even after 3 days of ‘setting up’ prior to restriking. I would assume additional piles will be required, unless there was enough design contingency planned?

It appears that no piles are reaching geotechnical design capacity at end of drive. As per my previous post, the first pile in a group is driven under PDA monitoring to monitor driving stresses and set the driving criteria for the remainder of the group. I spoke with the testing engineer about this, who has over 20 years’ experience of PDA testing and just so happened to work for PDA in America previously (so I’m taking his advice as rather expert). He does not expect any pile to achieve end of drive resistance due to the high design capacity required (2900kN is the ultimate design load for most piles. This is given a reduction factor of 0.75, meaning 3867kN is required) given the short 12m/14m length of piles but is confident that, where a set of 35mm (average movement of the pile per 10 blows) is achieved, the capacity will be achieved given time to set up; i.e. capacity will be achieved on restrike (clearly not the case for some piles above).

What has surprised me is the huge variability in the basalt rock layer the piles are being driven to. It would appear that all our lessons on ground being a risk couldn’t be truer. The rock levels from the ground model (created from interpolation of boreholes) shows a nice straight line to design the pile toes to. As can be seen from the photo below, this is not the case. In some pile caps, variability increases by over 4m and more. This creates a cost issue, as, under VicRoads Specification 605, restrike tests are required to be carried out where toe levels of piles in a group vary more the + or – 2m. Each restrike test is a cost to us.

Front two piles can be seen to refuse much deeper than remaining piles due to variability in the basalt rock layer

The main issue we’ve had has been the releasing of a Hold Point under the Nominated Authority. If we are to go by the letter of the law, the VicRoads 605 specification and pile installation ITP (which takes the hold point straight from the spec) state that the first pile driven, which is under PDA monitoring, must have a restrike test if geotechnical design capacity is not reached on end of drive. For the pile and pile group in question, the first pile did not achieve the capacity at end of drive and is one of 10 piles in the group. It just so happened that this pile achieved the lowest set (21mm) of the group, with the highest set being 32mm. Under the VicRoads spec, only 10% of piles require a restrike, meaning only one pile required testing. Keller’s testing engineer, rightly in my mind, chose to test the pile with the 32mm set. For those unaware, the pile with the highest set is theoretically the pile in the group with the lowest geotechnical capacity. This is simply because the pile has moved more than any other pile under the same hammer weight and energy, therefore experiencing less resistance from the soils.

However, although ultimate geotechnical capacity was achieved on the restrike of this pile, the Nominated Authority refused to release the hold point because the pile test was not the first pile driven and monitored in the group. This seems silly to me. I would have thought that by proving the pile with highest set in the group, pile capacity of all piles has been proved? The logic of the testing engineer seems sound to me and I would argue that the intent of the spec is to prove capacity of the group, which I believe has been done?

The Nominated Authority, as has been the case with other issues, seem to blindly follow what is written in the spec and not apply any engineering judgement or consider the intent. In which case, what would be the requirement for engineers on site?

Either way, I have now had to raise a NCR to the Client to argue the case that capacity has been proven and that this method should be adopted moving forward.

Having spent over 3 months watching 5no 13tonne excavators peck and break at my structure level by level (my first blog) a change in tactic has excited me enough to share.

Effectively due to the phone masts fixed to the central core not being decommissioned in time the central core remained upright while the rest of the building was demolished down to ground floor. This left the quandary of how to demolish the remaining core after the masts were finally decommissioned 3 months late.

The same tactic could not be employed as there was no ramp in the core which the plant could drive down so a crane would need to have lifted them from floor to floor. Also an entire scaffold wrap would have needed to be constructed around the core to offer edge protection, dust suppression and access to the workers. All of this was not impossible but potentially long winded.

Instead the decision was made to pay for a 110tonne monster to come to site with an “extra long reach excavation arm” and demolish everything from the ground. This raised issues such as trying to suppress dust from the ground would have been impossible and flying debris at 40m flying around site. The solution- the long reach arm has a host attachment that sprays water from the breaker onto the slab as it goes. A large crane will hold up a rubber Matt to prevent debris hitting adjacent construction with an exclusion zone at ground level.

The site of this bad boy on site has produced a bit of a viewing gallery and some buzz on site so I thought I would post pictures. Any questions on the decision making or added risks feel free to ask.

2 concrete sacks preventing the rubber matting twisting or glittering into adjacent construction

Whilst doing a bit of additional research for my CI paper presentation I came across a recent interesting news article. It seems that you can actually construct buildings out of giant plastic lego blocks! The pictures below show an urban training area being constructed at Camp Taji, Iraq by an Australian and New Zealand task group (news article here – 13 June 2019). The buildings were made using a system devised by a company called Everblock (official site here). The blocks claim to be durable and reusable which makes them potentially of interest to military construction. The blocks are also lightweight meaning faster construction, less operator fatigue and potentially less risk of lifting injuries.

Having looked at the specifications it would seem that there are some fairly obvious limitations. These include poor thermal resistance and a limited resistance to fire (including toxic chemicals that may be released in the event of a fire). Whilst the system includes a dowel option to improve the building strength, I would be a little hesitant about building greater than one storey without more information. For these reasons I can see why they have only chosen to use this system for urban training at Taji, rather than as habitable structures. If anyone knows anyone working at Taji I would be very interested to get in touch to get further information on this project.

Limitations also mean that a roof structure would need a separate design. I’ve seen examples using timber or steel stringers with corrugated sheet roof cladding. Everblock also produce modular flooring though I would think that foundations might provide a challenge due to the minimal tolerances of building this way.

One option that might be interesting to explore is using recycled materials to make in-situ blocks similar to the Everblock system. Cement could be mixed with recycled plastic to potentially produce concrete blocks similar to this with improved thermal and fire resistance characteristics.

Finally Everblock have an online block builder here where you can relive part of your childhood and design your very own giant lego construction!

Introduction

Gareth – it sounds like we could have done with the approach you describe in your blog post about 4 weeks ago… A little more attention to detail and closer supervision might have been of benefit!

The past few days have seen unsettled weather across eastern Australia.  There has been snow in the mountains and even in the sunshine state (Queensland) to the north.  The area I am in has survived largely unscathed however we have had high winds (gusting up to 130 kph stopping crane operations) and over 70mm of rainfall in one night (for perspective, site drainage is sized against a 37mm event).

Today was due to be the completion and opening of a new public temporary boat ramp which would allow us to close the existing boat ramp and start piling works on the temporary jetty.  The jetty is required to transfer precast bridge elements from the shore onto barges in the river.  At least that was the plan until 0705 this morning…

Background

Due to a number of delays, the senior site management has decided to conduct concurrent works to save costs and recover the programme.  This has required a number of activities to be brought forward onto the critical path.  To gain momentum on these activities some engineering ‘best guess’ has been applied in order to complete designs and gain environmental approvals.  The temporary boat ramp is one example of this and there has been a big push to construct the temporary boat ramp as quickly as possible.

John Holland initially struggled to attract enough experienced site and project engineers so have backfilled with a number of engineers from their graduate programme.  Sadly due to the lack of experienced engineers in the office and concurrent works, a lot is being asked of the junior engineers who are getting limited supervision from the experienced engineers.

To meet the required boat ramp construction timeline the decision was made to use the concreting contractor working at the precast yard.  For two months they have been producing pre-cast boat ramp planks alongside the in-situ concrete foundation at the precast yard.  The past two weeks have seen the workers move across to the boat ramp site to complete the in-situ concrete pours and install the pre-cast planks.  The construction of the boat ramp has been nothing but challenging and from the sidelines, it has seemed like everything was ‘going off half-cocked’ resulting in poor quality finishes produced by the subcontractor (but that’s another issue).  All the time this has rested on the shoulders of one of the graduate engineers.

Temp Boat Ramp Drawing.  Red boxes highlight the expansion joint detail and subgrade and rock armor notes.  Blue boxes highlight the expansion joint. 

So what happened?

This morning at the pre-start meeting (workers-management meeting) everyone was asked to check their areas for any issues.  Shortly after the workers set off for the boat ramp the telephone calls started…

What follows are a series of photographs I took this afternoon at low-tide:

View from the existing bridge. The yellow and white floating items are silt and hydrocarbon booms which are part of the site environmental controls.

Side view from the bridge side. Note the rock armour on the left of the picture.

View standing on the ramp.  Note the raised slab and seaweed position.

View back towards the bridge along the expansion joint.  Note the curved dowels.

View along the expansion joint facing away from the bridge.  Note the tilt and shift in the slab on the right of the picture.

Close up of lifted slab showing dowel sleeves and bent dowels.  You can also see elements of subgrade stuck to the bottom concrete layer.

View between the slabs at the expansion joint. No subgrade is visible.

Side view facing back towards the bridge.  The edge of the slab is 650mm thick so the slab has dropped at least 650mm at this side.

Focusing on the surrounding material. Note the geofabric, washed out material and missing rock armour.  Apparently the workers tested the depth here with a 6′ scaffold pole which disappeared below the water surface at high-tide. 

Analysis

It seems a number of errors and unfortunate circumstances have combined (swiss-cheese effect) causing a GEO failure.  This resulted in structural failure of the expansion joint and serviceability requirements.

Today I was told the project looked at a number of locations to build the temporary boat ramp.  The site near the bridge was chosen for speed and convenience despite recommendations not to build there.  The sandbanks there are described as ‘highly-mobile sands’ and locals have known them to move frequently move position 10 – 15m.  The site is also close to the existing bridge piers as you can see from the photographs.  The combination of the piers in the river channel and construction of the boat ramp out into the river will have changed the river flow and velocity at the boat ramp location.  This is likely to have increased the localised scour effects.

Typically the mean high tide level is 1.4m above the Australian Height Datum (AHD).  Last night there was a high tide surge to 1.9m AHD (remember the seaweed in the photograph above) with water above the expansion joint.  The effect of the surge (linked to the recent bad weather) was to undermine the boat ramp slab and scour away the foundations.  Greater scour was experienced on one side of the ramp (seaward side) resulting in the slab tilt and shifting.  The damage to the expansion joint was caused by the self-weight of the slab.

The drawings show a minimum 200mm subgrade of 50 – 150mm gravel or crushed rock.  They also show the scour rock armour was to be 500mm deep and extend 1000mm from the ramp up to the end of the in situ concrete works.  The rock armour was to continue around the precast planks in a larger size rock, 1000mm deep and 2000mm out from the precast planks.  The rock armour was incomplete (due to be finished this morning) but already questions are being asked about the design and if it had been constructed correctly.

The bad news (from John Holland’s perspective) is that damage to works from tidal events are not insured (are John Holland’s risk) and the site is in the center of town so is bad PR.  The good news is that no-one was hurt and the ramp had not been opened for public use.

Conclusion

It is still too early to determine exactly where the fault lies and if closer supervision of the junior engineers would have given a different result.  The question is now is what’s ‘Plan G’?  Was it an out-of-design event?  Should we reinstate or rebuild elsewhere?  DO we need to change the design to include sheet pile scour protection?  I’m sure it will all come out in the wash (pun intended).

The impact will be significant reworks to remove and reinstate/construct (additional cost).  There will also be delays to other project work packages as the existing public boat ramp cannot be closed.  This will cause delay and disruption to the piling sub-contractor who will soon start to accrue daily standby charges.  The figures make the eyes water!  So a quick resolution is in everyone’s interest.

We are always taught to KISS in the Army but rarely do we stick to this mantra. Too often it is seen as ‘lacking effort’ to follow what has been done previously and reinventing the wheel becomes a must to be innovative and demonstrate leadership above your peers! The result is mostly a troop of confused chimps trying to understand the intent of the task never mind how to execute it.

As part of the Construction Quality Management (CQM) that USACE use to ensure quality assurance (QA) they employ the Three Phases of Control; preparatory phase, initial phase and the follow-up. The initial phase occurs at the beginning of the task on site and continues each time new work crews are assigned. The follow-up is performed daily to ensure that control established continues. However, the purpose of this blog is my experience with the preparatory phase.

The preparatory phase is performed prior to beginning any work and will review the plans and specification, co-ordinate prelim works, safety and when quality checks take place. How to meet these standards is in the specification and hence my assumption was that this would be a quick final check of a few important details before work was allowed to proceed.

In a pre-construction meeting attended by several experienced project engineers, the client and contractors I was initially concerned that I may be out of my depth having not been a part of the planning cycle. Chaired by the principal contractor (PC), after a few minutes I wondered if I was in the right meetings. I had suddenly either become extremely competent or Americans were a little stupid; given my record I initially went for the latter.

The meeting was about security fencing and the sub-contract (SC) had been awarded to a company who had already been employed on previous National Security Agency work performing well, on time and safely. There were the obvious discussions that I expected about de-confliction with other contractors and site access but then the meeting got ‘simple’.

The PC began interrogating the SC about the fencing and how the corners would be placed, how the connectors would be attached, the testing process and ensuing material was tidy on site. These question would all have been confirmed via the submittals process which itself is monitored by a robust if not longwinded system and therefore already been approved by all parties. Why was the PC questioning such an expert who had already proved themselves previously? At times I thought I could have replaced the SC with Churchill the nodding dog to answer “oh yes” to all the questions. The PC wasn’t asking bigger picture questions; they were questioning the very basic operations of the SC. At what point would the workers put their safety glasses on? Will they use two people when unrolling the fencing to make sure it does not spring back into a roll? The contractor was having to explain a verbal method statement of parts of the work the PC should never need to know. It was akin to a CO confirming where the section commander was going to keep his G1098 tools when on task and if everyone had put 30 rounds in each magazine. I was almost uncomfortable; here was a contractor who has erected fencing at one of Americas highest security bases and the PC was confirming if they were going to wear the correct gloves to handle the razor wire!

How many man-hours was this meeting taking? Are we honestly confirming that the contractor will store the material more than 4 inches off the ground overnight and keep the site tidy! At each stage, stakeholders were jumping in with the simplest of questions to ensure they too got an “oh yes” from contractor Churchill.

But this is the process. USACE insist on it as part of accepting a tender and are rigid with QA business. They have little sympathy for work that is not to the correct specification; it is simply ripped out. Hence the importance for the PC and contractor to get it right the first time: any re-show is at the expense of the PC.

By keeping it simple so that everyone understands and taking the time to “measure twice, cut once” can save days of rework later. The system works if those involved embrace it. The saying “if it’s not efficient, change it” does not exist; there are no promotions for shortening the meeting or changing the process so why reinvent the wheel. Yes, the meeting takes time and is potentially inefficient but the time cost to the PC and USACE is far greater if the sub-contractor delivers a product below quality or compromises safety.

If I had chaired this meeting I would have felt that I was insulting the contractor or at best wasting their time and have felt it necessary to add another dynamic to the meeting to make it worthy of everyone’s time. This would result in ignoring the simple basics and adding confusion to a process they know and find simple, potentially setting the task up for failure. They would then rightly tell me to KISS.