Programme Management
Flexibility and well-defined processes were key to the management of the SCIRT programme. The initially unknown scale of damage and funding uncertainties contributed to an ever-evolving scope. The impact of such a large programme of work on the recovering Christchurch community had to be carefully and strategically managed.
Last updated
12:46pm 21st November 2017
Type
Collection
Identifier
qsr-collection:746
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- Academic Studies: Driving Innovation in the Construction Industry
- Academic studies detailing how SCIRT used KPIs to drive innovation. Traditionally, the construction sector has not encouraged innovation as enthusiastically as some other sectors. Recognising the unique nature of the Christchurch rebuild, and the critical importance of innovation to improving productivity, SCIRT used its performance management system to drive innovation at all levels of the SCIRT programme. SCIRT used a sophisticated Innovation Key Performance Indicator (KPI) that fed directly into the delivery teams' work allocation and ultimately their financial rewards, to incentivise innovation and improve performance. More than 600 innovations were implemented as a result of this strategy. Here we look at three academic studies, an associated presentation and one article on the innovations developed by SCIRT. The first study, conducted by BRANZ, the University of Auckland and Constructing Excellence New Zealand, looked at the use of KPIs by a number of organisations, including SCIRT. It attempted to create a baseline to understand challenges or success factors that could impact on performance in the medium to long-term. The second examines the relationship between innovation and productivity improvement in the construction industry. This study applied a classification system to the database that recorded the innovations with the aim of assisting future alliances to maximise their productivity. This paper and the associated presentation were delivered at the Building a Better New Zealand (BBNZ 2014) Conference. The third report was created by the University of Canterbury Quake Centre and the University of Auckland, funded by the Building Research Levy. It shows how SCIRT initiated and managed an innovation process throughout its programme of works following the Canterbury earthquakes.
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- Archaeology
- From "glow in the dark" glass to a moa toe bone, the rebuild of Christchurch's horizontal infrastructure uncovered a remarkable array of artefacts. Referring to the "uranium glass" discovery in suburban Richmond in late 2016 in its online blog, Christchurch-based Underground Overground Archaeology said there was "nothing like a little radioactive material to brighten up the day". Underground Overground Archaeology worked with SCIRT throughout the horizontal infrastructure rebuild, identifying items and structures found during worksite excavation. Director Katharine Watson said uranium was used as a "colouring agent" in uranium glass to "create a distinctive yellow or yellow-green colour". The discovery of the glass illustrated the importance of robust archaeological protocols within the rebuild environment.
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- Asset Assessment
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The asset assessment team faced a daunting - and often confronting - task to uncover the hidden depths and coarse layers of damage caused by multiple quakes rolling across Christchurch, leaving behind the shattered horizontal infrastructure.
Tools of the trade were redesigned and redefined as SCIRT grappled with the massive task of post-earthquake asset assessment.
Broken pipes, slumps in the street, jagged edges and battered bridges were among the hazards splayed across the damaged landscape of the former "garden city".
In all, $140 million would be spent on assessing the damage.
Differential settlement and lateral spreading created a new cityscape, smothering drains and waterways. Repair and replacement work on wastewater and storm water pipes would take up much of the overall rebuild cost. Horizontal work would have to be completed before vertical projects could get under way. About 1600 kilometres of council-owned gravity pipelines made up the Christchurch wastewater network - with sections dating back to the 1880s - while about 900km of gravity pipelines united the storm water network.
For additional detail, please also see https://scirtlearninglegacy.org.nz/story/pipe-damage-assessment-tool-pdat and https://scirtlearninglegacy.org.nz/story/pipe-profilometer-and-design-guideline.
Glossary terms:
- Infrastructure Recovery Technical Standards and Guidelines (IRTSG)
- Geographic Information System (GIS) Viewer
- Pipe Damage Assessment Tool (PDAT)
- pole camera (polecam)
- closed-circuit television (CCTV)
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- Bill Perry Safety Awards
- Awards presented to contractors during the five-year SCIRT programme recognised outstanding safety performance - many of which are being adopted to improve safety in the wider construction industry. The Bill Perry Safety Awards were named after the late Bill Perry, a former CEO of Fulton Hogan and one of the founders of SCIRT, who died suddenly in 2011. Perry was strongly committed to workplace safety in construction, and helped establish a "zero harm" culture at SCIRT. The awards were based on safety indicators that Perry originally helped to set up. They recognised teams for outstanding safety initiatives that had the potential to impact across SCIRT or the wider industry. Award-winning innovations included better traffic management; tools that removed the need for people to go into confined spaces and sewers; a trailer on rails for carrying pipe monitoring equipment; a modified snowboard for transporting equipment over silty ground; a safety video and guide; an industry-leading obstacle course; a telescopic leg edge protection device; the use of 3D imaging; a hydro demolition robot called "Geo"; and mobile platforms for working on and underneath a bridge. Each initiative is explained in further detail in the documents below, along with some examples of award submissions.
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- Central City Infrastructure Rebuild Plans
- This suite of documents provided a comprehensive programme management tool for the definition, prioritisation, design and construction of interdependent projects within a central city environment. The documents were developed and used for an intensive post-disaster rebuild but had other applications with similar operating parameters. At the outset of the rebuild programme in 2011, SCIRT identified nearly $140 million of infrastructure work to be completed in central Christchurch. While accounting for less than 10 per cent of total SCIRT work, the central city presented significant challenges. SCIRT worked closely with other organisations, including CCDU (the Central City Development Unit, part of CERA, the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority), and the Christchurch City Council to develop a series of plans to anticipate and manage specific issues. Plans included delivery management (coordination of work), design parameters, engagement, communications, transport, and utilities coordination. More than 70 per cent of central city buildings were to be demolished and there was extensive damage to pipes (particularly earthenware) and bridges. There was an opportunity to largely complete the horizontal rebuild (infrastructure) before the vertical rebuild (buildings) gathered momentum. Wastewater and stormwater pipes, water supply, utilities, roads, and bridges all had to be repaired or rebuilt. However, not all of the infrastructure design could be completed until the Central City Recovery Plan and blueprints were developed, in 2012. The blueprint also included a number of "anchor projects", such as a convention centre and a sports stadium. Although some of the anchor projects were delayed or revised in scale, SCIRT had to plan its work to accommodate them. Army cordons controlled access to the central city from February 22, 2011 to June 30, 2013, which limited SCIRT's access to this area. After that date, SCIRT continued repair work in a much busier environment as people, cars, and buses returned to the city centre. Maintaining the transport network was vital to support the city's economy; therefore the pace of reconstruction had to be matched to the capacity of the city to cope with the volume of work. Communicating with remaining businesses in the central city while intense activity went on around them was essential for their livelihoods. Other issues were traffic disruption, parking, and site access. The number of crews rebuilding a variety of services in a relatively small space presented a logistical challenge. The following material and reports provide an overview of the structure which enabled comprehensive programme management of the central city rebuild.
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- Civil Contractors' Environmental Guide
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Initiated by the SCIRT environmental leadership group as a breakthrough challenge, the Civil Contractors' Environmental Guide (CCEG) was created to provide contractors with environmental guidance across all project stages.
The initial content was compiled by SCIRT's team of environmental advisers. This team interacted with site crews and regulatory authorities during the SCIRT programme. Over the life of SCIRT, simple and effective methods of control were adopted or developed that both helped in environmental management and met the expectations of regulators.
As SCIRT ramped down, the Canterbury branch of Civil Contractors NZ took ownership of the guide. It will continue to update the information. Environment Canterbury (ECan) will make the guide available to the industry via its website.
The objective of the guide is to provide guidance on how to prevent environmental harm when undertaking civil construction work. It provides helpful information on:
- Industry best practices for an infrastructure construction site.
- How to manage, control and minimise environmental impacts in line with the Resource Management Act, the Wildlife Act, the Fisheries Act and the New Zealand Heritage Act.
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- Early Contractor Involvement (ECI)
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ECI centred on early engagement between multiple parties - asset owners, designers and constructors - covering scope, cost-effective outcomes and best practice and maximum value processes.
By improving transparency, reducing risk and sharing responsibility, ECI powered productivity gains and cut costs. It helped ensure efficient design and planning via a more effectual approach, resulting in a streamlined work process.
Providing "constructability" advice to designers; being involved in project risk assessment and management; and evaluating the project methodology and schedule to inform the project design, target out-turn cost (TOC) development and planning were all part of the ECI collaborative delivery process.
At every stage, ECI highlighted a "best for project" approach, including the contractor at the point where the most value could be extracted.
ECI measured risk mitigation while securing value for money. It provided constructor input during the design phase, ensuring issues and potential risks were identified and rectified.
Glossary terms
- target out-turn cost (TOC)
- Integrated Services Team (IST)
- bill of quantities (BoQ)
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- Evaluation of Alternative Rebuild Options
- When weighing up wastewater asset rebuild options, SCIRT designers made decisions on a "whole of life" basis. To help decision-making, a Net Present Value (NPV) analysis was used. NPV is a fundamental calculation required to assess project options by providing whole of life costing analysis that enables SCIRT to make reliable decisions about which options provide the best value. The methodology was originally designed to evaluate wastewater network options but was subsequently applied to other asset rebuild option evaluations, including structures and roading options. The NPV calculation valued the relative resilience offered by different asset rebuild options by including earthquake risk (as measured by GNS Science earthquake expectation data) and earthquake-related repair and service restoration costs. Other capital renewal and operating and maintenance costs also formed part of the analysis. The evaluation was a key input into papers presented to the Scope and Standards Committee. SCIRT designers presented papers to the Scope and Standards Committee when proposed designs deviated from approved scope or design standards. Design Guideline 27 was created to provide guidance to designers using the methodology, along with a uniform approach tool (see calculating spreadsheet below).
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- Forward Works Viewer
- An interactive web-based platform for stakeholders to observe active and planned works to aid coordination and planning and to enable the mitigation of spatial and traffic conflicts. At the height of the rebuild, SCIRT had 150 works crews active across Christchurch, including about 40 working at any one time within the central city. Some work was on major arterial routes, including the city's one-way system and the four avenues ringing the central business district (CBD). The accessibility needs of crews, together with the disruption caused by other roading and vertical construction work, and the need to provide consistent journey times with minimal delays for normal road traffic within the CBD, created the need for a tool to map and display current and planned rebuild work. The tool needed to show work at street level, be freely available, online, to all stakeholders. The Forward Works Viewer was created to meet this need. Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) led the development work for the project in partnership with SCIRT, the Christchurch City Council (CCC), the Christchurch Transport Operations Centre (CTOC), the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) and the Christchurch Central Development Unit (CCDU) - a part of CERA. All parties working within the central four avenues were asked to load their projects into the Viewer. They recorded the location, duration, contact information and expected traffic impacts, such as the removal of parking, lane closures, directional restrictions and full closures. The interactive use of the tool became critical to understanding the impact of a programme on the transport network, and its value was immediately apparent when considering which works could be progressed without the adverse effects becoming too great. It also enabled a reliable source of information to provide forewarning of the impacts on community and business interests in the CBD. This information was then considered by representatives of the aforementioned stakeholder group, and projects approved or declined depending on predicted disruptions. The maximum benefit from the Viewer was achieved by its early development in SCIRT's CBD programme of work. The tool was used by roading, utility and rebuild agencies across Christchurch. It helped stakeholders to mitigate network impacts, and identify clashes, and opportunities for coordination. It is being further developed on a platform that allows it to be used nationally. Access to the Forward Works Viewer can be requested here: www.forwardworks.co.nz A demonstration video about the Viewer was developed by LINZ and is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0c7Cvge7HE
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- Health and Safety
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Innovative intervention and aspirational steps propelled the pursuit of higher safety standards. Policy and best practice were redefined as SCIRT helped power the shift, driving the construction industry to reset the health and safety benchmark.
Fears of fatalities and life-changing injuries powered the urgent need for a workplace safety overhaul as the Christchurch rebuild gathered momentum.
Business as usual (BAU) incident rates for New Zealand indicated several people could die each year during the post-earthquake programme of works.
In unison, government, business and unions sought speedy solutions to defy the BAU odds. SCIRT management joined a meeting of construction industry minds that resulted in the formation of the Canterbury Rebuild Safety Charter.
To learn more about SCIRT's approach to keeping its people and the community safe, see the attachments below.
Glossary terms:
- key performance indicators (KPIs)
- personal protective equipment (PPE)
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- Looking after the Environment: SCIRT Global Resource Consents
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The use of global resource consents provided a consistent consenting framework across the SCIRT rebuild programme.
SCIRT's rebuild and repair works had to be carried out urgently and in an environmentally responsible manner.
In an effort to carry out the SCIRT programme in a coordinated and cost effective manner and in accordance with relevant legislation, SCIRT, CCC and Environment Canterbury (ECan) staff worked collaboratively to develop a suite of global resource consents and planning approvals. Some of these consents are attached below.
The massive scale of the work across an entire city, with the additional complexity of extensive on-going investigations to assess asset damage and ground conditions throughout the programme, provided a unique opportunity. Developing Global Consents meant time saving authorisation of activities to reconstruct or repair earthquake damaged infrastructure across the city.
The activities consented included:
- Drilling of geotechnical investigation bores
- Works around protected trees
- Wastewater overflows during wastewater network repairs
- Dewatering abstraction and discharge
- Construction and operation of pump station structures
- Excavation / deposition of material over aquifers
- Disturbance of soil in HAIL sites
- Works in and around archaeological sites
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- Master of Engineering Thesis: Evaluating Alliance Non-cost Performance Measurement
- An abstract of a Master of Engineering thesis for the University of Canterbury. The research focuses on non-cost performance measurement and management of the Christchurch rebuild programme. Master of Engineering with Distinction, Trent Beckman-Cross, used a case study methodology to examine the effectiveness of the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team's (SCIRT) approach to non-cost performance management. The abstract of his final PhD thesis is attached. The full version of Trentâs thesis is available in the University of Canterbury Research Repository: https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/handle/10092/13174 Trent initially studied and pursued a career in forest management before being inspired to change to the civil construction industry following the Christchurch earthquakes and the rebuild efforts going on around him. He is currently working in the construction industry in Canada. For further information about Trent's thesis, please email trentbeckmancross@gmail.com
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