Challenge, Optioneering and Buildability

Approach

Challenge – John has led a number of challenge workshops on both major trunk road and local authority highway schemes. The composition of these varies depending upon the size and complexity of the scheme but can include the client organisation and their stakeholders, safety and maintenance advisors and the delivery contractor and design team. John is able to plan and facilitate these workshops and report on the outcome.

The aim of the challenge is to assess the developing scheme against the objectives and offer support and guidance as to how the design should be progressed for example highlighting any areas that should be considered further. The challenge will where appropriate challenge the scheme objectives to remove waste that adds little value and offer alternatives that are lower carbon, lower cost and more stainable.

‘Challenging the Norm’ is a philosophy John adopts in all his work rather than accepting how things have been done in the past with the two key focusses being innovation and asking ‘why’. Innovative solutions lead to more sustainable and lower carbon products that are often more cost effective to install or maintain. Asking ‘why’ may seem a simple approach, however, understanding why something has been done or is a requirement allows John to offer alternative ideas or suggest that elements are not required as they add little value.

Optioneering – John has a strong ability to understand why a project is needed and offer alternative solutions or approaches to these. John is able to quickly sketch up options and highlight the benefits of each to work collaboratively with the client and wider team in order to determine which should be developed further. This approach avoids abortive work developing options in detail that do not meet the scheme objectives and allows the team to focus on those with the most potential.

Buildability - Understanding how a scheme will be built will enable the impact it may have on settlements, road / rail users and the environment for example to be assessed allowing mitigations to be developed or the impacts to be communicated. The assessment may simply include an assessment construction traffic may have on the local road network to a detailed implementation plan which develops the stages of construction with a detailed programme.

John is also experienced in traffic management and is able to develop phasing schemes that minimise the disruption and frustration to the travelling public whilst optimising the construction space available.

Benefits

Innovative solutions adopted
Reduced carbon footprint
Existing assets retained
Non-essential items removed

Efficient and safe solutions to build
Capital cost reduced
Project budgets achieved
Best value delivered

Experience and Evidence

Whilst working on the NRTS motorway communications upgrade John developed a series of standard solutions and also challenged how the service provider was delivering some of their contractual requirements. One requirement was to replace twenty control buildings as these were life expired and the plan was to build new structures next to the existing, install new equipment and connect into the system prior to removing the existing building.

John saw the potential to retain the existing buildings and the equipment in them thus avoiding additional cost and waste. His approach was to clad the existing building with an outer skin of concrete blocks and add a pitched roof. This approach was adopted and provided a total saving of £1.3m.

Challenge - John has held challenge workshops on a number of Highways England projects as listed below:

M6 J10
M42 J6
A428 Black Cat
A1 Scotswood
A417 Air Balloon
A47 Thickthorne Interchange
A47 Wandsford and Blofield

M6 J10 - John identified an alternative pedestrian route through the junction which removed the need for them to cross the northbound on-slip and removed the risk of motorists missing a red signal on the slip road. He also developed an innovative traffic management solution which utilised the existing smart motorway technology to manage traffic speed and allow national speed limit to be applied when works were not ongoing to remove customer frustration.

A47 Thickthorne – The scheme was significantly over budget. John developed an alternative for the design team to investigate which addressed the issued and fulfilled scheme objectives with the potential to deliver the project within budget. Assessment of this is ongoing.

A417 Air Balloon – The topography of this are is very challenging with very steep gradients. The challenge was undertaken prior to preferred route announcement which was the right time to do this as changes after this and statutory processes become more difficult. John was able to move the slip roads to reduce the cutting depth and remove a bridge crossing the A417.

M42 J6 – John reviewed the DCO submission to highlight potential savings to reduce the construction cost. He provided several areas to consider including an alternative local road diversion route which would allow the alignment to be lifted by 4m and avoid the disposal of excavated material to tip – if this is agreed it will provide a significant environmental and cost saving.

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