A concrete relationship

If Balfour Beatty-Skanska’s M1 widening project is held up, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll feel the impact. The M1 is the spine of the UK road network, linking London to the midlands, the north and Scotland. Virtually every UK business depends on it in some way or other. It may not have the glam-factor of rival mega-builds such as Heathrow Terminal 5 or Eurostar at St Pancras, but it’s a crucially important national project nevertheless.

So far, you’ll be relieved to hear, the £298m joint venture is on time and budget, thanks in part to a new working relationship between the main contractor and its falsework and formwork partner, RMD Kwikform.

RMD’s customer services manager Gary Raison explains: ‘We have a customer service engineer working directly on this project now, dealing with all of Balfour Beatty-Skanska’s enquiries, focusing on stock control, administration and invoicing.’ The result has been no surprises regarding kit availability; more accurately designed formwork and falsework; and a degree of continuity to a previously neglected but vital project interface.

Started in May last year, the scope of works on the M1 junctions 6A-10 widening project is huge. Not only does it involve beefing up a 17.5km long strip of motorway, it also requires remodelling of junctions and the creation of parallel roads to absorb local traffic. Furthermore, numerous road bridges need to be built, along with underbridges, subways and retaining walls and it’s for these works that RMD’s kit – Paraslim formwork, Kwikstage access platforms and Super Slim Soldiers – have been used. So far it’s been readily available and the sub – Sword Contracting – has been able to proceed within its allocated timeframes.

RMD has used customer service engineers for the past two years and Raison says the role was created to deal with tighter and tighter construction programmes. Remembering the difficulties experienced on a previous M25 widening project – again with Balfour Beatty – he says: ‘We were having trouble sourcing the kit required at specific times. It was a bit embarrassing really.’

Chris Till, one of Balfour Beatty-Skanska’s two M1 team leaders (for specific focus structures), also worked on the project. He says: ‘Making sure the right equipment is available at the right time is the most important thing in this line of work.’ In the latter part of the M25 programme RMD introduced a customer services engineer, Kevin Masters, and there was a marked improvement in progress. ‘By the end of the job we’d got the workflow just right and wanted to take that knowledge to the M1 project,’ says Till.

‘There were times on the M25 job when we were designing formwork solutions we didn’t have enough kit for,’ says Masters. ‘When I took up my new role I was able to meet with the designers, tell them exactly what was available and then take it from there.’ And while Masters doesn’t deal directly with technical issues, he was always able to make contact with the design team on behalf of the main contractor. Before the imposition of a customer services engineer, enquiries were being dealt with by someone different each time. Having this continuity, says Till, has been ‘vital’.

For the M1 project, Masters has been involved from the beginning. Tim Orpen, Till’s fellow team leader for Balfour Beatty-Skanska, says: ‘There’s been times when we noticed a vital piece of kit is missing – perhaps lost on site – and we’ve phoned Kevin and he’s literally chucked it in his car and driven it over. A fantastic service really.’

Having greater control of the stock network has helped smooth out delays from damaged stock as well. Masters explains: ‘If one piece is damaged – a pretty common occurence – you can’t put up the rest of the system, so there and then, the damage is logged and a replacement is sourced from another depot or live project.’ This way, adds Masters, there’s no inventory dispute at the project’s end.

The green police can rest easy too. There’s always a percentage of kit that doesn’t go back to origin but, thankfully, none of it goes to landfill. ‘Aluminium beams that get dropped and buckle, bashed shutters – they all get recycled,’ says Orpen.

Work is on schedule and due to complete in December next year, but on a project of this size, any number of incidents – a pile-up for example – could halt proceedings. Rest assured then, in the knowledge that one area of potential hold-ups, the interface between contractor and the falsework and formwork partner, has been considerably reinforced.