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A little while back, our team was out on site and finished our planned task ahead of schedule. Flights out of site were booked solid so, instead of sitting around playing tiddlywinks, we agreed a useful job would be to gather up all the high potential incident reports (HPIs) and independently confirm that all agreed corrective actions (CAs) had been closed out. To some people’s surprise, (but not mine), we found that while most CAs had been closed out, some were only partiall

Mobilising a civil construction project is typically a frenetic period. For the lead manager, that’s compounded by countless people vying for their time. When that start-up time comes, most firms have a mobilisation checklist or readiness-to-proceed document. These can be excellent tools. They set out what needs to be done to satisfy client and/or company requirements, based on typically generic principles. There’s no value in making these documents larger or more cumbersome

Have you ever experienced a polar shift in your point of view? Many years ago I was working on a project where the principal contractor dictated that every month we had to produce a certificate stating we had worked in accordance with the project’s management plans. At the time, I was aghast. It was not possible or logical to do this. Plans were drafted to satisfy the faceless few offsite and then put in a drawer to never be seen again…unless of course there was a major issu

Changes easily occur every day in the construction and mining sectors and, industry wide, they seem to be managed begrudgingly, with mixed results. On a recent project, we helped a client change the way they conducted pre-shift meetings while, on another, we worked with a team to guide them through completely changing how they reported their daily activities. These, and numerous other initiatives we’ve supported, have underscored what matters most in managing change. When ch

The relationship between haul road quality, productivity and unit cost is undoubtedly complex and different for every mine. However, in all cases, it does exist. A full analysis requires many factors to be considered including: Expected haulage (quantified) for each segment Haulage units (ie size, gross weight, rimpull and retardation) Availability of material to build subgrade, pavement and wearing courses Climactic variations in rainfall and temperature Construction and

A common issue for many sites is getting excavator bucket sizing right. It seems straightforward on the face of it – you order a given size and that’s what should arrive. In practice, it’s not that simple. Typically, GP buckets for 30t excavators can vary by more than 12%. If you’re working to a 10% margin, that could mean the difference between making or losing money. When excavators are hired for a site, it’s important to stipulate bucket sizes and then run a check to see

On the face of it, the question ‘how much is a cubic metre’ is pretty simple: it’s the volume occupied by a cube where all sides are 1m in length. However, for those of us working in bulk earthworks, it’s slightly more complicated. Three stages of earthmoving Earthmoving generally involves three processes: Digging Hauling Placing At each of these stages, the material has a different density. That’s why we like to be careful with how we name the volume it occupies. What’

It’s a rare project that can be built without the constructor asking the designer some questions. These questions – typically called technical queries (TQs) or requests for information (RFIs) – are important and, while it seems the writing of these should be straightforward, there are a few key qualities that influence their value. Three types of RFIs Before we get to those, at CEA, we say there are generally three types of RFIs: The overlooking constructor RFI The forgetf

Like almost everyone in the engineering field, at CEA we use Excel extensively because it’s powerful, affordable and reduces the time it takes to analyse problems. Our favourite function – and the one we tend to use more than others – is the index function. It allows us to take the values out of a matrix and put them in tabular form – meaning we can combine the advantages of both formats. Starting with a matrix A matrix comes into its own when we’re thinking about how differ