After a weekend of well-deserved rest, our cohort returned to the Kallibr Training Centre in Maidstone with build week ahead of them as they take their budget, schedule and methodology from the tender into the realities of a construction project as they construct the Symal Wamarra Big Build Bridge.
Monday commenced with a session led by Constructionarium Australia’s Gary Parkinson, who provided the teams with feedback on their tender submissions. With only a wafter thin sliver in the scoring separating the two teams, this was an invaluable learning experience as feedback on why you were unsuccessful is central to the development of a healthy and sustainable industry. Monday’s lunch and learn focussed on the commercial realities of major projects as Lincoln Bromwich, Kevin Pascoe, Matthew Gurney and Mark Davies gave a masterclass on contracts, commercials and project success.
A key takeaway from the session was from Symal Infrastructure General Manager, Matthew Gurney:
"The commercial role is ingrained in every part of an engineer's role - from the day they get there to the day they leave, they always need to be looking at everything with a commercial lens."
The cohort then moved on to construction preparation, finalising their critical elements ahead of construction commencing on Tuesday. From SWMS to Traffic Management, the complete requirements of site activities were scrutinised, tested and finalised. Our good friends from Bentley returned to the site to work with the cohort on their cost and program schedule as well as the suite of reporting tools that they will use to measure and track activity as well as their daily costs. At the end of each build, the cohort is offered the incentive of a team celebration, but only if they make a profit on their project; so there is a lot relying upon how they manage their costs, negotiate with their client and Synchro Perform is at the heart of the technology they will use to determine success.
Tuesday commenced with an all-important toolbox session as our cohort prepared for their first day of construction. For many of our cohort, working onsite and on the tools is a new experience so Tony Hackett, Jess Farenzena and Luke Spiteri we available for training, mentoring and guidance. With the crane and rigger on site from International Cranes, it was time to get things going and for the first sections of the Big Build Bridge to be assembled and lifted into place.
Sustainability was the theme of the lunch and learn, with Alexis Davison, Rian Calder and Brian Pinkman talking to our cohort about sustainability in design and how it is becoming an essential driver of all major projects as the industry seeks to limit its environmental footprint and create infrastructure that can withstand the tests of time and nature.
And then, it was back to the site for construction before wrapping up the day with the all-important cost reporting and role switching. One of the unique aspects of a build program is ensuring that each participant has the opportunity to try the multitude of roles on offer, so at the end of each day, we shuffle the organisation chart for the team. This means that you may be a project manager one day and a general labourer the next because understanding the needs of each project team member is vital to building an understanding of the entirety of a project and is core to collaboration across teams.
As the team progresses ahead of Friday's deadline, we will keep you posted on their progress constructing the Symal Wamarra Big Build Bridge.
