Railway Occupation Program Risk Mitigation
Lean methods study reduces construction program risk and cost
- 3 minutes read
Our client was the head contractor in an alliance supporting the delivery of a $17.3b program to remove 110 railway-road level crossings across suburban Melbourne.
The state-government asset owner challenged the alliance leadership team regarding the program contingency risk in the 93-day rail corridor occupation, which was planned to deliver a $480M work package. The work package involved the construction of a 2.5km rail bridge, and the viaduct substructure and superstructure were the critical paths in the occupation program.
The program was tight due to the inherent constraints of operating in a densely populated suburban area. Completing the program during the winter months compounded the risk of bad weather. Any program overrun would create extensive commercial pressure, so a risk mitigation plan was required.
25%
3x
$5M
14x
The approach
ORBIZ facilitated an end-to-end study of the construction program scheduled for the occupation to identify overrun risks and improvement opportunities.
The study utilised a series of Lean methods to engage the project team in analysing and challenging the construction methodology and program.
The team facilitated a series of activities:
- Value Stream Map workshops visualised each step of the construction process hour-by-hour.
- The theory of Constraint principles enabled the team to understand how bottlenecks in the construction process would restrict throughput.
- Takt Time rules allowed the team to assess the imbalance between process throughput and the required construction outputs.
The solutions
The activity identified a series of requirements to mitigate program risk and opportunities to reduce overall construction costs:
- To meet the schedule, the pile cap construction process must be reduced from 58 hours per cap to 48 hours.
- The Onsite L-beam inventory must be increased from 69 units to 92 before occupation to mitigate trucking constraints and avoid a shortage that would otherwise stop the project midway through the program.
- A detailed traffic simulation was needed to identify material delivery constraints and enable the development and management of a comprehensive hourly plan throughout the occupation.
- The plan for offsite pre-cast crossheads and piers could cancelled, eliminating significant costs that provide minimal program value.
Learn more about our services
Interested in learning more about how ORBIZ can help your organisation? Fill in your details below and one of our team members will be in touch.