ICE - Institution of Civil Engineers - Virtual Library

Crossrail, one of Europe’s largest infrastructure projects, received royal assent on 22nd July 2008. Construction of Crossrail is forecast to start in 2010 and become operational in 2017. This mega rail project is expected to provide a significant boost to the UK’s economy in terms of direct and indirect employment benefits. The scheme has taken nearly a decade to achieve this significant milestone having had its private bill rejected in the early 1990s. The UK’s central government has at long last provided ‘genuine’ political support and commitment to Crossrail, a critical factor during planning that is essential despite the scheme having a technically robust business case.

This is the second of a series of briefings prepared by the NEC Panel to help clients, consultants and contractors overcome any difficulties or mis conceptions they might experience when first using NEC contracts. The briefing shows how the NEC approach encourages transparency and cooperation, helping to eliminate corruption and promote best practice.

The paper presents a discussion of the potential employer liabilities of industrial diseases.

The paper details the role of the Strategic Forum for Construction (SFfC). It covers the membership of the forum and its priorities for the industry. Its priorities centre on the launch of the construction commitments and a series of targets for the industry up until 2012. The commitments and the targets focus on: integration and procurement; commitment to people; client leadership; sustainability; design quality; and health and safety.

The English football premier league has become the most popular sports league in the world; with ardent fans and audiences all over the world. The potential business opportunities that this growth holds have therefore attracted investors who are keen to buy shares in the clubs and sign up the best footballers that money can buy. Underpinning the growth in all of the premier league clubs is a desire to make a distinct statement of identity as part of a competitive strategy. One way to achieve this is through the design and construction of iconic football stadiums. This paper explores the specific project management challenges associated with delivery of iconic football stadiums in England and draws lessons for the management of similar iconic infrastructure projects. A study of project management best practice and some case studies shows that key issues which are common to these projects are centred on design management; choice of procurement route; client management; and stakeholder expectation management. These issues are not necessarily unique to the project management of iconic football stadiums but are amplified by the context of these projects. The emphasis on iconic status in a competitive market also means that stadium projects should be conceived and delivered in the context of other strategic projects which should be clearly understood by the project management team.

There are some absolute ‘howlers’ in adjudications and elsewhere where payment for head office overheads and profit claims in construction projects is based upon grossly inaccurate calculations. This article identifies some of the errors and suggests practical improvements.

This paper describes the mechanisms and potential benefits and pitfalls for community consultation on major infrastructure projects, based on the author’s 20 years of experience as a community liaison group facilitator in Sydney, Australia. It reports in particular on lessons learned from consultations on two major projects: the Epping to Chatswood railway and the Cross City Tunnel. Despite being run along similar lines, consultations on the former were widely considered a success by all parties whereas the latter degenerated into open hostility, with negative long-term consequences for the project and its promoters.

The recent Scottish case of City Inn Ltd v. Shepherd Construction Ltd provides some instructive guidance on how a contractor’s entitlement to extension of time should be assessed. In particular, the court looked at the inherent weaknesses of computer-based delay analysis techniques and expressed the view that older, precomputer techniques may be more reliable. In addition the court clarified how concurrent delays should be treated, concluding that liability for the delay should be apportioned between the parties on the basis of ‘causative significance’ of the delays. This paper explores the various methodologies used by analysts for assessing delay and considers the implications of this Scottish decision. The paper also explains the complications that can be caused by concurrent delays and welcomes the straightforward and pragmatic approach adopted in this case.

The Constructionarium initiative can be classified as the implement section of the conceive, design, implement, operate (CDIO) innovative educational framework for civil engineering students. CDIO is an international learning and teaching initiative which is based on the principle of embedding active learning into engineering education at all levels. The Constructionarium provides a practical construction experience for various civil engineering structures such as a gravity concrete oil rig, a cable-stayed steel bridge, a transmission tower, a subway entrance hall and a clay core dam, all at a reduced scale. Students are required to follow the same professional and health and safety procedures that a construction contractor follows on a real construction project. A collaborating construction contractor and a design consultant offer close supervision, support and guidance for all site activities, typically covering preparation of method statements, risk assessments, construction planning, costing, setting-out, use of construction tools, and so on. The Constructionarium is a concentrated learning week for students for which there is no other equivalent replacement activity. In this paper, the Liverpool Constructionarium is presented in detail, including pre-Constructionarium preparation, learning objectives, running projects, associated problems and learning outcomes. In addition the results from pre- and post-Constructionarium questionnaires are presented to show measurement of learning outcomes from student feedback.

Members of the Management, Procurement and Law editorial advisory panel provide overviews of their areas of expertise, highlighting recent and forthcoming developments likely to affect engineers and others working in the fields of management, procurement and law.