Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
What Experience Taught Us About Construction
43 Plays6 days ago
Join Jason and Carlos for their 100th episode, joined by members of the Aphex team with construction backgrounds. Kelvin (Engineer), Thomas Schulz (Engineer/Quantity Surveyor), and Cam Rainger (Engineer).
Breaking away from polished industry success stories, the team discusses why the most valuable learning in construction comes from project failures. The conversation explores professional mistakes and their consequences, covering trust and verification on construction teams, documentation failures, commercial risk management, and the balance between proactive problem-solving and following procedures.
Key Timestamps: 00:00 - Episode 100 introduction and celebration 03:24 - Team introductions and new format explanation 08:06 - Cam's Story 16:01 - Thomas' Story 25:40 - Carlos' Story 32:38 - Kelvin's Story Check out the Off Site Newsletter: https://offsite.aphex.co/
Recommended
Transcript
Carlos' Career Mistake in Construction
00:00:00
Speaker
Righto, Carlos, what's your big, where did you lose a million bucks? Well, it's funny because as a QS, you spend most of your time mopping up engineers' mistakes rather than creating your own. So I dug pretty deep. And managed to critical one career mistake, which I thought I'd share.
00:00:18
Speaker
i thought you going to recall that one time you went on site. Yeah.
Celebrating 100 Episodes of Off-Site Podcast
00:00:29
Speaker
welcome back to episode 100 of the off-site podcast carlos congratulations mate we made it no one said we would originally it was going to be can we make it to like five episodes can we make it to 25 episodes we're we're here 100 episodes welcome back mate thank you very much yeah someone said we will never make it past 30. that's the marker of uh no one was the producer What's that? Oh, no. Yeah, okay.
00:00:56
Speaker
Well, we've blown that out the water. and We've got to triple digits. So, no, well done, mate. Yeah, thank you. So, I think we were reflecting a lot ah like, the learnings from doing 100 of these discussions and thinking a lot about what is the next, like, 100 maybe or whatever. look like what are the things that we've learned so and want to take forward i think the things like we were talking about this at length over the last few weeks uh feels like the best episodes and the best topics are the ones that we um we have kind of a deep understanding or position on because of maybe what we do as a day job at apex and when we hit those topics we often find that we like want to take up more and more and more time and felt like a little bit constrained in the format ah before. so we're go to we want to try something different than the 100th episode. We want to do a totally different approach. So want to thank everyone that has listened along the way and would welcome people's feedback on a new, slightly different format.
New Podcast Format and Team Introduction
00:01:59
Speaker
So what is the format?
00:02:01
Speaker
We're going to go for a slightly longer episode um or or time. We're going to introduce new voices to discuss a smaller number of topics and topics even closer connected to project delivery and actually running and trying to coordinate construction projects.
00:02:21
Speaker
So, yeah, thank you for all the the people that have given us feedback, that have listened to the podcast, that engage with the stuff that we discuss. And yeah, we're keen for people's feedback as we experiment with a slightly different format.
00:02:37
Speaker
So for that format, ah it's going to be an all in discussion. And for the hundredth episode, we thought who better to get than a collection of the team ah here at Apex, every one of them from um from a construction background.
00:02:54
Speaker
So let's run through the roster for today's episode. So in addition to myself and Carlos, ah we have Kelvin. Kelvin has had at least 10 years in ah infrastructure, construction, um pretty much all of it, Kel, I think, in Australia.
00:03:12
Speaker
I'd say, Kelvin, your background feels like ah similar to mine, the School of Australian Infrastructure Engineer ah ah construction background, but but probably you've got the unique advantage of actually delivering some projects on time and on budget.
00:03:28
Speaker
um So, Kelvin, thanks. thanks Don't believe it. Don't believe it. Exactly. Carol, thanks for taking the time.
00:03:39
Speaker
Thank you. I think that means you're going to be first for the story, eh? no, no. no ah In addition, we have Thomas Schultz. Thomas is a new, relatively new in his second month here at AFEX.
00:03:53
Speaker
ah Simply Thomas has, you'll pick up an Australian accent, has a background in major metro tunneling and tunneling projects across Australia and the UK. so this experience across multiple jurisdictions.
00:04:08
Speaker
And importantly, to balance out the engineering and commercial projects uh divide here thomas started life as an engineer and a project manager and in in recent times moved over to the dark side of commercial and and quantity spaying so uh thomas will i guess you'll be the uh the the casting vote on a lot of of debates because you've got the the broadest uh the broadest background you sit in most camps Cheers, mate. Yeah, you're going to make me play favorites here, aren't you, between the two of you? It's like fight fighting between mum and dad.
00:04:45
Speaker
And then finally we have Cam Ranger.
Daily Challenges in Construction
00:04:50
Speaker
Cam is, but you must have at least eight years of construction experience similarly across the UK and New Zealand.
00:04:57
Speaker
you're You've worked on building jobs, infrastructure jobs, rail jobs, and probably in addition to that background bring the unique perspective of being able to keep us up to date on the latest Allbox roster changes because of your New Zealand background. Welcome Cam.
00:05:13
Speaker
Thanks for having me guys. Yeah, and the All Blacks aren't looking so pretty this year, but that's all right. but That's good. would have known that unless you told me. So that's that's that's you already already contributing.
00:05:25
Speaker
um Okay, so we thought about what is the what's the topic that we want to cover for the 100th episode. we When we were talking internally, we kept coming up with this same common thought, which is that everyone on major construction projects knows this stuff basically goes wrong every day.
00:05:42
Speaker
you get You get conditioned to turn up Uh, and know that you're going to be presented with a whole bunch of unforeseen problems and and your job is effectively to like fight through those problems to keep the project as on schedule as possible.
00:05:56
Speaker
And that you learn to do that through, you know, good coordination, building good teams and relationships, great communication. And I guess from an Apex perspective, good planning and having a good cadence around how you do that.
00:06:07
Speaker
But, uh, that's, uh, that's another, ah that's another podcast. So much of the advice that and the discussion that we would see like online, whether it's on the the LinkedIn sphere or on podcasts, does make it feel like there's a bunch of these project management experts um or LinkedIn influencers who feel like they've got all of the answers, maybe positioned like they've never made a mistake on a construction project in their life. And if they were to turn up on your project today, it would run perfectly smoothly with no no issues.
00:06:39
Speaker
And I think everyone knows it's total ah bullshit.
Learning from Mistakes in Construction
00:06:42
Speaker
And so we thought for the 100th episode that we're going to flip the script and just talk openly about our personal stuff ups, screw ups and things that we've gotten wrong and learned from on projects. Because I think one thing I was taught early on is you learn the most from mistakes and from projects that go poorly ah compared to ones that go the go well. So that's the that's the the framing for the episode today. And now we can probably see why we brought so many of the team members in to minimize Carlos and my reputational risk of...
00:07:17
Speaker
Because if i was sub we we just have an episode where I list like five of my many hundreds of stuff ups, it's not going to turn out to be the best thing for me. So yeah, I guess, well, I feel like I've talked at length and and set up ah some framing. So should we just dive in? Who's brave enough to talk about stuff up?
00:07:39
Speaker
Or if I was to use the word for Olu to bleep out a fuck up? uh first um one i can jump in on want to have good on you cam you get here we go yeah most respect for diving in first gotta get it done are you the reason crossrail was late is that what you're gonna say that was one the I need commercial issues. That was the issue there.
00:08:00
Speaker
First for a story from um a while back. Essentially, when I first started out, we were working on like a retirement village. Essentially, we built an owl shape and added another wing and a couple of other buildings over time. I was working on the structure of the new owl-shaped wing. It wasn't a big structure by infrastructure standards, but perhaps 50 meters wide by 250 meters long.
00:08:22
Speaker
I was very green at the time and fortunately I had a legend of the structures slash work managers working with me, a big old Raro fellow called Johnny. One of these guys who's been in the industry for ages and can do a quick sketch to show you um how we needed to build things right there in front of you.
00:08:37
Speaker
We were pouring the first half of the ground floor slab. It was ribbon in full with beams running through and through the middle and perpendicular to one another. Before we poured, as you do, we released some sections of the formwork to wash out the ties and the rust stains from the rebar.
00:08:52
Speaker
We had a new labor company working with us, and there was an older gentleman who loved to talk. Told me all about how much experience he had, what he had worked on, and how he used to run biggie gangs, so on and so forth. He was in charge of the teams reinstating that formwork before the pour. Poor day comes around.
00:09:07
Speaker
We have a couple of directors on site to view progress, catch up and everything else. I was telling behind the group as we walked around the site, answering questions if they had any of me, but largely sweating that they didn't notice anything was wrong.
00:09:18
Speaker
Following the site walk, when I was feeling feeling pretty stoked that the directors seemed happy, Johnny comes up to me and explains that a section of the formwork wasn't fixed properly and had blown. My heart obviously drops.
00:09:29
Speaker
He then goes on to say that he noticed this whilst I was with the directors and had kept it quiet until they had left site. He and the team were boxed off the section and the boys were already on cleaning up the few cubes that had splattered all over the basement.
00:09:41
Speaker
That definitely taught me a couple of things. One, if they're older than you and they talk a lot, doesn't mean they necessarily know what they are doing and may or may just be hiding behind their words. Two, that's the boys on site always look after each other.
00:09:53
Speaker
Nice work. Well, crap. It's well, Cam. The... the heat Yeah, I was immediately as you were going through um thinking about a whole bunch of faces popping into my head from projects where they'll tell you how they're the expert at some topic and then ah you end up learning that you're learning to be careful what you what you trust and listen to.
00:10:15
Speaker
So
Trust and Accountability in Construction Projects
00:10:16
Speaker
yeah, they loosened off the form work and not tightened them back up and then basically the form busted. cost that completely completely blue and this happened when my uh directors were on site and unfortunately like johnny johnny was an absolute legend i got so much respect for the guy um yeah he completely hit it from the directors and was already on clean up by the time he told me but yeah that was definitely one of those moments it's like yeah you can't really trust anybody and i feel like a lot of everyone knows that uh person as you see that face pops up into the head um who does a lot of talking and may not uh be the best of the job
00:10:47
Speaker
I was going to say the thing that I was, I was thinking about while you were telling the story was the whole sort of, uh, trust element. And like, if you don't trust the loudest person in the room, because of, as you described, the loudest person could just be all sort of talk. And then the other people are the quietest people in the room that might not be vocal. Do you end up just being like running around like a madman, double triple checking everything yourself because you don't really trust anyone. And then it becomes super inefficient. um I think certainly starting out for sure, but like you're definitely kind of, you lose you lose your faith in humans a little bit with just being let down multiple times with people saying they've done something and it's not done correctly or they've kind of done a bit of a bodge job so they could, you know, early knock on a priority or something similar like that. So yeah, it's definitely a lot of double checking other people's work, but I feel like that's all part of the role as well.
00:11:30
Speaker
It does feel like it reminded me of like a lesson from a a construction manager that i that I worked with really early on who was like, I don't want to hear your problem. I want to hear like the solution that you've got as well.
00:11:43
Speaker
And it feels like john Johnny probably nailed that. Absolutely. Absolutely. Who signed off the pre-paw camp? What was that? Sorry. Who signed off the pre-paw? No comment. ah I mean, that that was but and like I said, I was very greedy. It was like the first structure that she probably worked on.
00:12:00
Speaker
um But yeah, fortunately, it was only like 200 mil clicks. The slab and like at the B's only 800 mil. So it kind blocks off. relatively efficiently so on all future pause were you doing that like triple checking of uh of all the form ties and everything before 100 just bringing on the form work to make sure it was actually fixed properly that also doesn't feel like if we were on this uh it's making me recalibrate my stuff up story uh that doesn't reflect too poorly on you cam Wow. Yeah, it was lessons learned, wasn't it? As as someone touched on, I did sign off the prequel, so I think in theory it was my name on the piece of paper. Yeah, I think it's like other story where he really fucked up a job.
00:12:42
Speaker
I'm just going to have to recalibrate because I've got about 10 glow and fall work stories. So I'll just, I'll, I can tick those off. We don't need to cover that. But yeah, it's like, it does also feel like there's common pattern in projects where like you can, even after you check stuff properly, stuff can still go, definitely go sideways.
00:12:59
Speaker
And I'd imagine until you really do it yourself, you don't really appreciate the scale and the um the problem itself to then in the future, know that the double triple tech is a good use of time and not something that someone told you might be bad if you don't.
00:13:11
Speaker
100%, just checking on people's works. But I as suppose it comes with just a little bit of experience as well, like actually knowing what good looks like. There's also this like interesting thing that you kind of have to find out through, I don't know, through some trial and error in projects where...
00:13:26
Speaker
ah like how far you can kind of what the limits are you know like you've got you've got all these things that you've got to check on a pre or all these other issues you've got to check and you don't know i guess you don't always know first principles why you have to check some of the things there's usually some judgment you know you might be like there's a lot of things have a little bit of gray area or a thoroughness of how deeply you inspect the thing and sometimes you have to like find out a little bit the hard way Absolutely. Absolutely. as long as you've got a good team behind you though, and you can generally get away with that. Hopefully, you know, wash over it very easily. But yeah, sometimes, yeah. I think that the best lessons are sometimes going be learned the hard way.
00:14:06
Speaker
So no no issues, no formal warnings, Cam. You still had a job the next day. Fortunately. I think i I was still there for another a few years, to be fair. So yeah, I was still good. Okay. Right. I'm going to recalibrate my stories.
00:14:17
Speaker
I was going to say, Jason, many times have you been fired then? Yeah. ah Luckily, zero. warnings yeah warning One of those super-era stories where it's like the origination story of Apex. but Yeah.
00:14:30
Speaker
Super villain. Cool. Thomas, why you do you want to go next, mate? Yeah, I mean, 100%. So mine is sort of that lessons learned classic kind of, it's a mistake that probably covers so much.
00:14:43
Speaker
And I think every engineer has probably made it. And that's that old, if it's not in writing, it doesn't count. it's it's I was thinking about this and it's like one of the last mistakes before I left Oz. was 100% the same thing. I didn't get something in writing, you know, to set the scene.
00:14:57
Speaker
And I learned this as an undergraduate, a graduate site engineer. For some reason, it's one of those ones you keep having to relearn. And, you know, set the scene. it was around QA and it was around a temporary structure, temporary QA items like rock bolts.
00:15:09
Speaker
and got confirmation getting the work pack signed off that, I don't know you can use the production bolts to do your testing on. That's fine. Don't worry about it. Sure enough, do the production, yada, yadda yada. QAT comes around.
00:15:20
Speaker
Where's the initial pretest results and all this kind of stuff for your QA? And they go, oh, such and such said, didn't need it. We could just use the production given that's such low risk item. that kind of stuff.
00:15:32
Speaker
And then sure enough, oh, I never said that. And all of a sudden it's probably just didn't remember the conversation. you know, it didn't remember the context of it. Didn't remember the conversation. All the sudden it's, well, Thomas, you're going to go do and NCRs. You got to do the recovery. You got to go do all that other kind of stuff. You've got to go test every single bolt now to prove that they're all satisfactory. So, you know, there is that impact and it's just that classic, if it's not in writing,
00:15:54
Speaker
it doesn't count. I've been caught out with interface contractors before. I've been caught out with, you know, supervisors before, but it's just that classic lessons learned of that mistake. Yeah. Do you think it's like, I immediately had the, like, again, flashbacks to so many scenarios and I'm imagining other people did as well.
00:16:11
Speaker
Do you think it's like a culture thing or like, do you think people would do that kind of thing on purpose or they genuinely forget or I think in this case, it was a genuine, like, forget the conversation. You know, dude was super busy. i appreciate that, you know, where he's at, huge things going on in his mind Probably doesn't really remember the conversation. And it's sort of ah oh, well, it's done now. Just do the NCR, move on kind of thing.
00:16:36
Speaker
I definitely know that experience though, where you try to put something in an email and you just get zero response, despite the fact that they've verbally said it. So there's, I think there is that double side to that story where you do get the people who are not willing to put things in writing. So what, what, yeah. So if you were to do it differently again, now you would, what you'd send the email or raise the ah RFI.
00:16:55
Speaker
Yeah, no, I'd probably just get it written at the point where we're having that conversation because we're going through you know the work pack, the detail of what was the QA regime and that kind of stuff. So I'd get him to write a physical note on there saying it.
00:17:07
Speaker
That would probably be well, physical note, sign it off, happy days you've resolved that issue just there and there. Whereas, yeah, definitely some people, they do have that hesitation of putting things in writing, which is always interesting. Did you ever feel weird about asking for it in writing? I remember I used to struggle sometimes with that as like a junior engineer where i felt like I was, i don't know, being like a quasi lawyer or something asking for it in writing.
00:17:29
Speaker
I think after you've been burnt a few times, you no longer feel that hesitation about asking for things in writing. I think it's good in this regard, you know, there was a good nature, the relationship there, you know, good level of trust, all that kind of stuff that, yeah, I didn't expect to have the need to put it in writing, but it's just that thing that, yeah, occasionally you still need to learn because people do change their opinions and change their understanding of situation.
00:17:54
Speaker
Cal, you probably had like a bunch of things, right? I was trying to think, Thomas, was this the days when you had to pull tests like in the crown, you had to do it yourself? Yeah. As opposed to like just the walls, the bolts on the side of the wall, like the dummy bolt.
00:18:07
Speaker
A hundred percent that exact scenario. Dummy bolts. Yeah, the easy one anyway. Like you know't at least you don't have to do it overhead anymore. No, I've done the overheads, but yeah, no, this is just, this was in the crown, but it was a horizontal, horizontal bolts, not overhead bolts. But yeah, it's just one of those ones that, you know, all of a sudden you're going through that paperwork of the and NCR chews up so much time going through that process. It's just a pain in the ass.
00:18:30
Speaker
The classic like temporary, the temporary slash temporary permanent thing is like a big gray area to get caught out on as well. i When you were talking, it was reminding me of a, this would have been one of my stuff up stories.
Unexpected Challenges in Construction Projects
00:18:44
Speaker
was working on a Marine facility. We had to build ah like ah ah a ramp for barges to berth on an island. And in order to get a bunch of ah equipment onto this island to build an LNG facility.
00:18:56
Speaker
And before we could build the permanent structures, like a wharf and very terminal and stuff, we built this like early rudimentary ramp, which we had to build by just dumping material off the side of a barge into the water until it came out of the water. And, you know, it was just like a rock ramp.
00:19:13
Speaker
And a lot of the conversations, was a very junior graduate engineer, like, you know, months out of the university. And all the conversation around this ramp was the kind of like, it was a temporary structure. It was something that we just needed to build in order to get on to build the actual structures.
00:19:28
Speaker
And then somehow that conversation, which was which was how we talked about this thing, we started slipping later and later on the schedule because uh the amount of material that needed as we were putting material into the uh the water would start compressing down on the like um surface of the underneath the water and so we'd go and put like a barge load in overnight and then realize we'd like not made any progress when we were surveying the seabed and so there was like this time pressure because it was taking a lot more material and a lot longer than it expected.
00:20:00
Speaker
And there's all this conversation, like how can a ah temporary structure or you know something that we're just chucking the water takes so long, how can we get the time so wrong? And and i I kind of just observed that conversation led to, i don't know, a feeling about the specifications of the structure being like what you would do if you were building like ah ah you know a whole road on the on the on a project temporarily. And yeah, one thing led to another that we finished this thing and it was roughly to the dimensions of the drawings, but not exactly to dimensions of the drawing.
00:20:30
Speaker
Roughly. Roughly. Yeah. Well, because, because yeah, this I guess what was not intended to be, I don't think anyone in the management team intended the the message to be, you know, don't meet the specifications.
00:20:42
Speaker
But the way that the conversation led, i observed how the team kind of interpreted it to this was just like a temporary haul road. We just need to get the thing operational ASAP. But the problem was we like finished it.
00:20:55
Speaker
We like finished all the, we were hauling, we're using barges and stuff to haul material. And so we'd we'd kind of like finish that whole operation. We'd demode that and then had this ceremony for the first part of the project being finished. And the first thing the superintendent and the client did was just walk out the thing and then like pace it out and then like look at the drawing and then pace it out again.
00:21:16
Speaker
And it was like watching people's faces. It was like that um that meme where it's like, and at that moment, he fucked up. ah So we're not talking a few millimeters out. It was like half a meter out over like 10 meters or something.
00:21:34
Speaker
But it was, it yeah, like it was it was a huge amount if you viewed it like it really should have been 10 meters wide. And so it was a was a large problem. It was a big reputational damage for a very early part of ah a multi-year contract. And there was ah a warning issue to, I think there was a warning issue to like the project engineer in charge of the scope. But yeah, it was a big lesson for me as a graduate engineer that like what's on the drawings is what you're building, no matter what anyone says. And if you're deviating from that, there needs to, like, because you didn't, was no onboarding about you should have an RFI or you just start like three months out of university, you're on a site building stuff.
00:22:12
Speaker
Yeah. yeah Did you ask the client representative why it took them that long to come and see it? No. Surprisingly, as like a four-month-into-the-industry graduate, I wasn't quite as sassy as someone.
00:22:27
Speaker
Carlos trying to push the responsibility back onto the client already. Yeah, Carlos is looking for loopholes. Oh, we both missed it, didn't we? Yeah. But yeah, what's interesting is like, you know, you do learn that lesson of like, what's the saying? When the shit hits the fan, everyone gets splattered. Cause I'm sure internally the superintendent for the client also looked like an idiot because they had made all these statements internally. So yeah, I think everyone just looked like idiots as a result.
00:22:53
Speaker
ah There's no winners. Righto, Carlos, what's your what's your big, where did you lose a million bucks? Well, it's funny because as a QS, you spend most of your time mopping up engineers mistakes rather than creating your own. I dug pretty dig yougo and I managed to critical one career mistake, which I thought I'd share.
00:23:12
Speaker
i thought you're going to recall that one time you went on site. Yeah, oh, well at least twice. No, so this was a package, quite, it's like a multi-million pound package that I was in charge of. It was a bit of an issue around the actual activity schedule for the works.
00:23:30
Speaker
And it was probably, i was fairly green out of uni um and no real appreciation for like sighting how contractors and subcontractors have their own agenda and like they know where they're going to make their money in the future.
00:23:46
Speaker
There were tons of these precast units to like a very high spec. I was very probably generous and naive in agreeing the activity schedule where they were basically saying, can we get paid when we manufacture the units and then we get paid when we install the units. So I'm thinking that this sounds super fair. Like, why would you not, especially as they're like, they're big units, they cost a lot of money.
00:24:07
Speaker
So i got I got on board with the idea that they're front loading all the spend and waiting potentially quite a while to get any sort of payment for it. Pretty quickly, the we were delayed and these guys are like racking up units.
00:24:20
Speaker
And then suddenly the conversation is post contract, Now we've got to store these units. We should have had unit to inst install within like weeks, not months. So suddenly there's this massive bill to store the units and it's a and so there's facility outside of their precast yard.
00:24:36
Speaker
And then they say that it's not their responsibility if the units gets damaged because it's not within their control. And then the the storage facility doesn't take any responsibility for the units within. So you've got this risk on what if things gets damaged because they're not it's no longer permanently within their sort of care. You've got this big risk, you've got this cost of storage, and we basically precast every unit before any of them went in because of delays to the other works.
00:25:00
Speaker
ah Definitely a naive screw up on my behalf to not actually play through that scenario on a ah scheme that was often delayed and um not really thinking through the real risk.
00:25:12
Speaker
Were you getting paid by the again paid by the client on the manufacturer as well? Were you like back to back in the payment structure or you were you were also carrying the, you were financing it? Yeah, we were paid for effectively all costs that we could prove.
00:25:26
Speaker
So the second like really annoying thing is if you're being really particular, I'd have to go to the storage facility and count units to make sure that we're not overpaying. So you're then in a position of your base said, okay, we've done 50 units.
00:25:39
Speaker
They've actually done 30, you pay for 50 and then you're in a real shit spot. So the time burden on doing a payment application involved trips out of London and all sorts of scenarios that you don't really sort of lead into. so and What would you have done what would you had done differently?
00:25:57
Speaker
paid on installation only. Like you could do something else, like you could pay for the materials that they're pulling in. So it's not tied to the finish of the unit or the damage to the unit. um You could do something like that.
00:26:08
Speaker
But the original activity schedule was just pay on installation, which is the advice from the procurement team. It was just hard to get the subcontractors to sign up to it. Wouldn't they submit a delay claim pushing out anyway? Because obviously the precast yards have schedules, all that kind of stuff. If you're delaying them and they're casting, they'll submit a claim for that anyway, won't they?
00:26:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So you're going to get the cost in one form or another. They're either going to price it up front you're going to a claim later. It's just harder to get the value back from the client because it's our own delays causing the additional cost.
00:26:37
Speaker
You're getting your cost covered, but you're not getting the target associated with it, putting yourself in a sticky situation. The construction team would have loved it because they wouldn't have had to deal with casting schedules and they could have got any piece of precast that they they wanted or needed.
00:26:50
Speaker
So wouldve been it would have been wouldve been lot lovely. Yeah. You effectively de-risk that part of the project because the amount of times that the casting schedule starts dictating the the construction schedule.
00:27:02
Speaker
yeah Yeah, you could argue a spin, which is we had plenty of units ready to go so we could install them as quick as we like. But the bill was substantial, I should say, in terms of storage and additional lorry movements and all sorts of things to to move them around.
00:27:17
Speaker
yeah okay yeah yeah you'll be yeah you like thomas said you're probably going to get the cost anyway i don't know you so the consequences for you qs promoted did get promoted during that package okay
00:27:31
Speaker
the consequence was just uh when you're chatting to your commercial manager and they're just thinking How much thought did you really put into that activity schedule?
00:27:42
Speaker
Is that that feeling you're like, fuck, I know this is my fuck up and now we're paying the cost. We got full recovery on the package and more from the client, and not naming names. So um it wasn't like the biggest fuck up in the end, but at the time it's a gutting feeling where you're like, this is a multi-million pound package that i've really fucked up. Yeah, I think that's the the thing that you you can viscerally remember the feeling of the like sinking stomach feeling when you realize there's ah there's a problem and yeah you you might own that problem.
00:28:10
Speaker
So you get the like the brain starts going into like overdrive solution mode ah while dealing with the, yeah, not not the nicest feeling. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, lessons learned. That's it. And you probably documented that in the lessons learned through process for the project that was nicely. Yeah, I got that word job stuck at SharePoint.
00:28:28
Speaker
That no one ever No one ever reads. Yeah, I didn't just hide it. Yeah. yeah Nice. All right, Kel.
00:28:39
Speaker
Yeah, so I reckon when I was a young and engineer, this is my story when quite, maybe 10 years ago something, I got a big ego
Project Challenges and Risk Management
00:28:46
Speaker
check. ah And I reckon I'd wager that you guys would probably all do the same things that I did. So I'm keen to hear what you would do differently.
00:28:53
Speaker
So like, I had just come from um a job where I like got to do lots of things. I was building a project in Asia, got to build a tower crane, self-performing FRP, sheet piles, all that sort of stuff.
00:29:04
Speaker
I'd arrived back in Australia and my scope that I got initially was I'll go put some noise balls out. And I was on a golf course. Thought, oh, that's pretty simple, you know. And I remember, like, you know, you just sort of just do that work while you get get ramped up and then you can plan for some of the more exciting stuff. And I'd be like, oh, this is crazy gig. So, like, I lined up the subbie, you know, i managed to squeeze them down, made sure that my role was going to be pretty easy. All I had to do was sort access and get concrete to them. So they dig the hole, they put the post in, they put the panels in. All I needed need needed to do was to deliver them concrete once a day. i was like, beautiful, crazy, big gig.
00:29:41
Speaker
And so like first week, I detailed out the forecast. I was going to make shitload of money. I was going you know, it's going to be an easy cost code to manage. It's the first week. I think they mobilized the site one day and then two out of the remaining four days, I couldn't get concrete. to The week before it had just rained and the golf course was like boggy and the edges would get bogged.
00:30:00
Speaker
And then we had IFC on site. And so like if it was bogged for too long. I had to battle the concrete. had to ditch it. So I just had to dump the concrete because it couldn't go the noise well because sat in the edgy too long. Because didn't need traffic plus getting bogged. Yeah, yeah.
00:30:13
Speaker
Where do you dump concrete? Yeah, you just have to just get rid of it because you can't place it beyond a certain time limit. Okay. So I just had to just get rid of it the eye because the IC was pretty intense on that. name So the second week, it wasn't much better, right? It had rained again over the weekend.
00:30:26
Speaker
And just go out there and they all got bogged. I couldn't bloody get concrete out to these noise walls out the back of the golf course. so you know, I was pretty eager young, young engineer. And I started horse trading with the tunneling team that had just got some brand new shiny full drive edges that are derived. And also I pulled some favors in with the earthwork subbie that was on side. And I stacked some pre precast Jersey barriers on the side, dug out a box out for like ah a ramp down and a ramp up.
00:30:54
Speaker
And I rolled in and built in some layers and I built like a ramp and a transfer station to take from the wholesome Adji into the four wheel drive Adji. And then the four wheel drive Adji just, you know, booked it down through the golf course and was managed to deliver to the concrete.
00:31:08
Speaker
So like, I was feeling like pretty shit hot. Like I think I did a good job. And then I think I did that for about two weeks and like we're getting the banging in the noise wall every day. We're not missing a day of concrete. And then the temporary works manager walks out onto site and goes, Oh, where's your temporary works design brief for that, um,
00:31:23
Speaker
that ramp that you've built. And was like, what do you mean? Well, temporary work design brief. And so you haven't done a risk assessment on it. And they'd be like, oh, this has worked pretty well for the last two weeks.
00:31:33
Speaker
And then they'd pull the whole thing down, rip it all down, And I had to go back to the way was doing it before. And you know, every, maybe once a week, we'd, I just get bogged and I couldn't get delivered the concrete out there.
00:31:48
Speaker
So yeah, was big eco check, but I'd probably still build the ramp again, I think. What's an Aji? Oh yeah, so we do a quick translation. And Aji's a ah concrete lorry.
00:32:00
Speaker
Oh right, fine. What would you differently? Like, don't know. the temporary work from the start.
00:32:09
Speaker
that right i would ask chat gpt what should i do next sorry this was 10 10 years ago carl so you got you don't have that option one thing is interesting kel is like um your your example and maybe like carlos's as well there's kind of this like classification of a problem that was all always going to be a problem it's just really about who might have been responsible for solving the the problem.
00:32:36
Speaker
The devil's always in the detail, isn't it? That's like the the learning on any construction project that you kind of learn over and over again. Like, oh yeah, getting these guys concrete, that'll be super easy. Turns out it's nightmare.
00:32:48
Speaker
And I feel like so many of the clients... a You know, we had this on Crossrail, there were certain things that were being issued to us. I worked on a project where the client was issuing concrete as well.
00:33:00
Speaker
And so many of the so many of the issues were on, yeah, you just create another interface that becomes one to manage. So yeah, i don't I'm avoiding your question of what I would have done differently.
00:33:13
Speaker
No, you would have done the temporary works design brief from the start. You're right. Everyone would have planned every money detail out. Yeah. Yeah. That's what the LinkedIn influencer would say. But did you, did you have a design that you like kind of copied or did you just.
00:33:26
Speaker
Nah, just. here So you couldn't even be like, oh no, I did it in these layers with this kind of grade of material. you know and Jersey barriers were like, know, it's that high and you'd cut a ramp into it and you know, we'd, we'd have been working for two weeks. Like clearly it was.
00:33:40
Speaker
A million sound. Was the design life, what, a month? Yeah. I think i think um i think there's like probably a ah learning, well, at least something I would take from previous projects in relation to what you said, Cal. If I was thinking about the constructing of the scope of who would do something, there's probably this kind of like, I hate to use the word risk assessment, but this kind of like what if exercise have been worth doing of like, what if I can't get the concrete to them or what if like Because the the issue that I had on a project was client issuing concrete and the concrete um started going off in the edges an hour and a half before it was supposed to, while it was on a barge in the middle of the ocean. You end up with this giant argument.
00:34:24
Speaker
We end up having to demolish the structure in the ocean as a result of it. If I was thinking about my like execution strategy and who would own what scope, I'd be definitely bringing a group of people from the project in the room and going, what you know what could go wrong with this? Because it's the things you don't think of that like yeah like got burn your run.
00:34:41
Speaker
That happens right, Jase, but it tends to be a lot more safety and environmental focused. Every activity method statement or work pack or swims has to have a risk assessment where the team would do that.
00:34:52
Speaker
yeah Quite often is very safety and environmental focus, rightly so, but sometimes things that end up costing you lots of money aren't discussed in that but forum, which sometimes could be the more theyre really important things.
00:35:05
Speaker
Do you think that that's like a ah a ah risk associated with the kind of responsibility held by, say, engineers in Australia where you often kind of construct...
00:35:16
Speaker
You're the architect of your kind of methodology for your scope. You're the owner of the budget. So you're kind of, i don't know, masking your own homework. You can convince yourself it's going to work? Yeah, I think so. And partly, you and most engineers have like very finite amount of time. And sometimes it's squeaky wheel that we get the grease. Like if they've got the safety managers prodding them for like their third revision on the swims or the risk assessment, then they'll probably just have to do that as opposed to someone telling them that maybe you should do more further risk assessments because maybe you've got a risk you're going to blow this full cost code out or something.
00:35:45
Speaker
Because yeah, like I'd imagine in say the UK, both Thomas and Carlos's QSs would have been, I don't know, they wouldn't know how, don't know, maybe they would have picked up the the risk or not, but there would would have been ah there would have a second person in the conversation with that that lens, I guess, coming to the fore.
00:36:03
Speaker
Or maybe depending on the size of project, maybe it's the procurement person rather than the QS as well. Yeah, and those sort of conversations, you're in this weird spot where even if you think you're like on the money with an idea or a thought or a risk that hasn't been discussed,
00:36:19
Speaker
You always feel like you're going to say it and the engineers be like, you have no idea what you're talking about. And then they move on. So um there's this balance of like being helpful and probably having like out of meeting conversations with someone to be like, I don't know if this is a dumb thing to think about, but like this was top of mind rather than sort of trying to lead the discussion because the reality is the QSs have never been there and done it and poured concrete and whatever it is that you're planning on. So I was going to say, I don't think many of the qs i have met and worked with probably would have picked up in the same way that you know Kelvin didn't pick up that, hey, there's going to be an issue here with bogged aggies.
00:36:58
Speaker
That methodology has obviously been signed off by a fair few people. I'm assuming an area manager probably had to sign off it as well. And no one's picked up that, hey, there's an issue here. I just hate to be in the room be like, what's a bogged aggie?
00:37:10
Speaker
And I'll get out. I think there's also, there's probably something that I would have, uh, learning I'd take forward around like the culture and vibe on a project. Cause I remember myself being in some like methodology reviews for a method I've like created and constructed on the owner of.
00:37:29
Speaker
And if you're, and and oftentimes you'd feel like at least the project I'm thinking of, it was a very, um, high pressure maybe a little bit finger pointing culture and you feel motivated to defend your position like i probably would have if i was kelvin i would have like like i would have argued why my methodology was right rather than be maybe open to exploring the risk and what i would do in in that case of the the risk so it's it's amazing how many things come back to culture well like It's ah it's in in my defense, like, you know, you got a subbie on site that needs concrete every day, you know, like how you got to get it to them and there's like a golf course in between and it rains like, how is he going to get over there? We're going to bring a concrete pump every day and run a concrete pump just and on the off chance to get bogged.
00:38:10
Speaker
But then the other thing is, if you, you're not going to get paid for the ramp and you could have claimed for the weather potentially. So you're suddenly in this horrible situation where you're just burning cash with no recovery. So it's like,
00:38:22
Speaker
being proactive is sometimes the worst thing to do if you haven't had like some sort of construction or whatever. Cam's head is in his hands listening to the QS, like trying to say that being proactive.
00:38:33
Speaker
Honestly, man. It's true, though, isn't it? It's true. I also think, Carlos, in Oz, you don't tend to get wet weather allowance days. Like that's normally held by the contractor. If it's a wet weather day in Oz, it must be a one in 10 year event, right? So. No, but like, I think if I was to push back, if I was to take the other side of you, Kelvin, I'd be like, cause you made the argument, like what are the chances it was going to rain and I'd get big bogged or whatever. Like if you were trying to deliver concrete over a period of like month, two months, three months, I think if you did the risk assessment of like, what's the likelihood it rains, it'd be pretty high. Sydney's raining all the time. You say he should have planned do it in the first place.
00:39:12
Speaker
Yeah, but like oftentimes you're, especially in Australia, yeah, you are the architect of your own process and owning the commercials and you're trying to make you trying to make money and build a ah method. And yeah, sometimes you can think of potential things that would go wrong and you go, God, that's never going to happen.
00:39:27
Speaker
um And sometimes the person asking that, you know, it doesn't help if you're in a review where they're like, what happens if it rains? And then the next question is like, what happens if aliens are like, they can come up with like crazy risks as well as like legit ones.
00:39:41
Speaker
Yeah, I think I think Cam's going to build a ramp. No one else. I want to build a ramp, but I want to try pull it some kind of design. I can bullshit my way through it in the back. thank But I'll definitely be proactive, Carlos. I can't believe you even said that. That is outrageous.
00:39:56
Speaker
No one likes a proactive engineer. Oh, Jesus. Alice is not needed on a construction site.
00:40:05
Speaker
That's next time's conversation, right? Yeah. the next topic do we need productive I think literally the next topic is do we need QSs I think that yeah is I'm looking forward to it Is it still one on the 401?
Episode Conclusion and Listener Appreciation
00:40:20
Speaker
Yeah, I'll bring out on, lads. Right. I think we have hit time. Thank you very much, everyone, for joining. Really enjoyed that. And thank you very much, everyone, for tuning into today's show.
00:40:31
Speaker
If you did enjoy the episode, please do you think about liking the video or following us on your chosen podcast platform. We really appreciate your support and we'll catch you all next week. Just realized it's not necessarily next week.