NEW ZEALAND’S CIVIL CONTRACTING INDUSTRY MAGAZINE
SEPTEMBER 2015 $8.95
Taking charge with the
BIG CAT 374FL INSIDE: Waikato Expressway update – $2.1 billion and 102 kilometres long CCNZ conference 2015 – the Wild Wild West comes to Wairakei Heavy Haulage Conference 2015 – celebrating industry success The House of Fraser – a Hawke’s Bay family’s contribution to NZ
CONTENTS CONTRACTOR
36
INSIDE: Regulars 2 Editorial 4 Upfront 14 On the Cover 57 Motoring 58 Classic Machines 62 Innovations & Contractors’ Diary 64 Civil Contractors NZ Comment 64 Advertisers’ Index
Comment 48 Sue Hirst CFO On-Call
Highlights / Features 20 Waikato Expressway – movin’ along An update of the $2.1 billion, 102 kilometre-long Waikato Expressway.
NEW ZEALAND’S CIVIL CONTRACTING INDUSTRY MAGAZINE
26 Simple but unique The Karapiro Gully viaduct bridge has been built to the latest bridge structure standards.
34 CCNZ Conference 2015
Taking charge with the
BIG CAT 374FL
Full coverage of the inaugural CCNZ Conference 2015 in Wairaki.
INSIDE: Waikato Expressway update – $2.1 billion and 102 kilometres long CCNZ conference 2015 – the Wild Wild West comes to Wairakei Heavy Haulage Conference 2015 – celebrating industry success The House of Fraser – a Hawke’s Bay family’s contribution to NZ
42 Heavy Haulage Association Conference Mary Bell caught up with all the goings-on at the 2015 Conference in Wellington.
46 The canal that wouldn’t die Greece’s Corinth Canal took 2500 years’ planning before finally being opened in 1893.
50 Peter Silcock Civil Contractors New Zealand
51 Rod Auton Crane Association of New Zealand
52 Rob Gaimster CCANZ / NZRMCA
53 Marin Wouters The Manage Company
SEPTEMBER 2015 $8.95
Profiles
ON THE COVER Built to keep production up and owning and operating costs down, the Cat 37FL large excavator provides the ultimate control on the job site. See page 14
18 Elijah Graham Waikato contractor Elijah Graham had to step up when his father died.
30 The House of Fraser Since the 1930s the Fraser name has been a major Hawke’s Bay identity.
54 Sherwyn William / Tyler Buckley Kensington Swan
55 Kenny Ingram IFS
56 Janet Brothers Life Care Consultants
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46 SEPTEMBER 2015 1
CONTRACTOR EDITORIAL
PUBLISHER Contrafed Publishing Co Ltd Suite 2.1, 93 Dominion Road, Mt Eden, Auckland PO Box 112357, Penrose, Auckland 1642 Phone: +64 9 636 5715 Fax: +64 9 636 5716 www.contrafed.co.nz
In pretty good shape Contractor writer Jane Warwick first met Waikato’s Elijah Graham last year in Feilding at the National Excavator Operators Competition. Enough people were talking about Elijah’s remarkable handling of his late father’s business – taking over at just 19 because he had to support his mother and siblings – that it was an easy decision for us to put him on our list of future interviews. The opportunity to do so came about recently. Dogged determination, a small but solid business to build on, respect for his father’s teachings, and a contract that had to be completed no matter the circumstances are just part of the inspirational story you can read on page 16. Elijah now not only supports his family, but nine employees as well. I believe Elijah Graham is a man you’ll still be reading about, and wanting to know about, for many years to come. His is a small company destined for bigger things. We also profile another family business on page 30 – one set up by Jock Fraser in Hawke’s Bay in 1933. There won’t be many readers who don’t have a connection to one of the many industry groups Jock and Peter Fraser supported over many years: from Federation (CCNZ) both branch and national, Heavy Haulage, Road Carriers and Aggregates. It’s the story of one man starting out with one truck – to which he eventually added “a wheelbarrow, pick, shovel and crowbar” to grow his business. A small business that grew and achieved remarkable success. And a third business that grew from small beginnings to become one of our largest privatelyowned contractors has now joined the ranks of one of the biggest contracting companies in the world. Harris, Etherton and Brownlee formed HEB Drainage in 1975. HEB Construction is now part of the French Vinci group (joining Christchurch-based March Construction which Vinci bought in 2012). “On a day-to-day operational level it will be largely business as usual,” says HEB’s CEO Derrick Adams, “but with the additional financial and technical support to enable us to grow as a company.” See page 4 for more. And, we’ve coverage of two major industry conferences: CCNZ’s inaugural conference in Wairakei, and Heavy Haulage Association’s annual meet in Wellington. Both groups had reason to celebrate positive developments in their respective sectors and confirm the benefits of active participation in industry events. Apart from the serious side of business achieved, such conferences are an opportunity for friendships to be renewed, and successes celebrated. As CCNZ / Hirepool Construction Awards judge Paul Bishop says on page 38, “It was a pleasure and a lot of fun judging the awards. As usual they were of a very high standard and it was difficult to select a winner, but there were a couple of things that were obvious as we visited projects – one was the calibre and quality of the people working on those projects, many of them young women, and we were really impressed at their dedication and standards. We feel the industry is in pretty good shape and has a very good future.” Kevin Lawrence, editor
GENERAL MANAGER & EDITOR Kevin Lawrence DDI: 09 636 5710 Mobile: 021 512 800 Email: kevin@contrafed.co.nz EDITORIAL MANAGER Alan Titchall DDI: 09 636 5712 Mobile: 027 405 0338 Email: alan@contrafed.co.nz REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS Malcolm Abernethy, Richard Campbell, Hugh de Lacy, Peter Gill, Gavin Riley, Mary Searle Bell, Richard Silcock, Jeremy Sole. ADVERTISING / SALES Charles Fairbairn DDI: 09 636 5724 Mobile: 021 411 890 Email: charles@contrafed.co.nz ADMIN / SUBSCRIPTIONS DDI: 09 636 5715 Email: admin@contrafed.co.nz PRODUCTION Design: TMA Design, 09 636 5713 Printing: PMP MAXUM
Contributions welcome Please contact the editor before sending them in. Articles in Contractor are copyright and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the permission of the publisher. Opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the shareholding organisations.
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The official magazine of Civil Contractors NZ www.civilcontractors.co.nz The Aggregate & Quarry Association www.aqa.org.nz The New Zealand Heavy Haulage Association www.hha.org.nz The Crane Association of New Zealand www.cranes.org.nz Rural Contractors New Zealand www.ruralcontractors.org.nz The Ready Mixed Concrete Association www.nzrmca.org.nz Connexis www.connexis.org.nz
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CONTRACTOR UPFRONT
Kopu Bridge, Thames
French giant steps up its Kiwi presence One of our biggest privately-owned contractors, HEB Construction, has been sold to French construction group Vinci for an undisclosed sum. The sale is consistent with Vinci’s three-decade-long drive to position the group as a major player on the international stage. Chris Webb talked to HEB’s ceo, Derrick Adams. Vinci’s bullish growth has included high-profile takeovers stretching from Europe to Asia and include, in 2008, that of one of Britain’s biggest contractors at the time, Taylor Woodrow, for £74 million ($176 million) and geotechnical specialist Soletanche-Bachy. The deal propelled the acquisitive Vinci into the premier league in the UK, giving it a cache of subsidiary firms including contractor Norwest Holst that netted a potential UK projected annual turnover of £1.4 billion ($3.3 billion). At the time, it positioned Vinci as Britain’s third largest civil engineering contractors. HEB Construction is not Vinci’s first foray onto New Zealand soil. Its subsidiary, Soletanche Freyssinet, one of the world’s leading geotechnical firms, bought a 55 percent stake in Christchurch-based family owned business March Construction in 2012. Managing director Guy March said at the time; “March now has the largest financial backing of any construction company in New Zealand.” Vinci, reputed to be the largest construction company in the world by revenue, has considerable financial – and technical – clout. And HEB Construction CEO Derrick Adams says the company’s acquisition will give it the means to pursue bigger and even more technically challenging projects in the future. HEB, predominantly a civil engineering and infrastructure company,
undertakes hydraulic engineering, roadworks, earthworks and port construction. It had a turnover of $260 million in 2014. It adds to Vinci’s growing portfolio of companies giving it a position in highgrowth markets. Gross Domestic Product here increase by more than three percent in 2014 and the construction and infrastructure sectors benefitted to a great extent from a buoyant roading programme and rebuilding effort in Canterbury after the devastating earthquakes four years ago. Headquartered in Auckland and with branches in Waikato, Mt. Maunganui, Rotorua, Gisborne, Blenheim and Christchurch, HEB has been owned by the Pulman family since 1981. Since becoming CEO in 2007, Derrick has overseen the consolidated growth of HEB into the total infrastructure provider that it is today. He told Contractor that part of his mission was to ensure the retention of HEB’s traditional core values, providing a non-hierarchical approach that is both accessible and collaborative. Derrick is Past President and Fellow of the Institute of Professional Engineers New Zealand (IPENZ) and a former member of the Executive Council of Roading NZ. “This [acquisition by Vinci] represents a big opportunity for HEB Construction. Vinci is a world leader with a culture that fits well with us”, he says. “It is people-focused; for us, on a day-to-day operational level it will be largely business as usual, but with the additional financial and technical support to enable us to grow as a company.” Derrick is to stay at the helm as the company’s CEO, and the current board chairman, Geoff Vazey, will remain. Two Vinci-appointed
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representatives will join the Board, he told Contractor. Bruce Pulman is to take on the position of Founding President, a non-executive role in which he will provide insight and guidance on the company’s activities. Ongoing projects will not be affected by the sale, Derrick says. But the acquisition will enable the company to tap into Vinci’s significant specialist capabilities, especially in the areas of ground engineering and tunnelling. “Jobs are getting larger and more technically demanding, more complex; as a privately owned company we could only go so far. That’s why we’ve pursued joint ventures such as that with Fulton Hogan on the [Tauranga] Eastern Link.” The project, a 21 kilometre Road of National Significance, is the Bay of Plenty’s largest roading project and a key strategic transport corridor for the region. It will provide safer and more efficient connections for business, industry and tourism between Tauranga and Paengaroa. The Fulton Hogan HEB Construction Alliance celebrated the official completion of the project at the end of July, as Prime Minister John Key cut the ribbon on the $455 million project. It involved the construction of over 550,000 square metres of new road, 3,000,000 cubic metres of earthworks, the construction of eight bridges and extensive landscaping involving the planting of approximately 300,000 native plants. The Fulton Hogan and HEB Construction Alliance continues to gather pace. Not only is it set to deliver the $350 million Huntly section of the Waikato Expressway for the Transport Agency, another roading project for the Waikato region, but the pair have also bid for the much bigger Hamilton section of the road, where bids in the region of $700 million are anticipated, and which the NZTA is
expected to announce an award this month (September). HEB is already working as sole contractor on another section of the Waikato Expressway under a $160 million contract (see feature on page 20). HEB’s current Cambridge section will pass to the north and east of Cambridge. It will connect with the existing Tamahere interchange to the north and with the existing SH1 to the south of Cambridge town. Interchanges will be built at Discombe Road, Victoria Road and at the southern end of the Expressway where it will join the existing SH1, while a total of eight bridges are included in the scope; the largest being the Karapiro Stream Gully Viaduct (featured on page 26) crossing approximately 200 metres long and 40 metres high. Last year, HEB Construction, as part of the Wellington Gateway Partnership (WGP) announced it had reached financial close on the Public Private Partnership (PPP) contract with the NZ Transport Agency for the Transmission Gully motorway project in Wellington. Vinci Group has a turnover of $65 billion operating in over 100 countries, and employs more than 190,000 worldwide. With its strong focus on combining global expertise with local service, a company statement said it was well placed to provide HEB with the financial strength to support larger projects as well as access to additional expertise and experience. Philippe Chavent, chairman of Vinci Construction International Network, said; “HEB Construction’s fundamentals form an excellent fit with those of VINCI and its new projects reflect its vitality. “One good example is the new contract notification in April of this year to build a 27 km four-lane urban motorway in Wellington. The project, in which HEB is participating as a member of a joint venture.... is one of the island’s largest current infrastructure projects.”
Consortia shortlist The NZ Transport Agency has shortlisted the consortia to build the next stage of the Puhoi to Warkworth motorway project. The consortia shortlisted to receive a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the financing, design, construction, management and maintenance of the Pūhoi to Warkworth project under a PPP are: Northlink – made up of Cintra Developments Australia, InfraRed Infrastructure III General Partner, John Laing Investments, Ferrovial Agroman, and Fulton Hogan. Northern Express Group – made up of the Accident Compensation Corporation, HRL Morrison & Co Public Infrastructure Partners, Acciona Concesiones SL, Fletcher Building; Macquarie Group Holdings
New Zealand, Acciona Infrastructure Australia, The Fletcher Construction Company, and Higgins Contractors. Pacific Connect – made up of Pacific Partnerships, Vinci Concessions SAS, ACS Infrastructure Australia; Aberdeen Infrastructure Investments (No.4), Leighton Contractors, and HEB Construction. The agency says the RFP was issued to the shortlisted consortia last month and it expects to announce a preferred bidder by mid-2016. Subject to successful contract negotiations with that bidder, the PPP contract for the project is expected to be awarded in October 2016, with completion by 2022.
SEPTEMBER 2015 5
CONTRACTOR UPFRONT
Another milestone for Holcim
Holcim’s state-of-the-art 30,000 tonne cement storage dome at Ports of Auckland, Waitemata site.
Improvements to H&S Reform Bill A parliamentary Select Committee has recommended key improvements to the Health and Safety Reform Bill following public submissions. The government also intends to further clarify some provisions in the Bill to provide enough certainty for businesses, particularly small businesses, about what they will be required to do to meet their duties. The key changes are in the following areas: • how volunteers are covered by the Bill; • clarifying the scope of a “workplace”; • clarifying the scope of responsibility of a Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking • creating more flexibility in worker participation; and • clarifying who has a duty as an “officer”. To find out more: tinyurl.com/HealthSafetyReform
The next stage of Holcim New Zealand’s state-of-the-art cement storage dome at Ports of Auckland’s existing Waitemata site is now complete, signaling a major milestone in the project. Holcim is investing $100 million in building two 30,000 tonne new storage facilities in Auckland and Timaru as part of its business strategy of global sourcing for supply into the New Zealand market. The Auckland terminal will provide access to the major market of greater Auckland and the upper North Island while the terminal in Timaru will provide distribution to the South Island market and the lower North Island. Around 75 percent of the cement Holcim New Zealand will supply through the Auckland terminal is for the Auckland market. “The project falls within the existing port operations and the company has all the approvals required,” says Holcim New Zealand country manager, Glenda Harvey. “We continue to work closely with the Ports of Auckland and the Auckland Council to ensure all regulatory requirements are met.”
Hawkins secures waterfront project Hawkins has been appointed as the contractor for a new street upgrade project in Auckland’s Wynyard Quarter. The $18.6 million project to revitalise Madden and Pakenham Streets has been awarded by Waterfront Auckland, the council organisation responsible for the area’s revitalisation. With a similar design treatment to other streets already revitalised in the area, the project will involve a mixture of ground stabilisation, deep drainage, complex services and rain gardens. When completed, it will see both streets transformed into pedestrian friendly boulevards that encourage slower vehicle speeds consistent with the rest of the Wynyard Quarter. The Madden & Pakenham Project is one of the first infrastructure projects in New Zealand to target a design and as-built sustainability rating from the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia (ISCA). The other project seeking ISCA rating is the City Rail Link (CRL), a portion of which Hawkins is delivering in a joint venture with McConnell Dowell. Work on the Madden & Pakenham Project is expected to be completed by the end of 2016.
Storm prone coastal road under repair The NZ Transport Agency has approved emergency funding to repair once again the storm-prone Cape Palliser Road along the southern Wairarapa coastline. Severe winter storms have lashed the region over the past few months and along with high tides have severely damaged sections of the 37.6 kilometre stretch of road which runs along the scenic coast from Lake Ferry to Cape Palliser. In one section of the road an entire lane has been swept away, while in another near the settlement of Ngawi, a bridge has been washed out by surge action. The local council has confirmed it has secured $600,000 in additional funding from NZTA to repair the damage and maintain the road over the next three years. Infrastructure services manager for the South Wairarapa District Council, Mark Allingham says however that funding may revert back to a 50:50 share of costs between the council and NZTA thereafter. Fulton Hogan started temporary repair work in July, which, subject 6 www.contractormag.co.nz
to the weather, is expected to take until late October to complete. The reinstatement work involves putting down new sub-base levels of aggregate and containing these with heavy-duty bidim fabric and cement stabilised aggregate. The bridge will be replaced with a concrete one and benched gabion baskets used for the abutment walls. Forty millimetres of asphalt will then be applied to resurface the road. Spokesperson for Fulton Hogan Mark Large says more work will then need to be done, including positioning large ‘riprap’ armour rock along the sea frontage in an attempt to quell future erosion brought about by the pounding of 8.5 metre high waves. Both Lake Ferry (named after the departure point for the ferry that once plied the tidal Lake Onoke in the mid-1800s carrying live-stock for early settlers) and Ngawi are popular surfing and fishing spots, while the Putangirua Pinnacle Rocks, the lighthouse and the fur-seal population at Cape Palliser are popular tourist attractions. By Richard Silcock
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East Cape, Hawkes Bay & Wairarapa Heath Stewart 029 247 3929
Waikato & Coromandel James West 029 299 8909 Rotorua & Bay of Plenty Shayne Kennedy 029 200 7270
Nelson, Marlborough & West Coast Chris Jones 029 200 8382 Canterbury Matt Holloway 029 208 0423
Central North Island Paul Roche 021 954 376
Otago & Southland Brent Duncan 029 222 4682
Taranaki, Manawatu & Wellington Carl Southee 021 981 850
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CONTRACTOR UPFRONT
Kiwi ingenuity alive and well in the Naki Only in Taranaki would you find old drill pipe, previously used in oil and gas programmes, being used as the foundations for houses. The two Tukapa Street sections in New Plymouth’s Westown had been vacant for several years until Brian Martin Contracting moved a pile-driving machine on site. Sections of drill pipe were driven into the ground to provide a firm foundation for steel beams to be welded on top. “We could not use timber piles as the ground was too unstable and an engineer’s report recommended using the reject drill pipe, joining two sections together at a time and going down up to 24 metres,” says the firm’s managing director Brian Martin. “We successfully completed our part in this project in early August.” And the man behind this innovative use of old steel drill pipe, as well as the construction of the houses, is well known Taranaki construction and property tycoon Willie Still, now aged 89, who is still one of four directors of Westwill Properties, a family business operated from the Kings Building in central New Plymouth, one of several buildings the company owns. “We are doing this in stages, it’s a fill-in job between other projects, so we don’t know when it will be finished, neither do we know the likely final cost,” says Willie at the site. “Outside of Taranaki we would have had to have used new and more expensive steel piles but here we have been able to use old, unwanted drill pipe, about 30 tonnes of it altogether.” He adds that there is plenty of room on the sections, of about 700 square metres each, for two timber houses with three bedrooms and a double garage, as well as small lawns and gardens, to be built. The other directors of Westwill Properties are Willie’s son Michael Still and daughters Glenys Waters and Jennifer Telfer – who says of her father: “He’s still doing extremely well for his age and is still the one with all the knowledge.” By Neil Ritchie
Taranaki construction and property tycoon Willie Still checking out the site he knows so well, having grown up in the nearby family home.
Speeding in NZTA vehicles unacceptable The NZ Transport Agency is to publish travel speeds recorded by GPS units fitted to vehicles in its corporate fleet on a six monthly basis following the recent release of GPS speed data from October 2014 to June 2015. Transport Agency chief executive Geoff Dangerfield says following an upgrade of the Transport Agency’s pool vehicle fleet in 2014, including the installation of GPS units in most of its 147 fleet vehicles, a concerning number of cases have been recorded involving Transport Agency staff travelling at speeds in excess of 100km/h. Dangerfield says that while most travel in Transport Agency vehicles is at safe speeds within legal limits, since the agency began recording data last October there have been a significant number of instances where the GPS units have recorded speeds in excess of the open road limit of 100 km/h, including a handful of cases involving speeds of more than 140km/h. 8 www.contractormag.co.nz
“That would be a serious concern for any employer, but it is simply unacceptable for an organisation like ours with a mandate to promote road safety and safer speeds,” he says. “When it comes to safe driving we need to lead by example and hold ourselves to the highest standard.” Dangerfield says while no travel at speeds over legal limits by staff is condoned, it is also important to put the GPS data in context. More than half (53 percent) of all the speeding instances recorded by GPS units have been for speeds of 101km/h or 102km/h, less than five percent have been for speeds over 110km/h, and less than half of one percent have been for speeds over 120km/h. Data from the GPS units shows that from October to June Transport Agency fleet vehicles travelled more than 1.76 million kilometres, with only a small fraction of that travel distance (0.2 percent) involving speeds higher than 110km/h.
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CONTRACTOR UPFRONT
“Spooky” experiment by NZTA
Jonathan Rowland (Apex Ceilings) vs Tobi Hall (Aspec Construction).
Boxing for prostate cancer Strong support from NZ Strong, Apex Ceilings, Watts & Hughes Construction, Premier Insulation, Access Scaffolding, Labour 365, Acrow, Superior Scaffolds, Aspec Construction, Forman Building Systems and Ewing Insulation was invaluable in creating what turned out to be a very successful and enjoyable night in support of the Prostate Cancer Foundation of NZ. Subcontractors, construction workers and suppliers, all novice fighters, competed in 14 different boxing matches in a Battle of The Construction Industry Fight Night raising just over $9000 to increase awareness of prostate cancer. The slogan used to promote the fights was ‘An act of destruction is an act of construction’.
An experimental single lane road in the Waikato with cycle ways either side of it was quickly abandoned by the NZTA after a short, and much ridiculed, trial. Late last July NZTA created two sets of cycle lanes on either side of Roto-o-rangi Road near Leamington in Cambridge. The 2-1 roading layout removed the three original, white lane markings and replaced them with two lines which formed the cycle lanes and a centre lane wide enough for a single vehicle. The speed limit was reduced to 60kmh to allow cyclists and cars to share the road but within two days, the monitored trial was called off. A similar design, known as Fietsstrook, is used on low-speed Dutch roads, with colour lanes either side for cyclists. Motorists can use the cycle lanes when other cars approach from the opposite direction but must allow cyclists the right of way. The experiment unleashed a barrage of criticism from local councilors. “It’s unanimous around this table that the trial was an absolute disaster and didn’t achieve the results that NZTA were after,” Waipa District Council mayor Jim Mylchreest was quoted as saying in the press. Deputy mayor Grahame Webster said he went to the site after a slew of complaints. “I tell you what, that’s a bloody spooky thing to do. I was only doing 60kmh but when there is a car in front of you and coming the other way, there was great confusion from the locals about where do they go?” NZTA national cycling manager Dougal List said the road layout gave additional priority to cyclists and encouraged drivers to share. The layout was common (sic) in Europe but Roto-o-rangi Road was found to be unsuitable. “We’ve seen that there has been strong public reaction to it and that the layout isn’t right for that location and we’ve reacted quickly to that feedback.”
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A move to secure title for the reclaimed land needed to expand the Sugarloaf Wharf (Te Kouma) along with potential funding partners for longer term development of inner harbour facilities closer to Coromandel Town has been supported by Thames Coromandel District Council. “At the Sugarloaf we need to resolve land ownership title for reclaimed land and that will need iwi input and consultation,” says chief executive David Hammond. The council has also supported finalising contract negotiations with the Coromandel Marine Farmers Association over the development and ownership of the wharf. The proposed development at Sugarloaf Wharf is to ensure it is fit-for-purpose for aquaculture industry expansion as well as suiting the needs of other users including recreational fishers and charter boat operators. There is also the potential within a future expanded facility to consider accommodating the 360 Ferry from Auckland, which currently comes in at Hannaford’s Wharf. To find out more about the project go to www.tcdc.govt.nz/ coroharbourproject.
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TEL open for business New Zealand’s newest stretch of state highway – the $455 million Tauranga Eastern Link (TEL) – opened in early August after four and a half years of construction. The 21 kilometres of four-lane, median divided highway between Tauranga and Paengaroa, south of Te Puke, is the second of seven Roads of National Significance (RoNS) based around New Zealand’s five largest population centres to be completed. It follows Auckland’s Victoria Park Tunnel, finished in 2011. The Transport Agency’s Waikato/Bay of Plenty regional director Harry Wilson says the TEL brings the East Cape and the central North Island closer to the Port of Tauranga and will support the Bay of Plenty’s growth, reduce travel times and improve safety. “The road shaves off around 12 minutes when compared to the old route, which means some freight operators will be able to complete an extra trip each day.” The project involved 550,000 square metres of new road, more than three million cubic metres of earthworks, saw seven new bridges, a number of new intersections, more than 300,000 native plants, a 6.8 kilometre walking and cycle path, and two large scale public artworks. One of the artworks is a 130-metre long pa sculpture, the largest public art piece currently on display in New Zealand. All up there were more than 1.5 million hours worked. “It was a huge undertaking considered one of the most challenging major projects in New Zealand due to the soft ground conditions,” Wilson says. “The TEL project team of the Fulton Hogan HEB Construction Alliance, the Transport Agency and Beca, tackled all of the challenges head on and we finished construction five months ahead of schedule.”
Marina extension project ready to roll The contract to build the second stage of the Bay of Islands Marina has been awarded to Total Marine Services, a New Zealand company with a branch in Opua. The $10 million project includes the land-based civil works associated with the expanded marina. Far North Holdings received seven bids for the contract; three for the marina component, three for the civil engineering works and Total Marine Services’ bid for both elements. A fourmonth due diligence period led to the final decision in early July. Total Marine Group director Tim Yeates says winning the contracts to build the new marina extension and seawall will be a significant boost to the local economy. Up to 33 staff will work on the project with nine of these new jobs filled by people from Opua. In addition, a number of local subcontractors would be engaged to deliver specific aspects of the project. An economic report commissioned by Far North Holdings from Auckland-based consultancy ME Economics indicates that the wider financial benefit to the region will be approximately $23 million a year from year five of the marina becoming fully operational. Research conducted by the Opua Business Association indicates that businesses in the town have forecast a 44 percent growth in turnover and an estimated 60 new jobs as a result of the development. Work will start early this month and is expected to take 18 months to complete.
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Engineering excellence celebrated The Lower Hatea River crossing in Whangarei, a new state-of-the-art building at Middlemore Hospital in Auckland and Wellington’s Clyde Quay Wharf were the gold winners at the 50th annual NZ INNOVATE awards, organised by ACENZ – the Association of Consulting and Engineering Professionals of New Zealand. The three projects received the top accolades ahead of 25 other finalists from across New Zealand. The $30.4 million Hatea River Bridge project in Whangarei was recognised for the engineers’ tenacity, very iterative design process and close collaboration with architects and builders. The bridge is only New Zealand’s second bridge with a lifting mid-section to enable boats to pass underneath. Judges said the 265-metre bridge exemplifies outstanding civil construction, while showing that good design can include functionality and aesthetics. The project was a Transfield/McConnell Dowell joint venture. In winning gold for Manukau District Health Board’s Harley Gray building, Beca was praised by judges for its close collaboration with hospital staff throughout design, and use of energy conserving modelling studies to achieve high energy efficiency. The $124 million Harley Gray building at Middlemore hospital provides 14 new state-of-the-art operating theatre suites and associated clinical services. The third Gold Award went to Dunning Thornton for Wellington’s Clyde Quay Wharf project. This 100 year old, decaying and earthquake prone passenger wharf was successfully converted into an apartment complex with improved public access space. The annual INNOVATE NZ awards celebrate engineering excellence. Past winners include the Britomart Transport Centre in Auckland, Wairakei Geothermal development, the Sky Tower, the Westpac Trust Stadium in Wellington and the USAR Specialists’ Response to the Christchurch earthquake.
Taupiri roundabouts thwart fleeing drivers Waikato police believe roading engineers may be owed a pat on the back after roundabouts in Taupiri contributed to the apprehension of two separate fleeing drivers on the same day. In one incident, the driver of a stolen Ford Explorer, who was trying to flee from the police, crashed into a power-pole on a Great South Road roundabout; in the other a motorcyclist heading north on the Waikato Expressway at about 170km/h failed in his attempt to negotiate a roundabout near the intersection of SH1 and SH1B. The police officer in pursuit arrived in time to see the airborne motorbike going one way and the rider heading in another direction. District road policing manager, inspector Freda Grace said when roading engineers consider plans for roads a variety of factors are considered but she doubted helping to slow down fleeing drivers was one of them. Neither driver was seriously injured.
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SEPTEMBER 2015 13
CONTRACTOR ON THE COVER
Taking charge
with the big
CAT 374FL Built to keep production up and owning and operating costs down, the Cat 374FL large excavator provides the ultimate control on the job site. SASKIA SHELTON explains.
WORKING IN THE WINSTONES BELMONT QUARRY, Goodman Contractors’ new Cat 374FL is one of the first F Series Cat machines of its size in New Zealand. Currently it’s being used to excavate over 200,000 cubic metres of overburden and loading it into 40 tonne dump trucks. The Cat 374FL is built to keep production numbers up and owning and operating costs down and this is true of the new Goodman’s machine. According to company director Stan Goodman, after only two months they have already seen an 18 percent increase in production on their previous excavator – a smaller 50 tonne unit. “[The production] is quite a significant difference,” says Stan. “We think that it can be attributed to the 70 tonne machine just excavating out the harder material much more easily than the 50 tonne machine we had before. “The amazing thing is one of our top operators, Hayley, who comes from a family that has earthworks running in their veins, is operating it at the moment. She is really productive and treats it as her baby, that’s for sure. She loves it. “She’s very impressed with the speed at which it can load and is proud as punch to have a new machine, plus it’s the biggest machine in the fleet, so it’s a real honour for her to be in the seat.” While this excavator is cared for like a baby by its operator, it certainly does not behave like one on site. Controllability is one of the best attributes of the Cat 374FL. This F Series machine features the new ACS valve that’s designed to manage restrictions and flows. Carl Southee, Gough Cat territory manager, says the 374FL opens slowly when the range of joystick lever movement is small, and then opens 14 www.contractormag.co.nz
rapidly when movement is high. “It puts flow exactly where and when it’s needed, making for a smoother operation,” says Carl. “And with great speed and efficiency, and lower fuel consumption. “Major components like the pumps, main control valve, and oil tank are positioned to reduce the effects of heat and excess sound levels on operators. And, they are close together so shorter tubes and lines can be used. All of this results in less friction loss, fewer pressure drops and increased power to the ground for more work to get done.” The Cat 374FL consumes significantly less fuel than the previous series model, and two built-in features help contribute to that: automatic engine speed control and automatic engine idle shutdown. “Automatic engine speed control lowers rpm when the machine doesn’t need it for work. Automatic engine idle shutdown turns the engine off when it’s been idling for more than a specified amount of time and can be set through the monitor,” says Carl. “There is also a choice of two power modes – high power and economy. It is simple to change between the modes through the console switch panel to meet the work needs presented. “Collectively all of these benefits add up to reduced fuel consumption, reduced exhaust and sound emissions, reduced repair and maintenance costs and increased engine life,” says Carl. Goodman’s has opted to have its Cat 374FL excavator factory-fitted with GPS. Louis Cooper from the Goughs Equipment Management Solutions team says the Cat ProductLink™ GPS system is deeply integrated
According to company director Stan Goodman, after only two months they have already seen an 18 percent increase in production from their previous excavator – a smaller 50 tonne unit. into the machine monitoring system, taking the guesswork out of managing your equipment. “The system tracks location, hours, fuel usage, productivity, idle time and diagnostic codes then shares it with you through VisionLink®. “All of this information will help maximise efficiency, improve productivity and lower operating costs.” Other factory-fitted extras that Goodman’s has opted to include are auto grease, extra lighting, extra guarding, fast-fill nozzles and heavy duty protection for the bucket. “We don’t have to touch the machine”, says Stan Goodman. It just goes to work and we can be self-sufficient.” The all-new cab provides a safe working environment, the reinforced frame with special viscous mounts limit vibration and unnecessary sound. The seat range includes air suspension, heated and air cooled options. All seats include a reclining back, upper and lower slide adjustments and height and tilt angle adjustment. “The joystick consoles in the cab can be adjusted to improve comfort and productivity. The joystick levers themselves can also be adjusted for gain and response,” says Stan. “The 374FL has multiple gain and response settings to make the machine respond exactly how you want it to.”
The longevity of machines, the back-up and service they receive are some of the main factors Stans says he takes into account when purchasing a new machine. Although the Goodman’s fleet is a mixture of a variety of brands, Stan adds that it’s predominantly made up of Cat gear. “We’ve gone more and more that way because of their availability. Being all around the district where we work is a big advantage, like Wellington, Palmerston North and Rotorua. Being able to call on Goughs to help fix machinery and even to just keep on the servicing is a real advantage for us. “The support we get from Gough Cat and the back-up is exceptional. They really do go the extra mile”. Goodman’s is currently working on the Kapiti Expressway being built in Wellington and has over 30 dump trucks on the project. “We have been utilising the workshop services of Goughs a lot more recently, because of the number of dump trucks we’ve been running,” comments Stan. “On the job here on the Expressway we are currently running over 30 dump trucks. A lot of the servicing is being done by the guys from Goughs now, which is fantastic. It’s picked up the overload of work that our mechanics were having to do previously.” l SEPTEMBER 2015 15
CONTRACTOR PROFILE
When Elijah stepped up JANE WARWICK talks with young Waikato contractor Elijah Graham about his sudden take-over of his father’s business at the age of 19, home, family and work.
THROUGH Elijah Graham’s Civil Engineering diploma his father Peter passed away. Elijah was just 19 years old and the event changed his life in the worst possible way. Or did it? That gut-wrenching loss of his father has fast-tracked his career and four years later he has taken Graham Contractors to a solid and successful small business that Peter Graham would be hugely proud of. Only those who have been there can comprehend what it is like to lose your father so young, but Elijah Graham’s draw in that hopelessly stacked and sometimes cruel lottery set him on a faith-based path (both
HALFWAY
“I was 19 and as green as green gets when I stepped in, so there was a little bit of sink-or-swim mentality, and it has taken me a few years now, but I’d like to think I have learnt a few things.” spiritual and self-aware) that now supports his mother and his siblings and nine staff. It is a comfortable size and manageable within what Elijah perceives as his capability but it would probably be safe to say he underestimates himself. In those first shell-shocked days he had no choice – Peter had been halfway through the construction of a 14-lot rural residential subdivision. There was no question in Elijah’s mind that it wouldn’t be finished, even if it would prove to be a swan song. It was hard to turn up on his father’s job without Peter there himself admonishing him to not… “scratch my counterweight; and watch out for the boom around the branches on the trees; you scratch this digger, you’re gonna get it!” There was no excuse, his father maintained, for scratching a digger. 16 www.contractormag.co.nz
The only parts that should be touching dirt were the tracks and the bucket. Peter was, says Elijah, like a broken record, but it installed good work principles in his son. It was a miserable time, but there was no question that Elijah wouldn’t finish the job his father had started. “The subdivision needed to be completed, in a timely manner, irrelevant of the circumstances. Graham Contractors had undertaken a contract and had to deliver, period!” It took him three months to complete that job and there were days when sadness overwhelmed him, when he would be trying to dry his eyes as well as keep two hands on the joysticks, but with help from his maternal grandfather who assisted by driving a roller or truck and raked, or whatever else was required, and picnic lunches from his mother, Nicola, who would sit and eat with him and be a willing ear and constant support, he got through. Once that obligation was fulfilled Elijah had time to think about the future and it looked, by then, as if it lay with the business his father had founded. There was his mother, older sister Fiona (now 26), and brothers Mason, Luke and Jacob (now 22, 12 and 11) to support and although the business under Peter was small – more a private contractor working for people he knew – Elijah could see he had laid a good foundation. Paperwork hadn’t been Peter’s forte and his people skills around his employees not so good – in fact he was so pedantic about his machines and how they were to be operated, that Elijah believes it was only being his son that saved him from being shown the door sometimes. However, Peter certainly knew one end of a digger from another and the lay of the land he could read like a book. He worked hard and was a good operator so there was potential in modest Graham Contractors and definitely something to build on.
SEPTEMBER 2015 17
PHOTO: ALAN TITCHALL
CONTRACTOR PROFILE
At this year’s National Excavator Operator Competition in Fielding, Elijah gave a respectable performance and won the Good Bastard (Humes Pipelines) Award.
In the end it wasn’t a tough decision. Elijah knew he could pick up his studies again later (he is now studying with NZIHT) and he had a better grounding than most when it came to understanding what being a civil engineer meant. From as young as 10, in school holidays or weekends, Peter would wake Elijah early and take him off to work. He would explain the job to him, throw him up in the digger, give him that earful about not scratching the machine and set him to it. So the physical side of stepping into his father’s large and sometimes formidable
Everyone is different, but for me, teaching someone to operate, and seeing them do well is where I find my reward.” boots was relatively easy. It was the paperwork that was the real struggle, which gave him new understanding into his father’s reluctant skirmishes with his pen. There were times when it all seemed too much. For the completion of the subdivision he had to produce a monthly progress claim, whatever that was. He needed to raise invoices, manage contracts, liaise with clients, tender for jobs, form attributes – he longed to slam the office door on the lot of it and climb back onto his safe and undemanding digger. But his father’s aversion to paperwork meant his mother had to be a good administrator and this was another significant part of Elijah’s success in taking the business forward. Nicola did his books for him and introduced him to his desk and now, four years on, he can price jobs competitively, produce nonpriced attributes particularly for council work, produce works programmes, manage projects, calculate payment claims and cultivate a 18 www.contractormag.co.nz
practical health and safety culture amongst other administrative tasks. In short, he says wryly, I’m now a pen pusher. This change of seats hasn’t impacted him too badly. At this year’s National Excavator Operator Competition in Fielding he gave a respectable performance despite having spent very little time on a digger in the preceding months. He also won the Good Bastard (Humes Pipelines) Award. Graham Contractors’ most important contracts won to date are the bridge maintenance contract for the Waikato District Council, which it has won for the past four years and a 60-lot subdivision, which is still going. The bridge maintenance contract is something Elijah really enjoys managing as, he says, it’s not your typical type of civil work. “It’s a good change from diggers and dozers not just for me but also for the guys. The subdivision work is great also. It’s been a steady flow of work for the past 16 months. I have a really good relationship with the client, both professional and faith-based, which is a bonus because my faith is very important to me.” And then there are his staff. “One of the things I enjoy and find gratifying about having my own business is teaching people to operate gear and see them do well at it. “For example, I have a young guy who works with me who was very shy and couldn’t even hold a shovel or rake properly when he started. “But after two years, he’s now a competent operator and, because we are a small company, a very important part of the team. I have a few guys with a similar story. Everyone is different, but for me, teaching someone to operate, and seeing them do well is where I find my reward.”
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PHOTOS: NZTA, HEB, AND FLETCHER INFRASTRUCTURE
Waikato Expressway – movin’ along
Construction work on the $2.1 billion, 102 kilometre-long Waikato Expressway is, according to the NZ Transport Agency, ramping up and moving along and is pretty much on schedule for completion by early 2020. By RICHARD SILCOCK. STARTING AT THE intersection of SH1 and SH2 on the southern side of the Bombay Hills, the divided four-lane Waikato Expressway will finish just south of Cambridge in central Waikato. It is the most expensive and largest road construction project undertaken in New Zealand in the past decade and has been a priority of the region’s land transport initiatives for some considerable time. First mooted in the late 1950s, feasibility studies were undertaken by the Ministry of Works, with the route originally designated in 1963. Following amendments in the late 1990s by Opus International Consultants (Opus) and Bloxam, Burnett and Olliver (BBO) construction of various sections of SH1 20 www.contractormag.co.nz
were completed at Pokeno, Mercer, Ohinewai and Tamahere during the early 2000s. In 2009, an expressway strategy was adopted by NZTA and it was advanced as a Road of National Significance (RoNS) in the same year following the National government’s policy statement and report, The Regional Land Transport Funding Strategy. The major part of the expressway is being built in seven sections by a consortium of various contractors and consultants working to a variety of contract packages. From north to south these sections comprise: Longswamp, Rangiriri, Huntly, Ngaruawahia, Te Rapa, Hamilton and Cambridge. NZTA’s Hamilton based highways manager, Kaye Clark says
The 16 kilometre Tamahere to Cambridge section is being undertaken by HEB Construction, with consultants URS and Opus providing the engineering design and advisory services. It is expected to be completed by the end of this year and has eight bridges including a 200 metre-long, 40-metre high viaduct across the Karapiro Gully, just north of the lake.
the expressway is being constructed in sections in accordance with the designation and consenting process associated with a project of this size and magnitude. “Many of the original [SH1] sections began as individual projects with some investigation and design work already underway before it was elevated to an expressway and a RoNS,” says Kaye. “By continuing to work in sections, it has allowed us to stage the construction and help suppliers [the contracting and consulting industry] balance their resources. We have procured each section on the basis of the supplier or consortia being able to deliver a best fit-for-purpose job. Some sections are being delivered as design and construct contracts, while others are competitive alliances. “It is designated an expressway as it essentially comes with a slightly different set of standards than say the Auckland Motorway which has restricted stopping and on/off ramps. All current sections of the expressway have interchanges, while
some of the earlier sections have roads linking at meeting points.” The first part of the expressway to be completed as a RoNs was the eight kilometre Te Rapa section known as Mangaharakeke Drive. This was completed in December 2012 in a competitive alliance comprising NZTA, Opus and Fulton Hogan. It includes six bridges, one of which passes over the main trunk railway line, and connects at Horotiu with the 12.3 kilometre Ngaruawahia section, which was completed in December 2013 under a design/construct contract comprising Fletcher Infrastructure, Higgins Construction and Beca. It includes five bridges, one of which crosses the Waikato River. Traffic is now using both these sections. Earthworks at Rangiriri are now well underway with Fletcher Infrastructure and MWH Global as design consultants contracted under an early contractor involvement model. This section comprises realigning and widening to four lanes SEPTEMBER 2015 21
CONTRACTOR PROJECT
Earthworks looking south from the rise for the Te Kauwhata off-ramp.
over 4.8 kilometres of SH1 and creating a new alignment west of the town and the historic Rangiriri Pa site. It will include the construction of two bridges, one at the Te Kauwhata Interchange and the other at the Rangiriri Interchange and is expected to be completed in early 2017. Fletcher’s project manager, Charles Stokes says the earthworks for this section have proven to be the most timeconsuming aspect of the job due to the variable geotechnical conditions of the ground, the need for long settlement periods where large embankments overlay soft alluvial deposits, and the close proximity to the Waikato River, Lake Waikare and the township of Rangiriri. “The expressway runs down a very narrow corridor of land between the river – which is only 50 metres away in parts – and the lake,” says Charles. “Due to the high water table and soft alluvial flood plain deposits at the southern end, we had to adopt a number of ground improvements including stone columns, drainage blankets and a high number of wick drains. “Around 16 kilometres of stone column has been installed at both the Rangiriri Interchange and for a multiplate culvert structure that spans the historic site. The mid-section is pretty much rolling countryside with a number of shallow gullies which we are now filling.” He says this section has required some 900,000 square metres of earthworks for which they have been using mainly Hyundai 12-40 tonne excavators and 30-40 tonne articulated dump trucks, along with a number of earth scrapers, working six-day weeks when the weather permits. In addition to the road formation, there will be a commemorative area created at the Rangiriri Pa. The 16 kilometre Tamahere to Cambridge section is being undertaken by HEB Construction, with consultants URS and Opus providing the engineering design and advisory services. It is expected to be completed by the end of this year and 22 www.contractormag.co.nz
has eight bridges including a 200 metre-long, 40-metre high viaduct across the Karapiro Gully, just north of the lake. Another bridge is being built to allow horses to safely cross the expressway. Project manager for HEB Construction, Gary Budden says the viaduct has been challenging to construct due to its height above the gully and the depth of the piles. “The viaduct is the most unusual aspect of this section,” he says. “It has taken 20 months to construct and has required 1200 tonnes of high-tension structural steel, 23,000 bolts and 12,000 tonnes of pre-cast concrete. Foundations for the three twin support pylons – each column is 2.7 metres in diameter – required 64 piles to be driven to a depth of between 30 and 69 metres. Around 1185 cubic metres of concrete alone is being poured for the deck, which will be covered with open-graded porous asphalt to form the road pavement. Expanding modular deck joints have also been installed at each end of the viaduct to allow for temperature expansion and heavy loading.” Construction by joint-venture partners Fulton Hogan and HEB Construction on the 15.2 kilometre, $458 million Huntly section will start in September this year, with Opus and Jacobs Design providing design services. Gaia Engineers and Bartley Consultants are providing specialist subcontracting services, and BBO will act as the client’s representative. Fulton Hogan and HEB joint venture project manager, Tony Dickens says the most challenging aspect of this section will be the rugged nature of the ground which comprises greywacke, various types of clay, sand, volcanic deposits, peat and old coal mine tailings from the Huntly East mines. “The expressway skirts Huntley, running to the east of the town and will entail almost four million cubic metres of earthworks and an 80-metre deep cutting through the Taupiri Range,” says Tony. “We will utilise over a million cubic metres of the cut material as fill elsewhere and we expect it will take
three years to complete. Due to the depth of the cutting, tiered battered terraces will be constructed, and the road gradient will be between 3.5 percent to a maximum of six percent. “This section will see the construction of two half-diamond interchanges and nine bridges, four of which will cross tributaries of the Waikato River,” he says. “The other four bridges will carry roads over the expressway, while the other will cross the railway line. Again, due to the nature of the ground, we will be driving 60-metre deep piles for the foundations. These bridges will be constructed using weathering steel and pre-stressed concrete.”
Southern Interchange of the Cambridge section taking shape.
As this section of the expressway crosses important historical sites (including pre-European, Maori borrow/storage pits and remnants of what was a large horticulture area) and significant ecological habitats, NZTA and its design consultants built strong relationships with local iwi during the planning stages of the project. This resulted in a cultural mitigation plan being developed and agreed by Waikato Tainui to ensure ongoing consultation is maintained throughout the construction period. In keeping with this plan will be the installation of pou whenua, while several of the bridges will feature reliefs of awa and native wildlife found in the area. In addition there will be
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Earthworks on the Rangiriri section.
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SEPTEMBER 2015 23
CONTRACTOR PROJECT
A 280 tonne Hitachi Sumitomo crane lifting a steel girder onto one of the Karapiro Viaducts central piers.
enhancement of 100 hectares of forest and native bush habitat, landscaping and restorative planting of wetlands, replanting along parts of the river and the preservation of several historic pa sites (Otaahau and Te Uapata). Archaeologists will be assisted by an iwi archaeologist to record and preserve any significant ‘finds’ while a kaiarahi will work alongside the construction team as a cultural monitor. This consultative approach has resulted in NZTA and consultants BBO being awarded the NZ Planning Institute’s 2015 Nancy Northcroft Best Practice Award. “Through this close collaboration and engagement with iwi and other key parties throughout the development stages of this section we have not required any RMA consent hearings,” says Kaye Clark. “And there has been only one brief hearing to finalise the designation conditions.” Waikato Tainui CEO, Parekawhia McLean says she is pleased NZTA actively engaged tribal members in all areas of the Huntly section. “The involvement of our people in this aspect of the project is of great importance to the tribe,” she says. “We established a working group of marae representatives so that we could engage with the agency, its contractors and with the project’s archaeologists, whose recent ‘finds’ reaffirm our historical connection to this land. We are the direct descendants of the early Maori who settled in this area – they are our ancestors.” Huntly will be followed by the 21.8 kilometre Hamilton section under a competitive alliance contract. Two consortia have been selected to bid for this work and tenders are expected to be announced in October. This section will include 15 bridges across various steep gullies along with large scale earthworks and an interchange at the southern end. 24 www.contractormag.co.nz
The last section to be constructed will be the 5.9 kilometres at Longswamp which is expected to be tendered in early 2016 and will entail widening the existing SH1 to four lanes and providing improved local road connections via an overbridge. Kaye Clark says all the contractors are complying with the development and implementation of a range of compliance and mitigation plans and have fostered good relationships with local communities, land owners and regional authorities. The progress of the expressway has been welcomed by the region’s civic leaders, who all say it will provide for increased traffic capacity well into the future, greater safety with the separated carriageway and that it will help stimulate economic growth and productivity in the agricultural, tourism and business centres of the Waikato and Bay of Plenty regions. When complete, the expressway will shave around six kilometres off the old SH1 route and replace it as the key transport corridor for traffic through the Waikato region. Fuel savings and journey times for motorists and freight companies will be greatly reduced with time savings expected to be in the region of 35 minutes with the traffic congestion that was experienced on SH1 at the ‘pinch points’ of Huntly, Ngaruawahia, Hamilton and Cambridge alleviated. While a large proportion of the expressway is ‘greenfields’ construction, parts of SH1 are being utilised, upgraded and widened. Those parts of the old highway that remain will be re-designated local roads and given a new name, while other parts may possibly become cycle-ways. NZTA say there are no plans to toll the expressway, and while there is no intention to add additional lanes in the foreseeable future there is sufficient road reserve to accommodate an additional lane in each direction should it be needed.
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Simple yet unique ALAN TITCHALL visits the construction site of the highest and longest bridge built on the new Waikato Expressway near Cambridge, and the first in the country to be built to the latest bridge structure standards. AS FAR AS THE construction of the Cambridge section of the Waikato Expressway goes the Karapiro Gully viaduct bridge may have been one of the easiest bits of the whole project to construct, but it is the bit that everyone wants to see. The 200-metre viaduct has been of interest to contractors around the country and was the highlight of the field trip during the AQA/IoQ conference this year. At 40 metres between the ground and bridge deck at one point, it is also the highest, just three meters shorter in height than the Auckland Harbour Bridge. Other unique features include the use of self-compacting concrete and the fact that, through careful design around the use of 280 tonne crane and steel and concrete, it was relatively inexpensive to build. 26 www.contractormag.co.nz
Four decades in the making The $230 million Cambridge section of the Waikato Expressway involves a 16 kilometre, four-lane highway being built between Tamahere and Cambridge. It is the seventh and southern-most section of the Waikato Expressway. The project involves eight bridges, including the viaduct. Although work started two years ago, the expressway was designated in 1963. The Karapiro Gully Bridge at the southern end of the section (just before the Cambridge interchange) should be finished in December – about seven months ahead of schedule.
AQA/IoQ conference delegates were bused to the site in July on a field trip. The bridge beams are resting on 2.6 metre wide, concrete piers. Each pier is sitting on eight piles rammed into the ground. There are 64 of these piles (eight under each pier pad) that have been driven down up to 62 metres deep on the south side of the gully, and 30 metres deep on the north side.
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CONTRACTOR PROJECT
Design and site preparation The steep banks of the Karapiro Gully and its meandering stream made for a challenging construction site. An access track was built to get everything to the gully floor; a temporary bridge was built to cross the stream; slopes were cut back and temporarily retained to create a safe working space; and brown rock was used to replace weak ground and make it stable enough for the heavy bridge building equipment and to accommodate the existing flood plain. The site consumed 450,000 tonnes of aggregate; 200,000 tonnes of brown rock, and 150,000 cubic metres of sand (for sub-grade improvement loading). Most of this material came from the local Whitehall Winstone Quarry. Because of the pre-European history in the area, including a pa site on the northern side of the gully, Heritage New Zealand, Ngaati Koroki Kahukura Trust and Ngaati Hauaa have been involved in the project. A 280 tonne crawler crane, the biggest HEB has in its fleet, did a lot of the work and steered a lot of the ‘thinking’ around the design and construction of the bridge. The bridge beams were lifted into place from the bottom of the gully by the crane with help from a smaller, 150 tonne crane for the more difficult lifts. Special working platforms were built and hung from the beams to allow men to fit them into place using 23,000 weathering steel bolts that were precisely torqued.
Deep piles The bridge beams are resting on 2.6 metre wide, concrete piers. Each pier is sitting on eight piles rammed into the ground. There are 64 of these piles (eight under each pier pad) that have been driven down up to 62 metres deep on the south side of the gully, and 30 metres deep on the north side. The ground in the region is typically made up of sand, silt and volcanic ash material (susceptible to water) that has been swept or blown down from the Lake Taupo region during past eruptions. Such ‘pile’ bridge technology performed extremely well during the Christchurch earthquakes. The piles were constructed by driving a 710mm diameter, 12-metre, hollow steel tube into the ground. Each 12-metre section was welded together on site to make up the required length of each pile. The piles were driven into the ground using a large hydraulic impact hammer lifted on top of the pile with the crawler crane. The steel cylinders were then filled with concrete and reinforcing. A total of 2500 metres of steel casing was eventually used for the 64 piles, which took 77 days to complete, or an average of 1.2 days to drive and fill each pile with reinforcing steel and concrete. The viaduct columns are 2.6m diameter solid concrete. The two columns for the central pier are the tallest at a height of 35 metres. It is worth noting that ‘self compacting’ concrete was used, which consolidates under its own weight, which eliminated the need for manual compaction. Around 12,000 tonnes of concrete was used, not including pre-cast concrete.
The beams Some 1100 tonnes of structural steel makes up the spans holding up a 200 metre long, 23 metre wide bridge deck, which 28 www.contractormag.co.nz
Project manager for HEB Construction, Gary Budden says the viaduct has been challenging to construct due to its height above the gully and the depth of the piles. “It has taken 20 months to construct and has required 1200 tonnes of high-tension structural steel, 23,000 bolts and 12,000 tonnes of pre-cast concrete. Foundations for the three twin support pylons – each column is 2.7 metres in diameter – required 64 piles to be driven to a depth of between 30 and 69 metres.
features expansion joints at either end. Most of the weathering steel came from Napier based company Eastbridge and was sourced from China. The plate thickness ranges from 50mm to 120mm. The deck features standard precast concrete barriers with galvanised handrails. Simple and plain it may be, but the Karapiro Gully Bridge has one more outstanding attribute – it must, currently, be the strongest bridge in the country as it was built to the latest ‘technical approval and certification procedures’ required by the NZ Transport Agency for highway structures on state highways’. You can view the Karapiro Viaduct being built via live webcam at www.karapirogully.co.nz
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CONTRACTOR COMPANY PROFILE
The House of FRASER From the 1930s to the 1980s a contracting father and son made a huge contribution to the provision of infrastructure in Hawke’s Bay. GAVIN RILEY interviews a fellow 78-year-old, Peter Fraser. JOCK FRASER DEFIED superstition when he
Above: Peter Fraser and his wife Margaret. The couple have been married 51 years and have a son and two daughters.
Opposite page: 1. J ock Fraser had mechanical skills, strong hands and a good brain. 2. The Fraser company’s Anderson portable crusher on a Commer car chassis with solid tyres. Note the pick and shovel operation. 3. Jock Fraser’s “Big John” transporter hauling Downer’s Allis-Chalmers HD21 dozer from Wellington to Marsden Pt. 4. I n 1949 Jock Fraser bought 19 Guy FABX searchlight trucks from the Army. 5. J ock Fraser’s first truck, an International SF 46. 6. In 1951 Jock bought the first of six new S Bedford trucks. 7. A mixture of plant at the Fraser company’s yard.
30 www.contractormag.co.nz
founded his own contracting business in Hastings on Friday the 13th, but the year itself was auspicious. It was January 1933 – the year Jules Fulton and Bob Hogan began their contracting partnership in Dunedin and Arnold Downer founded his company in Wellington. Jock was the youngest in a family of 11 and had migrated to Hawke’s Bay from Aberdeenshire in Scotland 20 years earlier, aged two. He began as John Fraser Contractor with an International SF 46 truck bought from a brother for whom he had previously worked. His first job was carting petrol in cans from Hastings to Taupo, returning with split battens and posts for a local merchandising firm. He then acquired a wheelbarrow, pick, shovel, and crowbar, and purchased a shingle plant from his brother. He and his first labourer, who was his best friend, would hand-screen 60 cubic yards of shingle a day onto two threeyard trucks, earning 7s 6d a cubic yard. In 1936 Jock bought a prized new Diamond T truck and purchased a second the following year. After World War Two broke out, he worked 85 days non-stop with a power shovel and 30 men to build air-raid shelters in Napier and Hastings – no one else in Hawke’s Bay had the required machine. Jock had built the power shovel in 1937, a feat the famous Ruston Bucyrus manufacturer in Britain found so hard to believe that it sent a representative to New Zealand to check out the claim. Jock saw war service in the Royal New Zealand Air Force, first in New Caledonia then in Tauranga-based air-sea rescue operations. After the war he continued to expand his
company in earthmoving, road construction, general contracting, aggregate production and transport. A motor mechanic and engineer by training, he built his own contracting machines and metal-crushing equipment. In 1947 he bought a Ruston Bucyrus 10RB, complete with dragline, backhoe and face shovel, from the New Zealand machinery supplier, John Burns & Co. And in 1949 he purchased 19 Guy FABX searchlight trucks from the New Zealand Army which he converted into cranes, power shovels and pipe carriers. Jock had two sons, Maurice and Peter, and in the mid-1950s he changed the company’s name to John Fraser & Sons Contractors. Peter, who had inherited his father’s mechanical bent and drive, travelled to the UK in 1960 at the age of 23 and between March and August enjoyed a packed and exhilarating OE during which he toured France, Spain, Switzerland and Germany on a motorcycle, visited Germany’s MercedesBenz factory, watched the Le Mans 24-hour race in France and other motor-racing events at Silverstone in England, had a chance meeting with Downer employee Norm McKenzie which was later to prove significant, and turned down a job offer as a heavy-transport driver with the Cooper car company, whose racing drivers included Jack Brabham and Bruce McLaren. Duty prevailed over pleasure. “I decided I was wasting my time and asked myself who would take over Dad’s business,” recalls Peter, now 78. So he returned to Hastings and was employed first in the workshop (where he rebuilt 19 S Bedford trucks), then in a managerial role. Two years later, when Peter was still living at home at the age of 25, father and son decided
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CONTRACTOR COMPANY PROFILE
one evening that Peter should take over running the company, including (Peter’s conditions) the right to sign the cheques and the right to hire and fire. Next day at 7am the staff of 36 were informed of the changeover. Jock continued to be influential in the company’s operation, but it was an unexpectedly tough step-up for young Peter when a major fire broke out at J Wattie Canneries, where over the years the Fraser company had carried out considerable earthworks and done cartage jobs such as delivering locally grown peas and taking Wattie’s equipment to Gisborne and Christchurch. “John Fraser & Sons moved in about 4pm with front-end loader and trucks and removed all the still-burning material,” remembers Peter, who was a volunteer fireman for some years. Jock, a long-time member of the No 5 District Roads Council, used his influence and a £250 deposit to hire a Ministry of Works compressor which Watties urgently needed to continue to run its plant. Next day Jim Wattie found out about the deposit and immediately gave Jock a cheque for £250. “They were the greatest of mates,” Peter says. “We had the factory going at 5pm next night and did all the demolition of the old factory. It was one of the major jobs we did.” Another major job occurred the following year, 1963, when Downer’s Norm McKenzie – the Kiwi Peter had met on his OE – secured John Fraser & Sons’ 32 www.contractormag.co.nz
“Dad ran the company, did the tenders and got the biggest contracts in Hawke’s Bay. He had a pair of big hands and a brain. He was quite a negotiator in striking deals.” services in the construction of Napier airport. More work for Downer followed in the building of cool stores for the Apple and Pear Board in Hastings and the Farmers’ Meat Co at Whakatu. With the aid of a “Big John” transporter Jock had built, the company hauled a Downer Allis-Chalmers HD21 dozer from Maungaraki in Wellington to Marsden Pt, then transported a Carryrall scraper from Napier airport to the same site. The HD21 and Carryall were the first machines to move dirt at the Marsden Pt oil refinery. Fraser Ltd did other important haulage work. It transported Downer machines from Napier airport to projects at the Whararatas on the Wairoa-Gisborne road, and from the airport to the Matahina Dam in the Bay of Plenty. It moved equipment needed by Wellington contractor Feast & McJorrow for a major contract on the Napier-Taupo road, and other machinery required for Egmont land development. And when a transporter operated by George Dale broke down, it stepped in to take equipment to the Kapuni gas plant project. It was a golden era for the Frasers, whose workforce peaked at more than 70. They laid a 24-inch (600mm) sewer pipeline from Whakatu to Havelock North, built the road from Havelock North
bridge known as the bypass, and carried out the earthworks for all major building in Hastings. Transporting the Hawke’s Bay pea harvest to Watties was a huge annual task, which Peter says required 11 trucks. “One year alone the total mileage for those trucks was equal to 2½ times round the world. We did that in 80 days, 24 hours a day, seven days a week and the only day off we had was Christmas Day.” After Peter took over as company head, Jock Fraser became heavily involved in industry organisations such as the Contractors’ Federation, Road Carriers’ Association, Aggregates Association and Heavy Haulage Association. He helped found the North Island Heavy Haulage Association (as did Peter), was a Contractors’ Federation national councillor from 1964-71, chaired the Hawke’s Bay branch from 1968-71, and was made a branch life member in 1975, nine years before his death at the age of 72. In 1974 John Fraser & Sons Contractors merged with Hawke’s Bay Transport Holdings, after which Peter busied himself with designing and building the Fraser Shingle plant at Fernhill. “I was 36 at the time and the youngest guy in New Zealand to build a shingle plant of that size – production was in excess of
Above: Before and after photos of Fraser refurbishment of a Link Belt Speeder and Ian McDonald 60-ton 2½-yard dragline.
100,000 tonnes a year.” He bought a Barmac Rotopactor crusher and became involved in detailed modifications which brought him into fruitful and friendly contact with Paul Tidmarsh of Tidco (“it was a perfect relationship”). He also purchased a Kumbee hammermill, which he modified extensively to make it much more costefficient. In mid-1987 Hawke’s Bay Transport Holdings sold Fraser Shingle to Milburn New Zealand (now Holcim) and one year later, when the new owner laid off 28 staff nationwide in the wake of the sharemarket crash, Peter Fraser found himself taking early retirement. But his family is still in the industry: his son Scott spent 28 years at Fraser Shingle, now works for Higgins Aggregates in Hawke’s Bay, and has his quarry manager’s certificate. Peter says he has been a 1/35thscale modeller all his life. He has just completed a sheepsfoot roller, has nearly finished a D7 dozer, is about to embark on a LeTourneau Carryall, and has received a lot of helpful technical
information from Contractor’s “classic machines” writer, Richard Campbell. “I’ve been very, very lucky,” he says of his contracting career, despite its early end. He believes he inherited many of his skills from his father. “He was a very, very strong man when you consider how he survived with pick, shovel, crowbar and a wheelbarrow. “My mother looked after the books and paid the wages right up till John Fraser & Sons Contractors was formed in the mid-’50s. Dad ran the company, did the tenders and got the biggest contracts in Hawke’s Bay. He had a pair of big hands and a brain. He was quite a negotiator in striking deals. “He knew when he had money in the bank and if he could buy it he bought it. He would never own anything unless he could pay for it. He didn’t believe in hire-purchase. “I bought a Commer on hirepurchase at 1.75 percent interest and Dad went ballistic. In the finish I bought 28 Commers and the last was at 3.75 percent.”
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CONTRACTOR CIVIL CONTRACTORS’ CONFERENCE 2015
Inaugural CCNZ conference Wairakei was the venue for the first Civil Contractors New Zealand conference after the Contractors’ Federation absorbed the assets and membership of Roading NZ last year and changed its name to create a new industry body for contractors. If not for anything else, the 2015 conference will always be remembered for the sheer volume of rain that fell in the area (if not over the country) during the three-day event, provoking that song from Travis, ‘why does it always rain on me?’ The cold snap also gave the conference its own shivers, particularly the three sit-down dinner events in what must be one of the biggest marquees in the country that had been propped up behind the old Wairakei Resort Taupo – a working monument to the
Joe Edwards
34 www.contractormag.co.nz
1980s if there ever was one. The conference got off to a good start with the traditional president’s welcome and McConnell Dowell quiz night. CCNZ president Dave Connell thanked members for their confidence in making the big amalgamation last year. “We haven’t shown you the love you deserve in the past,” he said as an apology that wasn’t further explained. Gary Richardson, the sales & marketing director of Hirepool, was introduced as the new executive board member representing equipment suppliers, and Dave placed a focus on the new apprenticeship scheme to be launched in November and a bright future in general for the industry.
“We control a significant part of the economy. The future is there for us to grab,” he said. And that was a theme for the rest of the conference – opportunity, as the NZTA committed its funding to the future year in terms of roading projects. On behalf of the event sponsor, Joe Edwards also talked about attracting young people into the industry – “the right young people”, he said. “The apprenticeship [scheme] will be a qualification equal to, if not better, than anything else out there.” This year the quiz very cleverly made delegates search among the trade stands for their answers, resulting in a great networking first night.
Dave Connell
New chief executive
AGM presentation
New CCNZ chief executive Peter Silcock, after six week in the job, said his background and expertise was in running industry organisations and he was looking forward to meeting as many members as he could, adding value to memberships and representing members’ interests. “Anything you want to talk about – we have an open door policy,” he said.
Contrafed Publishing general manager Kevin Lawrence presented an update of the company to the executive council and members at CCNZ’s first AGM. In council matters Joe Edwards retired as past president after 13 years on the executive. The vice president vacancy (after Woody Blakey’s term expired) went to Brian Warren. The term of office of the president, Dave Connell, expired this year, but
there were no nominations for the position. Dave Connell accepted the role for another term. Cos Bruyn and Colin Calteaux were reelected, while James Craw was elected onto the council for the first time. Hirepool’s Gary Richardson was elected ‘associate executive councillor’. The 2016 conference will be held somewhere in Auckland with the possibility of a site visit added to the programme.
Increase in roading spend over the next three years Tommy Parker, general manager highways at NZTA, made his usual presentation, while the agency also had a booth in the trade display area for the first time. “We reassure you that we have a lot of work in the pipeline,” he told delegates. “Freight demand is dictating a lot of roading decisions – we connect centres of economic activity.” Road funding, Tommy explained, is determined in three-year blocks, and a new round started in July this year
amounting to a spend of $6.4 billion (a 30 percent increase on the past three-year round) between now and July 2018. RoNS make up the lion’s share of this spend, but there’s a big increase in the mid-size project spend and a bigger spread across the country. Referring to the $160 million shortfall in the funding that was made up by ‘squeezing assets’, Tommy conceded that the net effect, good or bad, won’t surface for a number of years. He also said the agency was
committed to working in partnership with the industry.
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CONTRACTOR CIVIL CONTRACTORS’ CONFERENCE 2015
Chase that dosh Richard Wade, NZTA, on procurement: Government procurement with third parties at $39 billion makes up 18 percent of GDP. For a forward view of government spending check out www.infrastructure.govt.nz/plan/evidencebase
Paula Evans and Dave Connell
Auction for Safety Council For the fifth year in a row NZ Equipment Group (National Equipment) sponsored an auction at the CCNZ/Hirepool Construction Excellence Awards Dinner having raised over $100,000 in the past four years. This year Wacker Neuson equipment was auctioned off and raised $20,000 for the Safety Council.
Z Emerging Leader Award From left to right: Janet Brothers (judge and CEO of Life Care Consultants), Nic Williams (Z General Manager of Commercial – sponsor of Z Awards), Dave Connell (President of CCNZ), award winner Chris Ashton, and Mark Watson (judge and Customer Relationship Manager at Z). 36 www.contractormag.co.nz
Awards sponsor’s $25m investment The CCNZ Hirepool Construction Awards is sponsored by Hirepool, which has been the Principal Business Partner to CCNZ for the past 11 years. Hirepool sales & marketing director Gary Richardson said what made the award evening extra special for them this year was that Hirepool is enjoying its 60th year of business. “And boy, has the company and hire game changed over the past few decades,” he says. “We’ve seen construction techniques become more sophisticated, equipment more specialised and a shift in construction companies’ perspectives. “The view that businesses are best served by owning their own equipment is changing. By means of controlling costs and better management of capital, you are increasingly turning to the equipment hire industry to seek safe and modern equipment that’s fully fit for purpose.” Gary says the company has developed a large range of equipment and a broad customer base who want to get the job done productively and safely, and the recent floods in Whanganui were a great example of how a company like Hirepool and its people need to be ready to respond. “We are again committed to ensuring our customers receive the very best quality fleet, and to this end we are investing $25 million in new fleet, including significantly growing our onsite capability.” Every award category winner received a Toki, the symbol of rank, uniquely from Aotearoa and used in all facets and ceremonies in Maori culture. “In keeping with this symbol of chiefliness, it is awarded to those companies that have displayed a high level of industrial leadership through technical competence.”
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CONTRACTOR CIVIL CONTRACTORS’ CONFERENCE 2015
CCNZ/Hirepool Construction Excellence Awards 2015 CATEGORY 1 Projects with a value of less than $0.5 million WINNER– BridgeIT New Zealand for the McLaren Falls Predestrian Bridge built for the Western Bay of Plenty District Council. CATEGORY 2 Projects with a value between $0.5 million and $5 million WINNER – Steve Bowling Contracting for the Kotuitui Whitinga Footbridge for Whangarei District Council.
Paul Bishop
A word from the judges Paul Bishop speaking on behalf of the award judges (himself and Dave MacDonald for categories 1, 2, 5 & 6) said: “It was a pleasure and a lot of fun judging the awards. As usual they were of a very high standard and it was difficult to select a winner, but there were a couple of things that were obvious as we visited projects – one was the calibre and quality of the people working on those projects, many of them young women, and we were really impressed at their dedication and standards. We feel the industry is in pretty good shape and has a very good future. “The second thing we noted was the value of collaboration between the principals and contractor, and the savings and innovation that is resulting from it, and benefiting both parties in a true collaboration. We saw many examples where a lot of money had been saved and projects were developed that were totally different from that originally envisaged, but worked really well.” Peter Hay and Steve Hart were judges for categories 3 & 4. “We were most impressed by the quality of all the finalists and we were struck by the amount of effort that is put into planning these days before the job is started, said Peter. ‘Collaboration’ has come a long way. “I can tell you a story about collaboration 10 years ago. I was at the opening of a rebuilt Ohakea runway and the two contractors that worked on the job were Higgins and Fulton Hogan. The Minister of Defence opened the runway and he came over and said what a fantastic marriage between you guys, you should do more of this. Michael Higgins, quick as a flash, says, ‘it was just a one night stand’! We have come down a long road since then on collaboration. “The other thing we noted among our projects, and some of them were very big, was that there was a wide spectrum of delivery contracts being used from good old NZS 3s through to NEC contracts, ETIs and alliances, and combos of different contracting methods. I think this is refreshing to see and congratulations to the clients for having the conviction to use these new contracting forms. “The enthusiasm and pride that the finalists exhibited when we viewed their projects was amazing. We were well looked after. CCNZ should be very proud, not just of the winners, but all the finalists. It is just a shame we can only have one winner in each category. However, the awards are more than just the winners as the quality of all entries was just fantastic and the contracting community is being well served, so well done all of you.” 38 www.contractormag.co.nz
CATEGORY 3 Projects with a value between $5 million and $30 million WINNER – McConnell Dowell Constructors for the Waitaki Bridges Replacement for the NZ Trasnport Agency. CATEGORY 4 Projects with a value greater than $30 million WINNER – Fulton Hogan HEB Construction Alliance for the Tauranga Eastern Link for NZ Transport Agency. CATEGORY 5 Excellence in the maintenance and management of assets WINNER– Infrastructure Alliance: Downer New Zealand and Hamilton City Council. CATEGORY 6 Excellence in routine maintenance WINNER – Downer New Zealand: Nelson City Council Road Maintenance.
Z People Awards recognising outstanding achievements of individuals with the industry Winner of the Z Emerging Leader Award this year was Chris Ashton from McConnell Dowell and the Well-Connected Alliance for NZTA (Auckland branch). Winner of the Z Training Development Award was David Kingham from Fulton Hogan – Bay of Plenty.
Connexis Company Training & Development Awards Up to $10 million turnover WINNER – Construction Contracts $10-$25 million turnover WINNER – Blakely Construction $25 million + turnover WINNER – Goodman Contractors
David Kingham from Fulton Hogan
See www.contractormag.co.nz for more conference photos
SEPTEMBER 2015 39
CONTRACTOR CIVIL CONTRACTORS’ CONFERENCE 2015
Is that you under that hat? It would be an understatement to say the themed dinner night at the conference each year is a conference highlight. This year’s dress-up dinner, sponsored by CablePrice was themed ‘Wild Wild West’. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental (Ed).
The trade hall Without them, there would be no conference – just a few of the trade stands at the Wairakei conference pitching new and innovative products and services.
40 www.contractormag.co.nz
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CONTRACTOR HEAVY HAULAGE ASSOCIATION ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2015
Heavy Haulers celebrate success Wellington recently hosted another successful conference for the Heavy Haulage Association. The big news this year, after seven years’ campaigning, was the changes achieved to the VDAM rules. CEO Jonathan Bhana-Thomson, welcomed the new regulations and delegates to the annual conference. MARY BELL reports.
HEAVY HAULAGE ASSOCIATION CEO Jonathan Bhana-Thomson says the big success for
the association this year has been the removal of the null and void clause from the VDAM rule. Until recently, if an over dimension vehicle breached any condition of its permit, the permit was voided. This meant penalties for the load were calculated from a base of 44 tonnes (the maximum gross weight for most truck and trailer combinations), and the resulting fines were staggering. “The fines were unreasonable – up around $30,000-$40,000. They could put you out of business,” says Jonathan. “We’ve been seeking change for a long time and this result is fantastic.” Now, under the revised rule, if a critical condition of a permit is breached, the total fine will be significantly lower than previously because the permit won’t be voided. If an additional condition of the permit is breached, then the fine will only be for that breach – for example, if you’re overweight on a single axle you will only incur the fine set for the overload of that one axle.
Taking it in good humour WHAT A PROUD Hurricanes supporter wears when he’s on the
losing end of a bet with Otago fan Alex McCleland. Paul Britton was obliged to not only wear a Highlanders jersey to the cocktail function held at the Westpac Stadium but also had to sing the praises of the winning team to the gathered guests, which he did with good humour and aplomb.
Bad boys, bad boys – whatcha gonna do? “The more you take liberties, the more heat we will put on.” Constable Gwynne Pennel scolded conference delegates, saying heavy hauliers are not in the CVIU’s good books this year. The police are issuing infringement notices for basic heavy haulage compliance tasks, such as missing hazard panels and loads being shifted outside the times on the permit. Gwynne illustrated her point with a number of photos taken in the past few months of
42 www.contractormag.co.nz
houses being moved that were much bigger than the size of the load outlined on the permit – several metres in each direction bigger! On the positive side of things, she said that with the changes to the VDAM (Vehicle Dimensions and Mass) rule that came into effect on July 8, overweight infringements are no longer likely to garner the crippling fines they were. The rule now distinguishes three ‘critical’ conditions
– exceeding the gross weight on the permit, exceeding a design limit such as gross vehicle mass, or failing to observe bridge restrictions. A key feature of the updated rule is the removal of the reference to the permit being voided if any condition is breached. Gwynne did point out that the CVIU still has the power to void permits, and they will if the offender has a history of permit breaches or the breach is disproportionately large.
Accident prone LAWYER ANDREW MCINTRYE from DAC Beachcroft says the total number of
Cocktail laughs
injured workers in New Zealand each year would fill Eden Park four times over and costs the tax payer around $3.5 billion dollars. Compared to our cousins across the ditch, our stats don’t look good. In 2014 Australia recorded its lowest number of workplace fatalities in 11 years so it is no wonder our new health and safety bill models Australia’s. Andrew’s colleague Richard Flinn provided more detail on the new bill, saying the regulator is no longer looking for the single party most responsible – now, a number of different parties could be investigated and prosecuted in the case of an accident. Your duty to your employees, contractors, subbies, and pretty much anyone on your worksite, is to provide the “highest level of protection”. You must ensure, “so far as is reasonably practicable”, the health and safety of those persons. Richard warns that the new legislation reaches right into the boardroom – directors could face fines of up to $600,000, which is not insurable, if they haven’t done all they can to ensure the business is up to scratch. “Giving instructions is not enough, you need to ensure that procedures are in place so that instructions are followed.”
“MY CRICKETING CAREER didn’t really take off until I took up commentating – then I became an expert at everything.” Coaxing more than a few laughs at the cocktail function was guest speaker, former cricketer turned commentator, John “Mystery” Morrison. Andrew McIntyre
Richard Flinn
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CONTRACTOR HEAVY HAULAGE ASSOCIATION ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2015
Future technology
Calling it a day
NZTA NATIONAL structures manager Barry
NOEL BAKER of Hastings House
Wright says the agency is looking to use GPS to verify compliance with permits, although this is a “wee way off yet”.
Removals plans to retire at Christmas after 33 years in the business. “I’ll probably end up doing pilot work but I’ll work the hours I choose.”
Accolades for the faithful THE CAREER OF INDUSTRY
icon Peter Jacob was saluted at the conference. He attended his first conference in 1975 and hasn’t missed a single one since!
Discussion time and coffee networking
Overloading habits GRAHAM TAYLOR, national network optimisation manager for the NZTA, says the agency is recording instances of “persistent and deliberate overloading”. He says that in a six-hour period 200 heavy vehicles went through one particular weigh-in-motion site and 140 of them were overloaded, and many were speeding too. “We’re considering automatic ticketing,” says Graham. “We don’t want to give tickets, we want to increase compliance.”
44 www.contractormag.co.nz
Time for a drink
Colour treats WHO SAYS PINK IS FOR GIRLS?
Greg Sheehan tucks into a raspberry lamington.
SEPTEMBER 2015 45
CONTRACTOR HISTORY
ATHENS
CORINTH CANAL
The canal that wouldn’t die The Suez and Panama canals are celebrated as two of history’s most inspirational feats of engineering. But you could argue that for sheer dogged belief they’re easily outclassed by their lesser-known cousin – Greece’s Corinth Canal. LAWRENCE SCHÄFFLER reports. ONLY 6.5 KILOMETRES long, 24.5 metres wide and eight metres deep, the Corinth Canal cuts across a narrow isthmus that separates Greece’s Peloponnese region from the mainland. Hardly a project to rival Suez or Panama, but it deserves a place in the pantheon of civil engineering by virtue of its tortured and protracted history. The concept was first mooted some 2500 years ago – around 600BC – when early Greek seafarers saw the commercial advantages in a canal across the isthmus. It would shave some 300 nautical miles from the voyage around the Peloponnese, significantly shortening passages between the Adriatic, the East Mediterranean and the Black Sea. It would also avoid the dangers of sailing around the Peloponnese’s treacherous southern capes. In fact, shipping merchants of the time were already using a cumbersome method to get their vessels across the isthmus. The diolkos was a purpose-built stone slipway – about 10 metres wide – extending from the Gulf of Corinth across the isthmus to the Saronic Gulf. Using horse and slave power, ships were dragged onto the diolkos, hoisted on to a wheeled vehicle and pulled across the isthmus. To reduce weight the cargo was unloaded and transported separately. At the other end the ships were relaunched, reloaded and the journey resumed. Understandably, the process was difficult and expensive – and 46 www.contractormag.co.nz
couldn’t accommodate large ships. Building a canal made perfect sense, but the job was anything but simple. Its history reveals a long litany of failures – a 2500-year gestation repeatedly foiled by superstition, lack of funds, tricky geological conditions – and war. It begins in 602BC, when Periandros (one of the country’s top dogs) explored the feasibility of a canal. But Pythia (priestess at the Oracle of Delfi) warned that a canal would incur the Gods’ wrath, and he was persuaded to abandon the plan. In 307BC Dimitrios Poliorkiti (King of Macedon) actually started excavations but he too abandoned them quickly when he was advised that sea god Poseidon vehemently opposed joining the Aegean and the Adriatic. Enter the Romans. Julius Caesar, Hadrian, Caligula and Nero all had a go, despite a dark prophecy from philosopher Apollonius of Tyana that ill would befall anyone trying to dig a canal across the isthmus. Three of these rulers duly suffered violent deaths. Caligula (Caesar’s successor) pressed ahead with the plan in 40AD despite a warning from his Egyptian consultant engineers who insisted (incorrectly) that the Corinthian Gulf was higher than the Saronic Gulf and that islands on the Aegean side would be flooded if the canal was dug. No one knows if Caligula heeded this danger – he was assassinated before any real work started. Of the four Roman initiatives, Nero’s
attempt in 67AD was the most promising. He had 6000 Jewish slaves to help with the task and reputedly started the work himself, digging with a delicate golden pick and accompanied by music. He too came to a premature, grisly end. Fast forward to 1687, when the canal was seriously considered by the commercially-savvy Venetians after their conquest of the Peloponnese. But the scale of the project proved too daunting, and they soon gave up. Fittingly – as a grand scheme for a new country – the canal idea was revived after Greece gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1830. A French engineer was asked to produce a feasibility study, but his estimated cost (40 million gold francs) was out of the question for the new country’s modest budget. Fresh impetus arrived with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. The following year, Greece’s prime minister Thrasyvoulos Zaimis authorised a construction plan. French financiers and engineers won the project but, nervous of the bankruptcy that befell the French company digging the Panama Canal, no bank would advance them a loan. Their company went bankrupt. A new concession was granted to a Hungarian – István Türr – and his Société Internationale du Canal Maritime de Corinthe in 1881. He was commissioned not only to build the canal but also to operate it for 99 years. Interestingly, his working plans were almost identical to those used
HE
RI TAGE
TRAILS From far left: The Corinth Canal cuts across a narrow isthmus and separates the Peloponnese from the Greece mainland. The unstable sedimentary rock compromised the canal’s reliability. The canal is too narrow/ shallow for large commercial freighters, and today is used mainly by cruising yachts.
by Nero some 2000 years earlier. Despite the company’s initial capital of 30 million francs, the money ran out after eight years and a bid to issue 60,000 bonds of 500 francs each fell over. The company went bankrupt, as did the bank attempting to raise funds for the project. Construction resumed in 1890 when the project was transferred to a Greek company. The canal was finally completed and opened on 25 July 1893.
Hiccups Problems arose almost immediately. Because of the canal’s narrowness, tricky navigation and frequent closures to repair landslips, it failed to attract the projected volume of traffic. An annual throughout of some four million net tons was anticipated, but by 1906 it was only half a million net tons. This increased to 1.5 million net tons by 1913, but WW1 interrupted the growth. The unstable sedimentary rock through which the canal is cut also proved problematic. In addition to the periodic landslips, the wake from passing ships undermined the canal’s steep walls,
towering 63 metres above. Curtailing further landslides required retaining walls along the water’s edge for half of the canal’s length. Between 1893 and 1940 the canal was closed for four years for maintenance. In 1923 alone, 41,000 cubic metres of material fell into the canal. It took two years to clear.
Sabotage But the most serious damage suffered by the canal came in WWII. In 1944, retreating German forces triggered two explosions that dumped 645,000 cubic metres of earth and rock into the canal to render it useless to the Allies. Just to make sure, they also dumped large objects into the canal – a road/ railway bridge, 130 rail boxcars, six locomotives – all booby-trapped with mines. They also sank the Vesta – a 3400ton steamship – in the canal. It fell to the US Army Corps of engineers to clear the canal. US President Harry Truman, fearful of a civil war in Greece and the possibility of a communist takeover, asked Congress for $400 million in aid. In May 1947 he signed an Interim Aid Bill
establishing the American Mission for Aid to Greece (AMAG). The army engineers managed to reopen the canal for shallow-draft traffic by July 1948, and for all traffic in September that year.
The canal today The canal is too shallow/narrow for large freighters and is used mainly for small vessels and cruising yachts. Still, the operators claim some 15,000 ships of at least 50 different nationalities use the canal every year. They also believe widening/deepening the canal is a vital developmental project which will boost revenue and tourism. The proposed widening/expansion project has been included in the 20132016 Strategic and Operational Plan of the Corinth Canal (submitted to the Ministry of Finance in 2012). With Greece’s current economic woes, upgrading the Corinth Canal is unlikely to be one of the government’s most pressing projects. But given the stop-start legacy and the tribulations it’s endured, the Corinth Canal will surely survive.
SEPTEMBER 2015 47
CONTRACTOR BEST BUSINESS
Debunking myths of business growth SUE HIRST, co-founder and director of CFO On-Call, discusses five myths about business growth and how to overcome them.
Bigger is better When people think about business growth, they often focus on sales. If you look at industry benchmarks though, you’ll find businesses in higher sales brackets aren’t always the most profitable. We see businesses with modest turnover that achieve good profits. As soon as a business grows, overheads can get out of hand and the extra sales get eaten up and profit is worse than before. The question is what do you want to grow and why? Sales growth without a corresponding increase in profit is a waste of time and causes headaches for business owners. There is an old saying: Sales are vanity, profit is sanity and cash is king! Solution: To achieve growth in profit and sales, you need a plan to keep things on track. A budget is a great way to do this. Set sales targets with marketing and sales plans to support them. Set cost targets – you may be able to get better pricing when purchasing volumes increase and achieve better gross profit. Set overhead targets – consider extra resources required to deliver increased sales and have operations plans to support growth. Report on profit and loss monthly with a comparison to budget, so that you can quickly see if things are off track and fix them immediately.
Growth will solve cash flow problems This is probably the biggest and most dangerous myth of all. Why? When you make a sale you need cash to fund that sale, ie, you need to pay for: goods or work on projects; overheads to run business; credit for customers paying on terms; and stock waiting to be sold. If you need cash to fund sales, it follows that the more sales you make the more cash you’ll need. Growth without considering this fact brings many businesses undone. They go ahead and agree to big contracts or sales without considering funding to achieve growth. Solution: Prepare a detailed cash flow projection including extra sales and corresponding cash flow requirements. Consider how you’ll fund extra cash required: speed up collections from customers on terms; ask customers for deposits; seek longer credit terms from suppliers or time payments to suppliers to be after receipts from customers; borrow from a lender eg, bank; and, equity – sell shares to provide extra capital.
Staff will love it Growth creates great opportunities for staff to progress their careers. If resources aren’t properly considered though and plans put in place to handle growth, it can cause more headaches for the business owner by creating unhappy staff who have pressure and stress. Solution: Plan for growth and factor in what resources will be required. 48 www.contractormag.co.nz
Engage outsourced marketing help if you can’t afford to employ someone. Marketing is not a ‘cost’ it is an investment in building your brand. Communicate with staff and involve them in growth plans. This is a great way to get ‘buy in’ and get them excited about plans. Set targets (KPIs) with staff to ensure you aren’t taking on extra resources without achieving targets and profit. Provide incentives to achieve growth targets. Money isn’t the only incentive – recognition can be a good motivator.
Build it and they will come We see it often – massive fit-outs of business premises, fortunes spent on new equipment etc. Business owners get excited about creating a fantastic product or service, but forget to tell the market. Sales don’t grow quickly enough to fund the extra costs outlaid and cash flow squeeze becomes an issue. Marketing is often not the strong point of business owners and many don’t have the funds to employ a marketing person. Solution: Budget for sales required to cover costs of fit-outs, extra equipment etc. Work out a ‘break-even’ point and make this your targeted sales to cover costs. Have a marketing plan and let your market know of your new product or service. Engage outsourced marketing help if you can’t afford to employ someone. Marketing is not a ‘cost’ it is an investment in building your brand.
I can cope Business owners often fall into ‘The Founder Trap’ (a term coined by Michael Gerber, author of E Myth). It’s when a business owner thinks they are the only person who can do things and doesn’t trust anyone else to help. The problem with this attitude is that other aspects of your life suffer – eg, your sanity, your health, your home life. When you start off in business it’s obvious that you have to be ‘Jack/Jill of all trades’ and do anything. When you decide to grow though, you need to take a completely different view of things. You need to become a business manager and not just a ‘doer’. Solution: Build a picture of what your business will look like when it has grown. Prepare an organisational chart setting out all the tasks that need to be performed and who will do them. Write up job descriptions for the people who will be involved. Consider what systems will be needed to create efficiencies. Gain skills or outside help in HR management. Employing people doesn’t make your life easier – it’s a whole new skill you need to master. • More information: www.CFOonCall.com.au
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CONTRACTOR COMMENT
The H&S discussion and near misses MALCOLM ABERNETHY, EXECUTIVE, CIVIL CONTRACTORS NZ
AT THE CIVIL CONTRACTORS NZ conference at Wairakei at the beginning of August we met with NZTA in an industry liaison forum. Part of the discussion was about creating a health and safety reporting culture, which aligned well with the launch of the Safety App described in our recent newsletter and on page 64 of this issue of Contractor. The discussion also aligned with the concepts of how we get people to report near misses and how that may contribute to a safety culture. To this end I thought it was appropriate to do a little research, with this column being the initial result of that research. A safety culture is something that develops – it doesn’t appear ready-made when a business is established. A safety culture must grow and develop, just like a living thing. Safety cultures evolve gradually in response to work and site conditions, past events, the personalities and moods of management and the workforce. It seems a poor safety culture is easier to describe, as we have seen many examples of companies being reported as having a ‘poor safety culture’. Suffice to say that, as an industry and within individual companies, the aim should be to develop a ‘good’ safety culture. A good safety culture could be equated to an informed culture. That is a culture that understands and respects the hazards faced at a worksite, and how controls work to address those hazards. An informed culture is also one where people at all levels within a company do not forget to be afraid, and there is a heightened awareness and respect of the hazards. Many current safety activities are reactive and not proactive, but it should not be acceptable to wait for incidents to occur. Near-miss incidents often precede loss-sustaining incidents, yet can be easily overlooked, especially if there is no harm (no injury, damage or loss). History has shown repeatedly, that most loss-producing incidents, both serious and catastrophic, were preceded by warnings or near-miss incidents. Yet a company may not have a reporting culture where employees are encouraged to report these close calls, so opportunities to prevent incidents are lost. Recognising and reporting near-miss incidents will significantly improve worker safety and enhance a company’s safety culture. Employers need to have the tools available to understand workplace near misses and investigate them, particularly where there is an apparent trend developing. Near-miss reports supported by a safety information system will collect information that will provide the opportunity to gain and share the knowledge and to intervene before an accident occurs. Near
misses are, indeed, a free lesson. The lessons learnt can then be applied by revising work plans, providing training, improved competencies, assessments and better resources. To gain this knowledge, you need a reporting culture that may not be easy to implement because it relies upon employees admitting they have made a mistake, and they may be fearful of the consequences. Employees reporting near-miss incidents could be assured of confidentiality or non-identification. In larger companies, separation could be provided between those receiving the data and those that are responsible for an employee’s discipline, or imposition of sanctions. To wrap up this initial discussion: Employers must establish a reporting culture reinforcing every opportunity to identify and control hazards, reduce risk, and prevent harmful incidents. This reporting culture would involve investigating near-miss incidents to identify the root cause and the weaknesses in the system that resulted in the circumstances that led to the near miss. The investigation results would be used to improve safety systems, hazard control, and risk reduction. This would also represent opportunities for training, feedback on performance and a commitment to continuous improvement. The Safety App provided by Civil Contractors NZ with the support of NZTA is designed for all incident reporting. Being smartphone-based, reporting is fast and easy and also provides for quick access and responses to these reports submitted by employees. How each company signing up for the Safety App handles blame and punishment will influence the reporting system’s effectiveness and credibility of a ‘just’ culture. This issue lies at the very heart of a good safety culture. It will be a fine balance for employers to gain the information from such reporting tools, and achieve health and safety compliance, while maintaining the respect and trust of employees that this information will be treated in a fair and equitable way. Finally, near-miss reporting is a lead indicator that employers can encourage workers to participate in by creating policies and procedures that promote a culture of reporting. Educate and train employees on the reason why near-miss reporting is a necessity, the important role that they play, and the process for reporting. We must ensure that the near-miss reporting process is easy to understand and use, and then use the findings of near-miss investigations to improve worksite health and safety.
Postal Address: PO Box 12013, Thorndon, Wellington 6144 Physical Address: Margan House, 21 Fitzherbert Terrace, Thorndon, Wellington 6011 Phone 0800 692 376
50 www.contractormag.co.nz
COMMENT CONTRACTOR
Standing the test of time ROD AUTON, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, CRANE ASSOCIATION OF NEW ZEALAND
IN JULY AT TAURANGA, the Crane Association of New Zealand held its 41st Annual Conference and in the words of our president, Scott McLeod, “This year’s conference was the culmination of many years of work to position your association as a strong voice speaking out for the good of our industry.” The crane industry plays a significant role in New Zealand’s economy, and for many years the industry has had the active support of both major corporations and medium to small businesses that have recognised the need for properly trained and competent equipment operators.
Crane Safety Manual One of the achievements of the conference was the release of the third and latest version of the Crane Safety Manual. The manual was first published in 1978 and since that first publication many thousands of copies have been printed and distributed to individuals in the crane industry in New Zealand and Australia. The Crane Safety Manual was commissioned by the Crane Association of New Zealand in late 2013, with a primary mandate of maintaining historically strong emphasis on operator safety through training and knowledge of relevant operating procedures and Codes of Practice. The manual has been rationalised and reformatted to enhance its user-friendliness through a more consistent presentation, and the inclusion of a wider range of crane types than has been the case in previous versions. Other enhancements include colour coding of the 11 sections of the manual and the introduction of new sections as follows: • Glossary of Terms • Crane Lifting Principles • Speciality Sections o Civil Aviation Requirements o Lift Planning o Crane Lifted Platforms o Multi Crane / Winch Lifting o Piling o Precast Concrete o Cranes in Arboriculture o Wire Ropes on Cranes o Telehandlers. The manual has far more content in it than previous versions, for example Section 2, which contains general information that covers all spectrums of crane use: • Part A: Glossary of terms • Part B: Crane Lifting Principles • Part C: General Crane Knowledge • Part D: Crane Engines and Hydraulics • Part E: Crane Checks and Lock Out/Tag Out • Part F: Crane Rating Charts, Range Diagrams and Crane Capacity • Part G: Fly and Lattice Jib Extension, and • Part H: Crane Platform. The manual has withstood the test of time and has brought crane owners, operators and users together in a common cause –
The manual has been rationalised and reformatted to enhance its user-friendliness through a more consistent presentation the development and improvement of safety and efficiency in the crane industry. New Zealand is a leader in this field and the new manual not only meets the Crane Association’s recommended requirements, but also enables crane operators and other associated functions eg, dogman to easily access relevant and current information that is directly linked to New Zealand Crane Qualifications. Others in the construction industry can also benefit from this manual as compliance and changes to health and safety in the workplace happen and everyone becomes accountable. We therefore recommend that all contractors and principals in the construction industry have a Crane Safety Manual in their health and safety library and also on the worksite. Crane Safety Manuals can be obtained from the Crane Training New Zealand shop at shop.cranes.org.nz.
Individual Membership The Crane Association of New Zealand has been at the forefront of innovation and at the Annual Conference 2014 opened the door for Individual Membership. This is a unique opportunity for those who are not in the business of owning or hiring cranes or supplying to the crane industry a chance to keep up with what is happening in the industry. These individuals are those who work in the crane industry as operators or dogmen/riggers, and those who have retired but still want to stay in touch with the industry. The Individual Membership gives you access to the website and its resources. It also enables you to attend presentations, regional meetings, the Annual Conference and network in general with others who are passionate about the industry. The cost of Individual Membership is $50 per year and you can download an application form at www.cranes.org.nz/ membership.html.
Crane Training Shop The Crane Training Shop has resources on it that can be used by anyone in the construction industry. Resources like: • A4 Post Incident Guideline • A3 Incident Flowchart • Post Incident Green Card • A2 Hard Hat Poster • A2 Precast Ladder Safety Poster, and the • Crane Safety Manual. All of these are available on the Crane Training New Zealand Shop at shop.cranes.org.nz. SEPTEMBER 2015 51
CONTRACTOR RECRUITMENT
Concrete slabs – the strong silent type ROB GAIMSTER, CEMENT & CONCRETE ASSOCIATION OF NZ; AND NZ READY MIXED CONCRETE ASSOCIATION
CONCRETE GROUND FLOORS for residential construction remain the preferred option for new builds, a fact clearly illustrated by market share figures from Canterbury and the rest of New Zealand. CCANZ data, sourced from BRANZ, indicates that over the past three years concrete’s share of the residential ground floor market has averaged around 92 percent in Canterbury and close to 97 percent in the rest of the South Island. For the same period Auckland/Northland averaged approximately 85 percent, Waikato 94 percent, the central North Island 92 percent, and Wellington 93 percent. Overall, the national average was about 90 percent. The reasons for this dominant position are many and varied, but rest on the fact that as a foundation for residential properties concrete slabs offer affordable durability, along with low maintenance, fire resistance and an array of attractive surface finishes. They also don’t creak or crack under foot. As designers and their clients become familiar with the principles of passive solar design and thermal mass, a concrete floor’s ability to offer an alternative to traditional heating and cooling methods will contribute to homes becoming more comfortable and energy efficient. A reinforced concrete slab offers excellent performance in response to seismic ground movement as the combination of concrete and steel provides high levels of both strength and ductility. Raft slab systems and slabs with concrete piles offer enhanced levels of performance.
Code changes & rebuild/rebuild guidance Following the Canterbury earthquakes a range of regulatory updates was implemented in relation to NZ Building Code Clause B1 Structure that was designed to ensure optimal performance in residential concrete slabs.
These changes included the requirement for NZS 3604 TimberFramed Buildings concrete floor slabs constructed on ‘good ground’ to be reinforced with grade 500E reinforcing mesh fabric, and for perimeter foundations to be tied to the concrete slab with reinforcing steel. Around the same time Guidance: Repairing and Rebuilding Houses Affected by the Canterbury Earthquakes was released by MBIE to provide robust engineering solutions for repairing and rebuilding earthquake-damaged homes. The guidance focuses on appropriate new foundations for houses and repairs of existing foundations in Technical Categories 1, 2 and 3 (TC1, TC2 and TC3) in the Green Zone: • In TC1 standard NZS 3604 foundations can be used for NZS 3604 houses with reinforced concrete slabs and timber floors. • In TC2 standard repairs or standard enhanced foundations are suitable. Recommended foundations include enhanced concrete slab foundations, and standard timber foundations for houses with lightweight cladding and timber floors. • For TC3 areas deep geotechnical investigation may be required, depending on the degree of damage, and foundations may need to be designed by a chartered professional engineer.
Concrete solutions There are four enhanced concrete “options” under TC2. These are a conventional slab on imported compacted fill, a thick slab over existing ground, a generic beam grid slab (with a post-tensioned option) on compacted fill, and a waffle slab over existing ground. The existing ground and compacted fill must reach a minimum geotechnical ultimate bearing capacity. All four options can also be subject to Specific Engineering Design (SED). In addition to pile options (including concrete), ground remediation and SED, there are also concrete solutions that can be used on most TC3 sites without ground improvement or deep foundation works. These solutions can be relevelled in the event of future differential settlements caused by earthquakes, and can accommodate varying levels of lateral spreading without causing rupture of the superstructure. Several concrete product companies have innovative “off-theshelf” solutions for TC3 ground.
Do it once, do it right
© CHRISHARVEY | DREAMSTIME STOCK PHOTOS
Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery, Gerry Brownlee, recently announced that all EQC foundation repairs done without a building consent will be audited. This comes after an MBIE review of over 100 Canterbury home repairs revealed deficient underfloor work. Although the audit is not confined to concrete foundations, it seems that as with some slabs prior to the earthquakes, poor planning and workmanship have led to problems at a later date. This does not detract however, from the fact that appropriately designed, constructed (and repaired) concrete slabs offer a range of flexible foundation solutions on which to advance our residential building stock. 52 www.contractormag.co.nz
Workplace claims – a realistic view MARTIN WOUTERS, MANAGING DIRECTOR, THE MANAGE COMPANY
YOU RECEIVE A LETTER from the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) confirming that a claim by an employee has been lodged against your business… and this is the first time you have heard about it. Sound familiar? This scenario is very common and is followed closely by claims taking far too long and the medical certificate always seeming to state fully unfit for work. It is unfortunate because all of these end up with the employee having time off on ACC compensation and thereby costing employers through Experience Rating (ER) as penalties on their ACC levies. These penalties can be as high as 75 percent! ER is an initiative that was introduced by ACC in 2011 to encourage employers to take responsibility for workplace claims and to start managing the rehabilitation rather than solely relying on ACC. If employers do this well they will receive discounts and if not then they will receive penalties on their ACC levies. Incidentally ACC also had an ER scheme in place from 1992 until 1999 when ACC privatised. The landscape was fundamentally different then though. In principle the ER scheme makes a lot of sense; reward employers who take ownership and create some pain for those who don’t – ie, financial pain. Where ACC fails is that it introduced the scheme but has not given employers the tools or the education to do anything about it. What has played out is that ACC is in a position where it sets the penalties and also controls the process. If ACC is poor at the process it will set higher penalties. Rather a nice business model isn’t it? In ACC’s defence there is a lot of information available on its website and similarly when you ask for help staff are most obliging… so long you know what to ask for. Would you be surprised to hear that three out of 10 workplace claims should not be attributed to business because the claim either did not happen at work or the injury is a pre-existing condition? Some 95 percent of the companies we meet do not know much about ER and subsequently will end up paying penalties on their ACC levies or at best lose part of their discount. In case that wasn’t enough there are all those other costs such as lost productivity, replacement labour, training, etc. Taking control is easier than you might think and a perfect place to start would be to get the ACC history from the candidate
on recruitment. Understanding who you are employing allows you to understand your risk. Would you employ someone for a physically demanding job if you knew that person had had multiple ACC claims over the past 10 years? Obtaining the ACC history also allows you to determine if a candidate is a serial claimer – the person who makes a living from being on welfare at your expense. Serial claimers are smart but not that smart as often the claims happen at a similar time of the year. If you see a theme on the claim activity – be cautious. When a claim happens why does the employee get sent to the doctor regardless of how severe the claim is? Put it this way, we know employers have a lot of frustration with the medical certificate process and we also know that there is little faith in any diagnoses focusing on the cause, so would it not make more sense to bypass the doctor altogether? I suggest using a Functional Capacity Evaluation (FCE) as a front line intervention before seeing the doctor. The FCE is done by an occupational physiotherapist and looks at what the employee can and cannot do from a physical perspective. This assessment will determine what alternative duties the employee can do; determine whether or not there needs to be time off; and it also sets up the return-to-work plan which ACC normally does about four to six weeks later. The net result is that on the day of the injury you now know exactly what needs to happen and by when, which will help you control the days off on ACC compensation and thereby your ER penalties. A copy of the FCE report goes to the doctor as they are still the person who has to sign the medical certificate. For the doctor to counter this report they have to do so with medical evidence which quite frankly they do not get paid to do. ACC should also get a copy of the FCE report as it sets out the rehabilitation pathway including the return-to-work plan. As a business you cannot be anymore clear with ACC that your business is committed to managing claims and accordingly you expect a certain level of service in return. A side benefit from the FCE is that when an employee chooses to fake an injury it is very difficult to fake this test unless they happen to know a lot about physiology and anatomy. The information presented here is to help you to start to take control over your workplace claims. Please contact the author if you have any questions or observations you wish to share.
ACC statistics on workplace claims (www.acc.co.nz) as at 1 August 2015 Financial Year
New Claims
Active Claims Total Cost
Jul 2012 - Jun 2013
188,408
285,426 $574,632,863
Jul 2013 - Jun 2014
194,889
290,576 $610,393,349
Jul 2014 - Jun 2015
204,870
304,033 $696,423,346
Martin Wouters, martin@managecompany.co.nz, 0800 747 569
SEPTEMBER 2015 53
CONTRACTOR COMMENT
Tried tunnelling with a teaspoon? SHERWYN WILLIAMS and TYLER BUCKLEY, KENSINGTON SWAN WE ALL KNOW there are some things that are impossible – even if they may become possible one day. For example, what about trying to dig the entire Waterview Tunnel with a teaspoon in a single day? We all know that would be impossible. But the legal reality is that if you, as a contractor, agree to do something impossible, like digging the Waterview Tunnel with a teaspoon in a day, the general rule is that you are contractually responsible to do it even though it is impossible. And if you do not do it, you are liable to pay damages for breach of contract. This is because the law will uphold bargains freely made between contracting parties: what’s called sanctity of contract. Sometimes, however, what you have agreed to do may have been perfectly possible when you agreed to do it, but has become impossible only because of something that happened subsequently. Here the rules are completely different.
Frustration The legal principle of ‘frustration’ (which has nothing to do with how you feel) comes into play when, subsequent to a contract being entered into, and without fault of the parties, there is a supervening event which makes performance of a contractual obligation impossible or radically different from what the parties agreed to in the contract. The effect of this principle is to discharge the parties from the performance of their future obligations under the contract. For example, you have agreed to build a road up a mountain to a ski field. Halfway into the contract, there is a huge rock fall which completely changes the whole topography of the mountain in the vicinity of the proposed road. It is likely that would lead to the contract being frustrated. It is not necessary for performance of the contract to have been rendered absolutely impossible. It is sufficient if an obligation at the heart of the contract has been rendered radically different from what the parties contemplated. However, there is still a high threshold and a mere increase in difficulty brought about by some unexpected event will not be enough for the principle of frustration to apply. In addition, it has to be a permanent impossibility, not just a temporary impossibility, for example an event that might be treated as a force majeure (if there is a force majeure clause in the contract). The principle of frustration does not just apply to construction contracts; it applies to all contracts. In common with many other legal principles, its origins are centuries old. There was a case in England about a man who hired a horse. Then the horse died. The court held that the man did not have to return the horse. That was in 1629. Nevertheless, frustration is well recognised in the construction context. It is written into many standard forms of construction contract, in one way or another. For example, NZS 3910, NZS 3916, and NZS 3017 all provide that the contract may be terminated if it has ‘become impossible of performance or has been otherwise frustrated’. Note the word ‘become’. It is important to remember that the contract cannot be said to have been frustrated if the circumstances being relied on existed at the time 54 www.contractormag.co.nz
the contract was entered into. The parties will generally be held to their bargain in those circumstances. Frustration depends on an event having occurred after the contract was entered into.
Assumed circumstances and economic factors: shifting sands in the frustration principle A recent case in Singapore has introduced a nice little twist to the application of the frustration principle. The circumstances that changed so as to give rise to frustration in that case were not the subject of any provision in the contract. They were merely circumstances that both parties had assumed. The case was Alliance Concrete Singapore Pte Ltd v Sato Kogyo (S) Pte Ltd. Alliance had agreed to supply Sato Kogyo with readymixed concrete for three construction projects in Singapore. In the normal course of events, Alliance would have made the concrete using sand imported from Indonesia (the primary source of concreting sand in Singapore). But, after the contract with Sato Kogyo had been entered into, the Indonesian government announced a ban on the export of concreting sand. The contract did not require the sand to come from Indonesia. Nor had the source of the sand featured in the parties’ negotiations prior to entering into the contract. However, Alliance successfully established that both parties had clearly contemplated, when they entered into the contract, that Indonesian sand would be used to make the concrete. When Indonesian sand became unavailable, that was enough to frustrate the performance of the contract. The court said: Where both parties contemplate that a source was to be used, and the source fails, that would generally result in a radical change in the obligation of the obligor because it would have to have recourse to another source which was not even contemplated by both parties in order to perform the strict obligation in the contract. Even though that source is not specified as a term in the contract, and strict performance of the contract is still technically possible, the contract can no longer justly be said to be the same as that which was originally entered into by the parties. The court also indicated that, although an unexpected increase in the cost of performing a contract has never been regarded as sufficient to give rise to frustration, in some cases an ‘astronomical’ increase might do so.
The construction upshot The Alliance Concrete case is not binding law in New Zealand. However, it does represent a change in approach that our courts may follow in time. It provides two useful arguments for contractors who experience a supervening event which makes performance of a contractual obligation impossible or radically different. First, assumed circumstances may be able to be relied on. Second, if changes in circumstances assumed by the parties are enough to frustrate a contract, one could easily say by extension that an ‘astronomical’ increase in cost should be enough. The reason is that, although they never mentioned it, the parties must have assumed the contract would not be performed at a cost out of all conceivable proportion to the contract price and to the value of the work to be done for that price.
Is the construction industry confused? KENNY INGRAM, GLOBAL INDUSTRY DIRECTOR, IFS
THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY is in a state of change and many in the industry are confused about what the new world is going to look like and what action to take. There are some big questions that the industry is struggling with. Consider some of the facts. New Zealand, Australia, the UK and other historical Commonwealth countries operate using different business practices from many other countries in the world such as the United States.
Traditional Commonwealth country business practice looks like this: • Quantity surveyors dominate the landscape. • Bills of Quantities are the dominant contractual structure and are used to control estimating, bidding, contracts and cost control. • Contracts and subcontracts are managed using valuations against Bills of Quantities and applications for payments are the dominant method of claiming money. • These business practices started in 1859. What other industry has completely different business practices across the world? What is industry best practice? Why are the above business practices unique to the construction industry? We don’t see quantity surveyors or applications for payments in shipbuilding or oil and gas construction, for example. Are these Commonwealth country business practices still best practice or simply a 150 year old habit? Bill of Quantities-based contracts are in decline so will they disappear? Will Building Information Modelling (BIM) force these historical business practices to change? Does BIM make Bills of Quantities-based processes redundant? Or should BIM act as a complementary tool to make it easier to generate Bills of Quantities so the two can work together in harmony? Before answering some of these questions, let’s look at where BIM is taking us, not just in Commonwealth countries like New Zealand, but around the world. Although there are still some that see BIM as just a 3D modelling product, there is growing industry recognition of how it can drive better management and use of information across all stages of an asset’s life. BIM involves the integration of processes, information and technologies. It is all about changing the way we do business and embracing continuous improvement based on a more integrated systems approach. With BIM, the adoption of more sophisticated information inputs will enable organisations – and potentially entire supply chains – to move away from isolated business processes, with their corresponding information silos, to processes that are integrated throughout the whole design, construction and asset management lifecycle. IFS sees great potential for efficiency improvements from the data-driven approach to process efficiencies that BIM encourages. These efficiencies are at three levels: within construction and
contracting companies themselves, throughout the supply chain more generally, and in the ongoing management of the assets that are constructed.
So, what are my thoughts on what the new world may look like? • BIM models will be the master data source of asset design data. • The BIM model will be capable of integrating with the project plan and work breakdown structure (WBS). • The estimating process will move away from a Bill of Quantitiesbased process and be driven from the BIM data model. The estimating tool will not have to be the BIM design tool itself but a tool that will use the data from the BIM model. • Contracts that are based on Bills of Quantities will eventually disappear. • The BIM model will be integrated with the project execution software to drive all execution processes from the one common data source. This will include planning, procurement, subcontract management, construction, installation and commissioning, project cost control, quality management, progress tracking, project accounting, planning and materials management. • The BIM model data will be able to be sorted into work packages and then integrated into subcontract packages, or driven into a procurement or manufacturing plan. • We will finally move from primarily document-driven processes to an integrated data-driven approach. • Asset data will be moved automatically to the maintenance module and will be integrated with the BIM model. I don’t know how long it will take for information technologies like BIM to drive standardisation of construction industry business practices around the world. But we can see the direction things are going. In the UK, for example, the government will require all project and asset information, documentation and data on its projects to be BIMcompliant by 2016. Its objective is to make both construction and assets more efficient to reduce upfront and operational through life costs. While we have not seen this level of government action in New Zealand, the support of the Productivity Partnership and the work of the BIM Acceleration Committee, with initiatives like the New Zealand BIM Handbook, are heading down the same path. What is clear is that we are moving to a much more integrated world and that data-driven business processes will become progressively more dominant. •K enny Ingram is the global industry director at enterprise applications company IFS for the construction, contracting, engineering, infrastructure and shipbuilding industries. He is regarded as one of the top specialists in project based business systems and has been heavily involved in driving the IFS strategy in this area for the last 16 years. See: www.ifsworld.com/au SEPTEMBER 2015 55
CONTRACTOR COLUMN
Is your first aid best practice, or a tick in the box? JANET BROTHERS, MANAGING DIRECTOR, LIFE CARE CONSULTANTS
PHOTO: DREAMSTIME
AS WE ARE ALL very aware, the civil construction industry is full of risks to our health and safety and it is gratifying to see the industry taking on such a genuine and strategic approach to ensuring all staff go home safely. Let’s look at some of the risks we need to not only manage but also ensure that the staff can assist their workmate, if the need arises, with effective first aid. The demographics of the industry are a significant hazard on their own. With an ageing workforce, often the long hours worked can lead to ailments which may require first aid, e.g. heart disease, asthma and diabetes. Clearly the machinery on site at any given time can cause significant injuries such as crushing, eye injuries and head and spinal injuries.
These unit standards are simply not relevant to your industry. The environment is often a significant hazard as well and can involve heat and sun as well as snow, ice and sleet all of which can cause the body stress, trauma and significant ill health. The terrain can be steep, or have major trenches, the environment can have several thousand people travel by each day, either as pedestrians or speeding by with only a ‘cone’ between the worker and the bus travelling at 110 kilometres per hour. All of the above are ‘business as usual’ in the civil construction industry, so why do people in this industry get second rate and insufficient first aid training with the ‘new’ and now defunct unit standards 26551 and 26552? These unit standards are simply not relevant to your industry; they are great for Ma and Pa who would just like to know a little first aid in case the neighbour needs a hand one day. The first aid providers who are providing these unit standards to the civil construction industry either don’t know the risks involved in the industry or they don’t care that many of your risks are not covered in these unit standards and therefore your staff are at risk. Just like any training, first aid training needs to be fit for purpose, relevant and tailored to be specific to the learning styles and the outcome requirements of the trainees. NZQA has recognised the 26551 & 26552 unit standards are not fit for industry so they have reverted back to the 6400 series, so if your first aid provider is not providing the 6400 series for your staff I believe they are ticking the box for you rather than providing best practice for you and your staff and your industry.
Road Science for superior pavement products, technology and testing
John Vercoe, Technical Manager
Road Science - 9/2 Owens Place, Mt Maunganui, New Zealand - 07 575 1150 www.roadscience.co.nz
56 www.contractormag.co.nz
MOTORING CONTRACTOR BY PETER GILL
One spoke and a big pump It was the Paris Motor Show of 1955. Few could believe what they saw. It was the Citroen DS21. It looked like some kind of stellar ship or ethereal pod. Citroen designers and engineers had taken car design right back to a clean slate. Having already claimed to have brought front wheel drive into vogue, now they wanted to give motorists that “floating feeling.” Instead of harsh steel springs, they suspended the car on oil filled spheres. The car was, in fact, centred on a large hydraulic pump that floated it on its suspension, and provided power for the steering and brakes. It had massively
generous seats and a steering wheel that worryingly had one, yes.. just one, spoke. Other Citroens based on the idea followed this one. In the end, after decades of sales of cars based on this concept, Citroen slowly gave the pump powered car up, because it was complex to service and maintain. This
writer owned several and would have been richer financially if he hadn’t. But the experience was enriching in other ways. Was that car really launched 60 years ago? Although I was still an oyster on the Sergeant’s Mess bar at the time, it’s still such a long time ago that I reach for my nurse.
Pass the chianti
Yes, it includes a heater Lord spare us. Austrian outfit KTM now has a dealer in New Zealand for its frenetic, nay psychotic, sports cars. The latest model is the KTM X-Bow GT. KTM has taken its hard and harsh X-Bow R model and tried to make it more comfortable. The former car is designed for hard-out track days, favoured by some (well heeled) sports car enthusiasts, who are happy to have their prostates tortured by a mercilessly unforgiving suspension. The GT gains a heater. Yes, that’s right. A heater. As well, it has a more comfortable ride, and a removable soft top so you can stay dry and warm. It’s rear wheel drive, uses a 2 litre turbocharged Audi engine and whisk your jocks from asleep to 100km/hr in 4.1 seconds. If you let it, it will then wind out to 231 km/hr, which is not all that fast in a world where high performance cars happily reach well over 250. It’s $150,000. I reach for my Luger.
What if I said these words to you? Testa D’Oro Coloni. What are you going to suggest? Is it a new Italian Pasta dish with aphrodesic benefits? Is it a complaint of the lower part of the digestive system? Fact is that it’s a very rare 1980’s Ferrari. Only 350 were built. One has just come on the international market priced at US$1.7 million. The story is that Lutz Colani, a then leading industrial designer in Europe, submitted his own take on a Ferrari Testa Rossa to the car company. In the same way as I have long wanted to submit my personal take on a Toyota Corolla to Toyota. Ferrari indulged him. Coloni wanted it to look like a piece of art, but also to win world speed records at Bonneville Flats. Which it did. No wonder, equipped as it was with a Ferrari Flat 12 twin turbo engine, which was quite something for the time. Beautiful car. Fantastic performance. I reach for the Chianti, this time in celebration rather than despair.
SEPTEMBER 2015 57
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CONTRACTOR CLASSIC MACHINES
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The Caterpillar DW15 REVISITED
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Back in the May 2005 issue of Contractor we had a look at Caterpillar’s DW10 successor, the DW15. Page space was a bit limited then and in the intervening years I have uncovered quite a bit more material so here is an expanded and updated look at the last of Caterpillar’s small 3-axle motor scrapers. BY RICHARD CAMPBELL
INTERESTINGLY, THE DW15 started out as a modified back end for the existing model DW10 until it was discovered that the current model DW10 tractor unit was a little underpowered for the task and had difficulty hauling the expanded capacity scraper. So Caterpillar engineers set to and redesigned the DW10 tractor, lengthening the frame and inserting an all new engine, the 150 horsepower D326, into the modified machine. They called the new machine the DW15 and it went into full production in 1954 as the DW15 series C and carried the serial number prefix 45C. It was matched with the No 15 scraper and rated at 10 cubic yards struck and 13 cubic yards heaped. The new tractor scraper combination was well liked by contractors who bought 400 of them during the first two years they were available. 58 www.contractormag.co.nz
Flywheel horsepower was increased to 186 at the end of 1955 and direct electric starting was also offered as an option. Up until this point, almost all Cat diesel engines featured a small 2-cylinder gasoline starting engine to crank the main engine over so this was a radical departure from the norm. While the machine was still called the DW15 series C, the serial number designation for the 186 horsepower machine changed to 59C for the direct electric start model and 70C for the traditional gasoline starting engine equipped variant. The scraper remained the same, the No 15. You can tell the difference between early DW15s and later models by their exhaust pipe position. On really old machines the exhaust pipe is on the left. When Caterpillar went to the higher horsepower engine, the exhaust pipe
position was shifted to the right. Caterpillar made two more variants of the DW15, the DW15E and DW15F. DW15 series Es were in production from 1957 through to 1959 and carried the serial number prefixes 75D (direct electric start) and 76D (gasoline starting engine). They featured a boost from 186 to 200 flywheel horsepower and Caterpillar’s new No 428 “Lowbowl” scraper which was rated at 13 cubic yards stuck and 18 cubic yards heaped. The final version of the DW15 was the DW15 series F which was only in production for a year before being discontinued and very few were manufactured. Caterpillar did not assign new serial numbers to distinguish between the E and F series machines but a little research has uncovered the change took place around s/n 76D816.
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1. Factory shot of a new DW15 series E tractor with No 428 cable scraper. The No 428 replaced the earlier No 15 scraper and held five more cubic yards than the older scraper. It also had a different design apron sheave tower which was taller than the previous version. The interesting gadget on the tractor’s exhaust pipe is a rain trap to prevent water from entering the engine. PHOTO: AUTHOR’S COLLECTION
2. Pictured at the first Wanaka airshow in 1988 is this beautifully restored DW15E series with what appears to be a No 428 scraper. It has since been pressed into service to build stopbanks.
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PHOTO: AUTHOR’S COLLECTION
The DW15 was a very successful motor scraper for Caterpillar, and the machine’s reliability and good reputation helped to reinforce Cat’s place in the scraper marketplace. The DW15 was replaced by the first of the new “600” series machines, the 619B, which was introduced in mid-1959.
The Caterpillar DW15 described The Caterpillar DW15 was a 3-axle machine powered with a 6-cylinder, naturally aspirated Caterpillar D326 diesel engine rated at 150 flywheel horsepower. This was connected to the transmission
by a double plate 16” clutch with an air booster to ease the operator’s load somewhat. A 5-speed, constant mesh manual transmission with an auxiliary box was fitted, giving an effective 10 forward and two reverse speeds. Top speed was 24mph on the flat and much faster downhill! Stopping power was provided by full air braking on the tractor drive axle and scraper axle with the scraper brakes synchronised to brake first, hopefully preventing jackknifing. The tractor drive wheels could also be
3. DW15 series E, last owned by RJ Gunson of Onga Onga, in Hawkes Bay and for sale when this photo was taken. It appears to have withstood the years well. Trailed scraper is a No 428 lowbowl type. PHOTO: INTERNET
SEPTEMBER 2015 59
CONTRACTOR CLASSIC MACHINES
2
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1. T here are several Caterpillar DW15s under restoration in the United States and this example, a DW15C with No 15 scraper, was photographed at one of the Historical Construction Equipment Association’s regular ‘dirt days’ in Bowling Green, Ohio. PHOTO: AUTHOR’S COLLECTION 2. Really good overhead shot of a Caterpillar DW15 shows well how little room the operator had and the narrowness of the compartment where he sat. It also illustrates the very tidy lines of this nimble little scraper and the good visibility to the scraper cutting edge. The “ear” by the operator’s right elbow is a cast jackknifing stop, built into the machine’s universal hitch. PHOTO: AUTHOR’S COLLECTION
B R I E F S P EC I F I CAT I O N S
CATERPILLAR DW15 SERIES C Tractor – 45C series Engine: Caterpillar D326, 6-cylinder inline diesel rated at 150 flywheel horsepower at 2000rpm Clutch:
16” double plate with air booster
Transmission: Caterpillar 5-speed constant mesh manual with auxiliary box Top Speed:
24 mph
Tyres:
Steering Axle – 12.00x20, 14 ply
Drive Axle – 21.00x25, 20 ply
Brakes: Full air operated shoe type, sequenced to brake scraper first Steering: Recirculating worm & ball with hydraulic booster Turn Circle: 36’ Scraper – No 15, 4W series Capacity:
10 cubic yards struck, 13 cubic yards heaped
Control: All cable through Cat No 27 rear mounted PCU Tyres:
21.00x25, 20 ply
Cutting Edge:
3-section, 8’ 6” wide
Op.Weight
22.1 tons empty, 38.5 tons loaded
60 www.contractormag.co.nz
braked individually to help minimise wheelspin in slippery underfoot conditions. A worm & ball steering system was employed with a hydraulic booster manufactured by Vickers USA. The steering axle was pinned in the centre and could fall and rise with undulating ground. A large leaf spring pack provided a measure of shock absorption for the operator. On the left side of the machine was the operator’s compartment. This was narrow and very basic with the only creature comforts being a sprung suspension seat and a windshield. Directly in front of the operator, bisected by the nonadjustable steering column, was the instrument panel which was quite comprehensive for the time and contained a tachometer to help with determining gear shifts. Clutch, brake and throttle pedals were on the floor with the gearshift levers to the operator’s right. Bowl controls consisted of two levers which activated the No 27 cable control fitted to the tractor unit’s rear main case. Visibility from the operator’s seat was very good, especially to the all-important cutting edge. Unlike its larger sibling, the DW20, the DW15 was always supplied with fenders on the front and rear of the tractor unit to protect the operator from debris thrown up by the wheels. The No 15 scraper was an adaptation of Caterpillar’s No 70 towed scraper and was attached to the DW15 by a conventional king pin yoke allowing unrestricted movement. Operation was by two part cable, one which lifted and lowered the bowl and the other which lifted and lowered the apron and was sequenced to bring the ejector forward when the apron was at full lift. The ejector was returned to loading position by four very large springs.
Optional extras For the operator there was a cab with a heater. Other options were limited to tyres, but the really exciting extras were those offered by one of Caterpillar’s cadre of attachment manufacturers. Athey Products Corp offered a rear dumper, bottom dumper and side dumper in place of the No 15 or No 428 scraper.
3. Feast & McJorrow at work in Mauriceville, Wairarapa in 1957. The Cat DW15 shown is an early 45C series with the exhaust on the left. Cabs were not usual equipment on NZ imported DW15s and later photos of this particular machine show it as being removed. The other machines in the photo are a Caterpillar D6-9U on the left and a Caterpillar D8-14A with LeTourneau H-3 ripper in tow. PHOTO: AUTHOR’S COLLECTION 4. By far the largest user of the DW15 in New Zealand was the Ministry of Works which owned a total of nine machines. This rather sad looking example was pictured at the MOW Gracefield, Wellington disposals yard in 1975 where it was up for auction as “Lot 214”. It is a 45C series (with a very long exhaust pipe) and is towing a wedgefoot compactor. PHOTO: AUTHOR’S COLLECTION
5. Highways Construction of Nelson had several DW15s. This is a DW15C 45C series with the exhaust pipe on the left as mentioned in the text. Scraper is a No 15 with the short enclosed apron sheave tower. Push tractor is a Caterpillar D8-2U. The photo dates from the late 1950s, location unknown. PHOTO: INTERNET
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The New Zealand connection A very popular motor scraper in New Zealand, there were over 30 examples imported by NZ Caterpillar dealer Gough, Gough & Hamer covering the entire production series. Biggest fleet user was the NZ Ministry of Works which had nine and other owners included W Stevenson & Son, McBreen-Jenkins, Highways Construction and Feast & McJorrow to mention just a few.
There is at least one DW15 in preservation plus the odd examples which are still at work, as the DW15, minus scraper and with the addition of compaction wheels, makes an excellent self-propelled compactor! The DW15’s scraper of course can be turned into a towed scoop and many of these, with modification and the conversion to hydraulic control, are still in use, almost 60 years after they came off the production line.
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For the Model Collector None is the word. There have been no models issued in any scale of the Caterpillar DW15 which is very unfortunate. For the brave there is a 1:25th scale Cat DW10 model issued by Reuhl in the 1950s which is astronomically expensive. This, with a lot of work, could be crafted into a first production DW15 but you would need time, lots of patience and very deep pockets.
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SEPTEMBER 2015 61
CONTRACTOR INNOVATIONS
Flying high and hand launched C-Astral Aerospace has unveiled its most compact model in its professional UAV line-up – the Atlas. Standing for Advanced Technology Light Acquisition System, the Atlas is the company’s first ever hand-launch capable unit that features multiple functionality in a safe, compact and light hand-launched package. While the Atlas is supported by a new avionics and GCS guidance solution, the fixed-wing UAV’s operating software remains completely compatible with the current Bramor family ground segments. “This new model represents yet another leap forward in terms of the accessibility of world leading UAV technology to an ever-evolving audience,” says Jeremy Neilson, UAV business development manager for C-Astral Aerospace distributor Synergy Positioning Systems. “Being able to utilise a hand-launch capable system that only weighs a remarkable 2.3 kilograms, yet can provide highly accurate mapping further establishes UAV technology as the proven tool of choice for cost-effective data capture across multiple industries.” Further technical details: www.synergypositioning.co.nz.
Remote-controlled Bobcat Integrated Maintenance Group (IMG), a Kiwi heavy engineering project management and maintenance company, has bought a new Bobcat S450 Skid Steer loader from local distributor, AB Equipment. The Bobcat is the first one to be fitted with a factory option radio remote control system that is said to be portable and easy to install and can easily be used on other remote-ready machines in the IMG fleet if required. The Bobcat S450 is being used by IMG at NZ Steel’s Glenbrook site for refractory demolition work involving the wrecking of brick and castable, a concrete like structure, and for other maintenance work. “The work can involve working in difficult and sensitive areas and this is where the Bobcat radio remote control system really comes into its own,” says IMG machinery supervisor, Muir Hamilton. “Previously the operator would have been exposed to the noise and dust created by the attachments and would have probably needed help to make it an effective operation. .” For further information contact AB Equipment on 0800 303 090.
CONTRACTORS’ DIARY Date Event
Venue
Contact
15-18 Sep
Coasts and Ports 2015 Conference
Pullman Hotel, Auckland
www.coastsandports2015.com
16-18 Sep
Water New Zealand Conference
Claudelands, Hamilton
www.waternzconference.org.nz
21-22 Sep
Auckland Transport Summit
Pullman, Auckland
tinyurl.com/auckland-transport-summit
29-30 Sep
NZ Coatings & Corrosion Conference Ellerslie Events Centre, Auckland
www.conferenz.co.nz/conferences
28-29 Oct
2015 NZ Bridges Summit
tinyurl.com/nz-bridges
Pullman, Auckland
Please send any contributions for Contractors’ Diary to kevin@contrafed.co.nz, or phone 09 636 5710
62 www.contractormag.co.nz
Hamm rollers some of the first of their type Fulton Hogan has recently taken delivery of two new Hamm HD80+ eight ton twin drum vibratory rollers, offering both vibratory and oscillation compaction options within the same machine, along with Hamm Compaction Quality (HCQ) technology. Supplied and supported by Wirtgen New Zealand, the new Hamm rollers are some of the first of their type in New Zealand and join Fulton Hogan’s Auckland asphalt surfacing fleet. Adam Nichol, Fulton Hogan’s northern zone surfacing operations advisor, says it is a technical leap forward to be able to utilise these machines for asphalt compaction. “Having Hamm HD80+ machines that offer both vibratory and oscillation compaction gives us application options we haven’t had before.
“Oscillation technology has been around for some time now, but it’s about utilising it in the right environments, where a non-directed compaction process might be needed. ” In addition to the benefits of oscillation compaction technology, the Hamm HD80+ compactors also offer Fulton Hogan’s asphalt paving crews Hamm Compaction Quality (HCQ) technology. Designed by Hamm’s world leading research and development team, HCQ is a modular system for measuring, evaluating and documenting the compaction process in real-time and offering roading personnel the ability to analyse results.
www.bigblocks.co.nz
Lingong arrives through TransDiesel TransDiesel has introduced SDLG-branded machines to the country that are built by Shandong Lingong Construction Machinery Co (Lingong) and with a reputation for robust design, reliable performance and fast return on investment for owners. New Zealand is the latest country in the Asia-Pacific and Australasian markets to start selling the SDLG line of equipment after prominent equipment sales and service company TransDiesel agreed to represent the brand. While Lingong manufactures a full line of SDLG construction equipment, to begin with TransDiesel will offer only the company’s wheel loader line, a product line for which it is one of the world’s leading producers by volume. In addition to sales, TransDiesel will also back up the SDLG equipment with parts and service support. Mark Keatley, marketing and dealer development manager of TransDiesel, says the design and performance of SDLG machines is wellsuited to a number of Kiwi customers and applications. “SDLG wheel loaders are a cost-effective solution with excellent reliability and their robust design allows them to work in a variety of applications,” he says. “Customers looking for a machine that can deliver performance when it’s needed but won’t break the bank will really like the SDLG package. Particularly in applications where the machine is not used all day, every day it makes sense to look at something like an SDLG. Volume-wise SDLG is one of the biggest wheel loader brands in the world and we’re confident that customers in New Zealand will soon understand why.” TransDiesel will sell SDLG’s complete line of wheel loaders and expects particular interest in three units: the LG918L, the LG938L and the LG958L.
INTERLOCKING PRECAST CONCRETE BLOCKS PH 0800300488 TODAY
SEPTEMBER 2015 63
CONTRACTOR CIVIL CONTRACTORS NEW ZEALAND
Our current and ongoing activities News pages, covering the association’s latest news, views, activities and intentions. Free reporting App for all contractors An NZTA reporting App developed for all roading construction, maintenance and operations sites across the country is one of the many outcomes from the Zero Harm initiative that CCNZ contributes to. CCNZ, with the support of NZTA, has made the App available to all contracting companies whether they are working on the NZTA Highway Network or any type of construction activity. For further information or to sign up go to www.safetyapp.co.nz.
CCNZ supports silica dust submission CCNZ has recently supported an extractives industry led submission on the proposed workplace exposure standard for silica. The submission strongly queried data within the proposal and suggested that the proposed level (which is one eighth of the current New Zealand standard) was way too low. The submission suggested the current Australian level would be more in line with international practice. This was backed up with expert advice. The submission concluded that mine and quarry closures along with increased aggregate costs are a real possibility if the proposed standard is adopted “for no beneficial effect whatsoever”. CCNZ also recently reviewed the surface mines and quarries Good Practice Guideline looking at issues relevant to contractors and is working through whole of body vibration concerns. The key strategy of CCNZ is to front foot civil construction industry health and safety issues.
New Executive Councillor elected at AGM James Craw of Christchurch contracting company JCL Asphalt is the only new face
on Civil Contractors NZ’s Executive Council following the AGM held in Taupo in early August. James has been in the industry for 16 years, 11 of them in his own company, which now employs 65 people. He has also been involved with the Canterbury Branch Executive Committee for eight years. Brian Warren (Isaac Construction) is the new Vice President taking over from Woody Blakely who has stepped down. Dave Connell (Connell Contracting) was re-elected as President and Cos Bruyn (Downer), Colin Calteaux (Andrew Haulage) and Tony Pike (Leighton Contractors) were re-elected to the Executive Council. After being co-opted into the role earlier this year, Gary Richardson from Hirepool was elected Executive Councillor representing associate members. Joe Edwards has stood down from his role of Past President.
NZTA / Civil Contractors NZ roadshows A series of roadshows is being developed by the NZTA’s Zero Harm group for late August through to November. Topics covered include: Legislation, Working around mobile plant, Zero Harm App, Hub and Reporting, Trenching, Environmental, Risk Assessment, Utilities. There will be opportunities for networking after the presentations. • 15 September: Hamilton • 16 September: Tauranga • 23 September: Auckland • 29 September: Napier • 8 October: Whangarei • 20 October: Palmerston North • 21 October: Wellington • 29 October: Blenheim • 9 November: Christchurch • 24 November: Cromwell
• 25 November: Dunedin For more information email zeroharm@ nzta.govt.nz with your details.
NZTA Statement supports a healthy construction industry In NZ Transport Agency’s recently released Statement of Intent the foreword from the chair and CEO states: “We will ensure that our maintenance and operations contracting practices support a healthy and competitive construction industry.” CCNZ will continue to work with NZTA to effectively measure this. A copy of the report is available on NZTA’s website.
Good Practice Guidelines for H&S docs WorkSafe NZ’s website now has Good Practice Guidelines for ‘Writing health and safety documents for your workplace’. These guidelines describe a five stage process covering writing, reviewing and sharing the document. For more information www. business.govt.nz/worksafe/tools-resources
National Construction Pipeline Report This third National Construction Pipeline Report provides a forward view of national construction demand for the six years ending 31 December 2020. It was commissioned by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and jointly prepared by Pacifecon (NZ) and BRANZ. The report is based on a compilation of construction projects known to Pacifecon and BRANZ’s economic forecasts of building and construction. The previous reports were commissioned by the Building and Construction Productivity Partnership. The first report was released in November 2013, the second in October 2014 and both were well received. The report is available on www. pacifecon.co.nz/news_pipeline_report.htm
ADVERT ISER’S IND EX Advantage Plastics 5 Allied Petroleum 23 Asmuss Water Systems 45 CablePrice OBC CCNZ 50 Complete Reinforcing 9 Connexis 39 Contractor subscription 49 Counties Ready Mix 63 Digga NZ 13
64 www.contractormag.co.nz
DitchWitch NZ 25 Glenbrook Machinery IBC Global Survey 29 Gough Cat OFC, 3, 7, 14, 15 Hirepool 37 Hynds Pipe Systems 41 Kobelco 11 Manage ACC 35 OMC Power Equipment 4 Porters Equipment IFC
Power Equipment 33 Prime Pump 12 Road Science 56 Rocktec 47 Ryco 10 Southey Group 43 Taylor Built 27 Transdiesel 19 Youngman Richardson 61
NATIONWIDE SALES & RENTAL ALL TERRAIN HANDLING EQUIPMENT SPECIALISTS
FOR SALE
4WD FORKLIFTS
The most ideal All Terrain Forklift you will find for the construction site. 1.5 Tonne up to 5 Tonne options available. Has all the advantages of the industrial forklift, is compact but with its 4WD option and high clearance you will never get stuck again on the metal or in the mud! Increase your efficiencies, save time and money on your site today. Attention Fleet Managers – book a 1 week FREE trial today.
FOR HIRE
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4WD FORKLIFTS
Prefer the rental option? We have a large fleet available for long or short term rentals nationwide. When you’re planning ahead, contact us with your requirements and we’ll set aside the perfect All Terrain forklift for your site. Telehandlers also available for hire. Contact us today for a late model reliable machine.
FOR SALE
SITE DUMPERS
Site dumpers available in 1, 2.5, 4, 6 tonners and the only 10 tonner available in NZ with a swivel skip! Attention Fleet Managers – book a 1 week FREE trial today to prove the operating efficiencies and cost savings site dumpers provide! Powered by a Kubota diesel, fully automatic transmission and AUSA exclusive total control joystick for safer and less tiring operation.
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We’re building up our large rental fleet of NEW Site Dumpers so book your machine today! 1.5 -10 Tonne units available nation-wide for long and short term rentals and the only 10 Tonne Site Dumper available in NZ! Contact us today for a complete Site Dumper, Excavator and Roller package price. 8 Nelson Street, Pukekohe. Open: Monday – Friday, 7:30am – 5pm. Phone: 0800 453 627 | 09 238 6955 Web: www.glenbrook.co.nz
CALL 0800 453 627 or visit WWW.GLENBROOK.CO.NZ
// L I G H T C O N S T R U C T I O N E X C AVAT O R S With an extensive history of quality engineering and innovation, the new Hitachi mini excavators have evolved to deliver a new level of precision, power and productivity.
ZX17U-5 / ZX26U-5
ZX33U-5 / ZX38U-5 / ZX48U-5 / ZX55U-5 / ZX65USB-5
(New Models)
120315_Hitachi_Light_Excavators_V2
SPECIFICATIONS MAKE
MODEL
WEIGHT kg
WIDTH Blade mm
BUCKET m3
DIG DEPTH mm
BREAKOUT kgf
POWER hp @ rpm
FLOW L/min
Hitachi
ZAXIS 17U-5
1880
980/1280
0.044
2190
1630
14.4 @ 2400
2 x 19.2
Hitachi
ZAXIS 26U-5
2570
1500
0.06
2590
2300
19.7 @ 2200
2 x 35.2/ 1 x 17.6
Hitachi
ZAXIS 33U-5
3510
1550
0.11
3130
2770
28.4 @ 2400
2 x 38.4/ 1 x 22.8
Hitachi
ZAXIS 38U-5
3960
1740
0.11
3460
2760
28.4 @ 2400
2 x 38.4/ 1 x 22.8
Hitachi
ZAXIS 48U-5
4900
1960
0.13
3630
3270
37.8 @ 2400
120
Hitachi
ZAXIS 55U-5
5210
2000
0.13
3830
3760
37.8 @ 2400
120
Hitachi
ZAXIS 65USB-5
6470
2000
0.18
4120
4190
45.7 @ 2000
144
For more information please contact your local CablePrice branch or visit www.cableprice.co.nz. Models shown are for illustration purposes only and may or may not include options available in New Zealand. Weights noted are for cabin units. (Excludes ZX17U-5 and ZX26U-5)
0800 555 456 sales@cableprice.co.nz www.cableprice.co.nz