NZ Contractor 1403

NEW ZEALAND’S CIVIL CONTRACTING INDUSTRY MAGAZINE

M A RC H 2 0 1 4 $ 8 . 9 5

JOHN DEERE

MAKES THE GRADE

Sam Pemberton’s full-featured grader from CablePrice generates friendly competition amongst his team

INSIDE:

NZS 3917:2013 has been finalised, completing the contract overhaul Replacing the 130-year-old twin bridges of the Waitaki Suburban bay’s beauty restored – Onehunga gets its beach back

CONTRACTOR UPFRONT

6 MARCH 2014

UPFRONT CONTRACTOR

MARCH 2014 7

CONTRACTOR UPFRONT

CONTENTS

INSIDE: Regulars 4 Editorial 6 Upfront 8 NZTA Contracts Let 18 On the Cover 56 Classic Machines 60 Motoring 62 Products & Services 62 Advertisers Index 64 Training 64 Contractors’ Diary

Comment 14 Jeremy Sole NZ Contractors’ Federation 50 Chris Olsen

11 Highlights / Features 16 NZS 3917:2013 Kensington Swan reviews the new fixed term contract.

20 Boosting the Bridge Street bridge A high-tech solution for a broken Christchurch bridge.

28 Across the Andes An ambitious 10-year, US$55 billion transport and infrastructure plan in Colombia.

34 The twin bridges of the Waitaki McConnell Dowell replaces Kurow Island’s 130-year-old bridges.

ON THE COVER

38 Profile: Ron Brown

Even before Sam Pemberton’s new full-featured John Deere 670 Grade Pro (GP) motor grader arrived at his company’s Hamilton yard, it had already created a bit of friendly competition amongst his team.

See page 18

Crane and Heavy Haulage Association personality, Ron Brown, recognised in New Year Honours List.

40 Suburban Bay’s beauty restored What a motorway diminished in the name of progress in the 1970s is now being revitalised by the contractor’s art.

46 Technology: App’d timing Mobile apps are more than toys; they’re fast becoming an essential business tool.

Roading New Zealand

52 Rob Gaimster CCANZ, NZRMCA

53 Jonathan Bhana-Thomson NZ Heavy Haulage

54 Mark Kinvig / Jeremy Sole NZ Transport Agency / NZCF

55 Harry Wilson NZTransport Agency 8 MARCH 2014

20

28

40

CONTRACTOR EDITORIAL

UPFRONT CONTRACTOR

Building bridges IF YOU’RE A ROADING CONTRACTOR, or know a roading contractor, or provide a service to, for, or with a roading contractor, there are at least two pages in this issue of Contractor you must read. And it would be a pity for any reader to miss them, because they’re connected, and both deserve as broad an audience within this industry as possible.

The first is an open letter from the Federation on page 14, written by CEO Jeremy Sole. I highlight this work because I believe it provides those members who don’t sit on the executive council, or the various lofty committees that negotiate in the corridors of power, an insight into the efforts made by industry associations on behalf of their members.

Sole reflects on the “extremely difficult” period during which the NZ Transport Agency launched its campaign of “value for money”, and ended up with the Network Outcomes Contracts.

Referring to how difficult it is for individual contractors to negotiate for the good of the industry, instead of for their own personal gain, he says, “This is something that industry representative body governing leaders choose to face on a regular basis and it must be one of the hardest roles in the industry – to take that big picture view over individual interests and opportunities to generate personal gain, and the responsibilities to the role they left at the door when they entered the board room.”

The other (related) comment piece, on page 54, is a joint comment from Mark Kinvig of NZTA and (again), Jeremy Sole of the Federation (I promise this isn’t the founding document of the J. Sole official fan club; it’s just he’s played a pivotal part in major industry changes recently).

In this piece the pair discuss at length how all parties were, at all times, conscious of the fact that whatever solution they might eventually settle on, that it must produce opportunities for suppliers, and maintain a “healthy, viable roading industry”, and that the Transport Agency remained aware of its “responsibilities to ensure fairness exists throughout its supply chain.”

Compare this to what happened in Sochi, Russia over the past few years (see page 10). The Winter Olympics held last month were the most expensive ever. Clearly US$50 billion doesn’t go far over there. Just think how that could be put to good use around the country, or in Christchurch in particular as that city enters its fourth year of repairs.

Good things are happening in Christchurch and visitors are flooding in, new construction gathers pace, and the infrastructure is patched back together. The rebuild has also, as is often the case when disaster strikes, been the catalyst for introducing new technology, and in this issue you can read about two examples: one is a low-tech and highly effective de-watering solution (page 6), and the other is a high-tech use of multiple computer-controlled hydraulics (page 20) to reinstate the quake-damaged Bridge Street bridge.

In another bridge-related feature, Hugh de Lacy looks at the replacement of the twin bridges over the Waitaki River between Kurow and Hakataramea Valley (page 34).

So not all bridges are physical; not all bridges are purely relationships. The best bridges have a little bit of both.

Kevin Lawrence, Editor

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 MANAGING EDITOR Kevin Lawrence DDI: 09 636 5710 Mobile: 021 512 800 Email: kevin@contrafed.co.nz REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS Richard Campbell, Hugh de Lacy, Peter Gill, Annie Gray, Gavin Riley, Jeremy Sole, Alan Titchall ADVERTISING MANAGER Mike Bridgman DDI: 09 636 5724 Mobile: 021 228 4988 Email: mike@contrafed.co.nz ADVERTISING SALES Amanda Gilroy DDI: 09 636 5714 Mobile: 021 066 4914 Email: amanda@contrafed.co.nz ADMINISTRATION/SUBSCRIPTIONS DDI: 09 636 5715 Email: admin@contrafed.co.nz PRODUCTION Design: TMA Design 09 636 5713 Printing: Client Focused Solutions Ltd 027 255 1818

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.

The official magazine of The New Zealand Contractors’ Federation www.nzcontractors.co.nz Roading New Zealand www.roadingnz.org.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 Infrastructure Industry Training Organisation www.infratrain.co.nz

ISSN 0110-1382 MARCH 2014 9

CONTRACTOR UPFRONT

10 MARCH 2014

UPFRONT CONTRACTOR

Pulling clever tricks in Christchurch A Kiwi engineering company has developed a cost-effective way of making foundations over dodgy ground in the rebuild of Christchurch’s old Terrace area.

The challenge: Rebuild on the earthquakedamaged The Terrace in Christchurch on ground that is potentially liquefiable in another strong earthquake, and do it without prohibitive cost?

Stage one of The Terrace rebuild by Antony Gough involves three buildings on Oxford Terrace and one on Hereford Street, with hospitality retail on the ground and first floor areas, and office space on the upper levels.

Stage two features a major large office building on the corner of Cashel Street and Oxford Terrace that will contain approximately 6000 square metres of office space and retail plus hospitality on the ground floor. It is due for completion in early 2016.

Stage three will complete the Cashel Street frontages and is likely to contain retail on the ground floor and a 100-bedroom hotel above.

Stage four, the final stage, is expected to contain a 320 bay car park sleeved with apartments to sell on both its north face facing Hereford Street and the west face facing the central piazza and the Avon River.

Geotechnical assessments of the site, on the banks of Christchurch’s Avon River, showed layers of sand and silty sand about 20 metres below ground level that are potentially liquefiable in a strong earthquake. While close to the surface, a compressible soil layer (the remnant of an old stream bed) has potential to allow foundation settlement under the weight of the building.

Nikau Demolition stacked rubble up to four metres high on The Terrace site, helping take it from this…. to this... (artist’s impression opposite page).

How to reinforce that foundation was the challenge facing engineering company Aurecon. Stephen Hogg, the company’s technical director, says it was known from the outset that staying out of the water table was necessary in order to save time and money.

Four early options were considered and rejected. The first was to drive piles down 25 metres, but this idea was rejected due to the potential for future earthquake movement to cause soil lurch (or ground displacements) that could affect the structural integrity of the building.

Option two was to dig out the surface soil and replace it with hard fill imported from local quarries. This would mean about 900

truck movements on local roads.

The third option was to ‘remake’ the top level of the site soil to a depth of about three metres by adding cement, which is a viable option being used elsewhere in the Christchurch CBD. However, this particular site is three metres above the water table and major dewatering would likely be involved if soil was removed down to the three-metre level, so it was rejected because of cost.

And option four, the use of rammed gravel columns which penetrate the surface soils down to the upper gravel layer was rejected because of cost.

“Aurecon came up with an extremely effective solution similar to the old game of

MARCH 2014 11

CONTRACTOR UPFRONT

Southland success

‘stacks on the mill’,” says Hogg.

Christchurch had no shortage of demolition rubble which was trucked in from a neighbouring site just a few hundred metres away and stacked four metres high and left for about four weeks. About 5000 cubic metres of fill was moved (800 truck loads) with a total weight of about 9000 tonnes, or 50 percent more than the total weight of the building that will eventually be erected on the site.

Surveyors, using precise optical equipment, frequently measured the effect of the heaped demolition rubble on the site. These measurements continued until the settlement effect caused by the stockpiles ceased, at which time the rubble was removed. The preloading treatment has meant that the buildings do not need complex or deep-seated foundations.

Aurecon also designed a reinforced concrete raft foundation that will allow the

12 MARCH 2014

buildings to float on top of the pre-compacted soil, which will minimise the effects of differential settlement if deep liquefaction occurs in any future earthquakes.

“We gained a month because the raft foundations did not have to be fully designed before pre-loading the site,” says Hogg.

“The design was completed while we waited for the ground to settle.”

The concrete raft will mean the building will float on the upper levels of the ground, providing a robust foundation structure that will be strong and tolerant to settlement.

“It will also distribute the effects of potential differential settlement rather than concentrate the damaging effects, as would be the case with a piled solution or pad foundation solution.

“It will also mean we can easily re-level the building in the future should it be necessary.”

The Contractors’ Federation Southland regional excavator operator competition was held on the second and third days of the Waimumu Field Days near Gore – February 13-14.

This year marked the 20th anniversary of the competition and organisers had hoped for a strong turn-out as the competition is open to anyone who felt they had the skills. However driving rain on both days reduced the number of competitors to 18.

“We normally get about 15-20 excavators,” says committee member Stuart MacLeod.

Fellow committee member Grant Hoffman (pictured taking part in the competition) says there were a couple of tricky things thrown in the test mix this year – including having to paint the Federation logo’s – which certainly “weren’t the sort of normal everyday type of tasks”.

The regional winner was Bruce Fellars from Winton who will represent the province at the national competition held this month in Feilding.

UPFRONT CONTRACTOR

James Corlett, northern regional manager NZCF, while playing at Remuera Golf Club, Sunday February 2 with Dave Dengelo from Fulton Hogan had his second hole in one on the 11th par 3. Well done James. Looking at this photo, however, we have no idea why the following Tiger Woods quote springs to mind: “Hockey is a sport for white men.

Basketball is a sport for black men. Golf is a sport for white men dressed like black pimps.”

(With apologies to black pimps – Ed)

NZ Transport Agency physical works contracts Jan 21, 2014 – February 20, 2014 Successful tenderer

Name of contract

Contract estimate

No of tenders

Range of tenders

Award price

$76,652,850

6

$68,717,855 - $85,092,437

$68,717,855

WHANGAREI, WANGANUI, MARLBOROUGH No contracts let AUCKLAND Leighton Contractors

CA3825 – SH16 St Lukes Western Ring Route (WRR) project

HAMILTON Brian Perry Civil

SH3 Hamilton to New Plymouth HPMV bridge strengthening

$982,600

4

$779,590 - $1,081,385

$779,590

Orsborn Roadmarkers

Southern Coromandel edgeline pavement marking 2014

$347,000

5

$127,626 - $175,267

$126,543

SH29 Maungatapu safety barrier HPMV bridge strengthening Port of Tauranga to Taupo

$860,751 $961,000

6 N/A

$759,545 - $844,008 N/A

$759,545 $784,960

Structural bridge repairs, Gisborne 2013/14 Safety improvements 2013/14 Hawke’s Bay guardrail (1148)

$362,807

5

$344,890 - $501,176

$334,890

$301,959

7

$229,716 - $294,883

$229,716

Waikato HPMV bridge strengthening group 1

$599,000

4

$471,771 - $621,084

$471,771

SH6 Ten Mile guardrail installation SH1 Coplands Road North B AWT

$136,000 $299,000

5 N/A

$96,943 - $179,731 N/A

$96,943 $314,378

Otago/Southland bridge seismic improvements & repairs 2013/14

$457,000

N/A

N/A

$291,969

TAURANGA Waiotahi Contractors Fulton Hogan Civil North

NAPIER Downer NZ

Fulton Hogan

WELLINGTON Brian Perry Civil

CHRISTCHURCH SiconFerguson Paul Smith Earthmoving

DUNEDIN Fulton Hogan

Notes: 1. NZ Transport Agency physical contracts let are presented 21st – 20th (note: In the April issue it will be February 21 to March 20). 2. At NZ Transport Agency’s request, for reasons of commercial sensitivity, no tender range is given where there are only two tenders. 3. All amounts rounded to nearest dollar.

MARCH 2014 13

CONTRACTOR UPFRONT

14 MARCH 2014

UPFRONT CONTRACTOR

Sochi’s billions

Pete and Andy front for Hirepool The Block NZ stars, brothers Pete and Andy Walker from Bulls, are fronting Hirepool’s new TV advertising. Mark Powell, Hirepool’s executive director sales and marketing, says they’re good Kiwi blokes, and with their easygoing attitudes and keen senses of humour, they make an ideal fit for Hirepool.

Last month’s Winter Olympics in Sochi generated plenty of headlines around the world: some were even for the sports themselves.

One strand, however, falls into the realms of disbelief – and that’s the cost. If just one media outlet had the story it could be dismissed as exaggeration, sour grapes, or even just plain wrong.

Figures being bandied about are around the US$50 billion mark. Vancouver’s budget was tiny in comparison at $7 billion.

That makes Sochi the most expensive Olympics ever, which was almost inevitable given Sochi has been described as starting off as a “a one-lane town with grave logistical problems”, and a surprise choice of location (the population figure is actually around the same as Christchurch). And snow, generally plentiful in Russia, had to be stored in case nature didn’t provide enough. However, on the positive side, Sochi is also close to one of Putin’s homes, so he and his friends wouldn’t have had far to travel.

But without an existing infrastructure, everything had to be built at grossly inflated prices. For instance, the Olympic Stadium: $778.7 million. The Iceberg Skating Palace: $277.7 million. The Rosa Khutor (Rose Farm) Resort: $2.6 billion. And a rail link: $9.4 billion. The list goes on.

Then there’s the corruption. Vanity Fair magazine quotes sources saying billions of dollars worth of organized crime money started pouring into the area (about as far south in Russia as it’s possible to get) as soon as the International Olympic Committee awarded the games to Sochi in July 2007. This was money allegedly generated from the Afghan heroin trade by well-known Kurdish and Armenian criminals. Battles for supremacy in the race to get building contracts included murder and other forms of intimidation more familiar to us in a James Bond movie.

Maybe New Zealand does warrant being on the top of Transparency International’s Least Corrupt Countries list, while Russia tops the Bribe Payer’s Index.

MARCH 2014 15

CONTRACTOR UPFRONT

McConnell Dowell completes Indonesian jetty Two years in construction, McConnell Dowell has successfully completed an 800-metre-long jetty for Holcim Tuban, Indonesia. Operations will begin this month. Started in March 2012, constant battles with rough seas made the first 200 metres of the trestle work difficult until progress had reached beyond the wave line. The jetty comprises 780 precast elements including 266 pre-stress T-girders for the trestle, 158 precast headstocks and 366 pre-stress deck slabs for the platform, on 300 concrete spun piles.

16 MARCH 2014

East-West link endorsed The considerable weight of the Auckland Business Forum has strongly endorsed the decision to focus the proposed East-West link between Auckland’s SH1 and SH20 (Mt Wellington to Onehunga).

The Onehunga, Southdown, and Penrose area generates around 18 percent of Auckland’s GDP, is Auckland’s second highest area for employment and is predicted to see a big increase in heavy truck access as the Auckland economy grows, but is currently clogged with heavy traffic all day.

The Auckland Business Forum comprises Auckland’s major business and transport organisations including Auckland Regional Chamber of Commerce, Employers & Manufacturers (Northern), Auckland Airport, Ports of Auckland, NZ Council for Infrastructure Development, NZ Automobile Association (Auckland District), National Road Carriers Association, and the NZ Contractors’ Federation.

WHEN YOU NEED A LONG REACH

UPFRONT CONTRACTOR

Tauranga-based McLeod group is shown here in action putting together a new oil rig in Taranaki with its new Grove GMK-5130 mobile telescoping crane, nicknamed Lofty, from Manitowoc.

The brand new 450-tonne drilling rig, named Big Ben, was built in Germany and shipped to New Zealand from Rotterdam late last year; arriving in Port Taranaki in January then hauled to the Mangahewa D oil and gas site located 20 kilometres south east of New Plymouth.

Big Ben needed 25 articulated heavy haulage trucks and 110 loads to get it to the site as well as 40 men and five cranes to unload it from the ship when it arrived at Port Taranaki.

Costing $42 million, the rig was initially deployed to continue Todd Energy’s Mangahewa development programme and has now been disassembled and moved to support Todd’s wider exploration and production activities in onshore Taranaki.

Highly automated, the rig improves site safety and is quieter in operation than older style rigs. The increase in oil and gas exploration onshore in recent years has resulted in tensions between exploration companies and residents concerned about noise and heavy traffic. The modern rig is also designed to be disassembled and transported to other drilling sites very quickly.

MARCH 2014 17

CONTRACTOR UPFRONT

IN BRIEF Calling all cranes The Crane Association is pleased with the entries already received for its annual Crane Project of the Year Award, to be presented at the 40th annual conference in Queenstown in July. New entries can still be made until March 31. Due to circumstances beyond the Association’s control, no award was made last year. The winner in 2012 was Waikato Cranes for its work on the Rena Project.

Cambridge connection Construction on the Cambridge section of the Waikato Expressway is ramping up with residents being advised of increased heavy traffic movement along SH1, 1B, and along the new haul road which runs the length of the Expressway route.

Loooong load Megatranz in Brazil recently moved a 62.4 metre Chinese-made condensation tower with a total weight of 456 tons from Aratú Navy Base to Camaçari Petrochemical Complex for the BASF Acrylic Complex.

The challenging dimensions of 9.55 metres wide, 8.55 metres high (11.50 metres on trailer) and 62.40 metres long required 40 axle lines with incorporated modules to broaden its base and increase the stability and wheel base of the vehicle. Two Scheuerle InterCombi PowerPacks helped to increase the thrust on steep stages of the fivestage route.

Waterview update By mid-February, Alice the TBM had completed 250 metres of the 2400 metre first Waterview connection tunnel after a careful probation period, the best day so far achieving 22 metres. NZTA Auckland highways manager, Tommy Parker says, “After that cautious start, she has come up to speed and is now demonstrating what she’s capable of.”

Hamilton Expressway change NZTA has lodged an application to alter the Hamilton section of the Waikato Expressway to allow for an interchange close to Ruakura which would link the Hamilton section of the Expressway with a Tainui Group Holdings proposed freight and logistics terminal (inland port). To limit the amount of freight traffic using local roads in the area, the proposed interchange will be located close to the Ruakura port.

Bridge strengthening work continues NZTA has announced that nine Waikato bridges will be strengthened to allow for High Productivity Motor Vehicles (HPMV) to carry greater volumes of freight through the area.

Three of the bridges are along SH3 between Te Awamutu and Awakino, three are on SH1 between Tirau and Putaruru, and three more are along SH29 between the lower Kaimais and Tauranga.

Weighty issues at AT

Alas poor Yorick As London’s £14.8 billion Crossrail project reaches the half-way point, a free public exhibition, Portals to the Past, will display more than 50 archaeology objects found during the massive dig, including skulls from Roman London, a Roman cremation pot (which contained remains when discovered), flint used by Londoners 9000 years ago and 16th century jewellery. Crossrail will add 42 kilometres of new railway tunnels under London, and is on schedule to open in 2018.

18 MARCH 2014

Much to the relief of the everyone south of the Bombays, Auckland Transport is reviewing its policy on residential berms.

The whole country will be aware that residents of the old Auckland City were, for the first time, expected to mow their own berms to cut costs rather than grass, leading to nearapocalyptic anarchy in the suburbs. Common sense has finally prevailed, and AT’s COO Greg Edmonds says, “We will be taking a customer-focused and pragmatic approach to our review, in consultation with Auckland Council; however safety for road users, pedestrians and cyclists will be paramount as will be managing the cost of on-going road corridor maintenance.”

UPFRONT CONTRACTOR

An open letter from the Federation JEREMY SOLE CEO, NZ CONTRACTORS’ FEDERATION THE JOINT COLUMN written by Mark Kinvig and me on page 54 of this issue is essentially the culmination of many hundreds of hours of work on the part of NZTA and the Federation and especially NZCF members many of whom, by their absence, put their own businesses at risk to engage in the review.

The debates went on for a long time and late last year, after NZTA made their contract model decision final, the negotiations moved away from focusing on the merits or otherwise of large-network, long-duration contracts.

Latterly we have been focusing on ensuring there are adequate controls in place under the new state highway Network Outcomes Contracts (NOC) model to have it create and maintain as close an approximation to a healthy industry as the model allows.

Overall this period has been extremely difficult. Difficult not only for the relationship between NZTA and the Federation, but a particularly difficult period in terms of finding a balance of views within the broad constituency of Federation membership. The whole process had serious potential to cause catastrophic divisions within the Federation itself. Fortunately, while we came close on occasion, this explosion didn’t come to pass: some would say there had been no risk, others would say there was good governance over the process, and others would say it was pure good luck. Whichever view one holds, and it doesn’t really matter which, it’s the strength of the relationships – the camaraderie – that ultimately holds it all together. In a healthy industry environment this dynamic ultimately transcends stressors around individual issues.

Ours is a small tight industry and it seems to me that time heals the rifts. Having a relatively small sector also means expediency and the thrill in the work eventually wins over. Of course that’s only to the extent that people are committed to the development and health of the industry as much as for their own gain. This is something that industry representative body governing leaders choose to face on a regular basis and it must be one of the hardest roles in the industry – to take that big picture view over individual interests and opportunities to generate personal gain, and the responsibilities to the role they left at the door when they entered the board room. I recall in particular

one ex-councillor on the Federation’s Executive Council reflecting on the times where they had put the industry’s interests ahead of their day job responsibilities.

This becomes even harder in a small industry when business, contractual, and personal relationships outside of the industry organisation become so intertwined that it can become difficult to move left or right without making some sort of compromise or facing some degree of pressure. I don’t envy anyone who faces those kinds of decisions and I expect that the only way through such a dilemma is to look up to a common view of what the organisation is tasked to achieve – somewhere above the rules, above the codes of ethics, above the relationships and even above the clouds, there is a rarefied atmosphere where the guiding responsibilities, visions and goals can be teased out and articulated.

We’ve been fortunate in the Federation where we have recently had opportunity, through commitment on the part of our Executive Council, to visit that place and develop the vision and values so as to inform what we should be doing and how we should go about it – but most of all – what the Federation stands for.

Those values that the Executive Council teased out of this review are about: Leadership: Integrity: Camaraderie: and being Visionary.

And, we’ll set about harnessing and developing these things to become “The unifying voice of the industry representing the interests of all members leading to the development of the industry”. And, we will know we have achieved all of this when we have a healthy, innovative and competitive industry to build a better New Zealand.

So this is the context in which the Federation’s national office is reviewing its operations and it’s also the context in which the Federation’s Executive Council is negotiating with RoadingNZ towards an integration of the two organisations – a significant step towards achieving the muchsought-after unified industry vision.

So here we are sailing out of the recession with a good strong tail wind building behind us as we bring about a focused, effective and unified industry representation.

MARCH 2014 19

CONTRACTOR UPFRONT

20 MARCH 2014

CONTRACTOR CONTRACTS

NZS 3917:2013 The trilogy is complete and it’s time to get to work JARED HOLT SENIOR ASSOCIATE, NATIONAL CONSTRUCTION LAW TEAM, KENSINGTON SWAN

STANDARDS NEW ZEALAND recently released its new standard form fixed term contract, NZS 3917:2013. Together with NZS 3910:2013 (build-only) and NZS 3916:2013 (design and build), it makes up the three new contracts born out of last year’s NZS 3910:2003 review.

As the ‘fixed term’ reference suggests, this contract is intended for use where maintenance or other building or engineering works and services will run for a defined period. The foreword to the contract gives some examples of the types of works and services that this could apply to, including inspection and testing, cleaning, painting, preventative maintenance, and repair of components in completed works.

The arrival of 3917 is good news. There had long been a feeling in the industry that appendix C of the 3910:2003 (ie, the term maintenance option) was not comprehensive enough for these types of projects and that a dedicated standard form fixed tern contract was required.

It is important to get up to speed on this contract. It contains many more provisions than the old appendix C of 3910 and uses new terminology. The guidelines provide a good starting point for understanding the changes. The sooner that it is understood, the sooner it can provide a solid but flexible base from which to contract for fixed term projects.

While still broadly based on 3910, significant aspects of 3917 are:

Clause

NZS 3917

Contractor’s bond The contractor’s bond is released on the issue of the final completion certificate. Under 3910, the Clauses 3.1 and the 3rd schedule bond is released on practical completion. The later time for release under 3917 is based on the fact that retentions are less likely to be withheld in contracts of this nature (although they remain an option). Without retentions, the principal would have no security for the cost of completing any outstanding obligations, unless the bond remains valid through to the final completion certificate.

Contractor’s occupancy of the site Occupancy of the site is non-exclusive. The principal and other persons have the right to use the site and the contract works pursuant to their normal rights of access or passage.

Clause 5.4 Care of the works and site The contractor is responsible for the care of any part of the contract works and site from Clause 5.6 commencement of work on that part until completed. This deals with situations where the site is defined as the whole area on which works may be undertaken, such as a local road network. The contractor could not be expected to be responsible for a whole road network if it is only working on a part of it.

Programme The contractor provides a programme within 10 working days of the acceptance of tender, with revisions being provided at intervals stated in the special conditions.

Clause 5.10 The programmes provide details for the specified period from the revision date together with an overview for the remainder of the contract works period.

Time-related overheads and profits As the contract is for a fixed term, there are no time extensions under 3917. The ability to recover time-related overheads and profits as part of valuing variations has been removed as a result.

Clause 5.16 However, the contractor can still recover time-related costs where a part of the contract works has been delayed.

16 MARCH 2014

Maintenance records The contractor is required to keep maintenance records, in addition to the usual requirements for as-built drawings and operation and maintenance manuals.

Clause 5.20

Insurance Where construction insurance is arranged by the principal (as will usually be the case), the principal takes out insurance for both the contract works and any existing structure or property Clause 8.8, 8.9 and the 12th Schedule (unless otherwise provided by the special conditions). This recognises that a typical 3917 contract will require work to be performed on existing assets.

The guidance notes make it clear that any insurance arrangements need to be tailored to the specific circumstances.

Contract works period The contract works period (for the whole of the contract works or for any separable portion) commences on the date of commencement and ends on the date of expiry. This underpins the Clause 10.1 and 10.2 fixed term nature of the contract compared with 3910 and 3916.

Certificate on expiry Within 5 working days from the date of expiry the engineer must issue a certificate, which may include a list of outstanding obligations of the contractor.

Clause 10.3 and the 15th schedule The engineer can elect to allow the contractor to complete its outstanding obligations or to have others do so at the contractor’s expense.

Remedying of defects The contractor has 5 working days after receiving an engineer’s notice to remedy defects (or such reasonable time as agreed). If the contractor fails to do so, the engineer can get others to Clauses 11.1, 11.4 and the 16th schedule undertake the work at the contractor’s cost.

The engineer issues a final completion certificate after any outstanding obligations under clause 10.3 have been completed.

Retentions Retentions remain an option under 3917. Where used, the standard position is that half is released on the date of expiry (less the engineer’s assessment of the cost of any outstanding obligations Clause 12.3 and the 5th schedule at that point). The remainder is released as part of the final payment schedule for the whole of the contract works.

Final payment claim The contractor must submit the final payment claim within one month of the issue of the final completion certificate. If the term is longer than 12 months and there are separable portions, Clause 12.4 separate final claims are required. Each must be submitted within one month after the certificate of expiry for the relevant separable portion.

Performance payments Where provided in the special conditions, either party may pay a performance payment based on actual performance compared to specified performance indicators.

Clause 12.14

Liquidated damages Liquidated damages may be provided for under the special conditions where the contractor fails to meet an obligation specified in the contract.

Clause 12.15 Liquidated damages for late completion of the contract works are not relevant, given the fixed term nature of the contract.

MARCH 2014 17

CONTRACTOR ON THE COVER

JOHN DEERE MAKES THE GRADE Even before Sam Pemberton’s new full-featured John Deere 670 Grade Pro (GP) motor grader arrived at his company’s Hamilton yard, it had already created a bit of friendly competition amongst his team.

“THEY WERE LOOKING FORWARD to the machine’s arrival and all of them thought they were going to drive it. But with one operator assigned to each machine here, it will be a lucky person who finishes up with this new grader,” he says.

Sam decided to invest in the high-spec machine after his firm Sam Pemberton Civil started to branch into some larger contracts in Waikato.

“With more and more roading and subdivision work on the go we needed to upsize from our previous machine. We looked into a few different makes but couldn’t go past the John Deere grader from CablePrice for performance and value for money.”

Sam already had four John Deere tractors in his fleet so knew he could count on the brand’s reliability.

“Our familiarity with the brand was one of the things that sold it to us, along with our relationship with CablePrice and the extra features of the Grade Pro model. Part of the factory set up includes electro-hydraulic (EH) controls, which make it a lot easier to convert to a full machine-controlled grader.”

Sam also liked the way John Deere had stuck with lever controls in the machine, arranged in the familiar, industry-standard pattern.

“Other grader brands have gone to joystick controls but it’s not something our operators are keen on.”

John Deere’s “open architecture” design also allow operators to “plug and play” their favourite brand of grade-control system on the machine, such as Topcon, Trimble or Leica to provide even more efficiency and accuracy on the job site.

18 MARCH 2014

Sam is happy with his decision to add the latest Leica PowerGrade 3D control system to the new grader.

“We’ve used the Leica products with our survey equipment but never with machine control before. We’re taking a bit of a plunge into the deep end but are excited about its possibilities.”

Once an engineer’s 3D CAD model of a new road (including its heights, depths and grades) is programmed into the Leica system, it then integrates seamlessly with the motor grader’s hydraulic system, with fully automatic blade control working directly from the CAD model to produce the desired surface and outcome.

“It will really take the guesswork out of the job and give us the precise finish we’re looking for in faster time. There is also the flexibility to run the system by both robotic total station and GPS depending on the type of work we’re doing.”

CablePrice Hamilton sales rep David Neilson says the “brand spanking new” tandem grader has many other special features, including automated cross-slope control and pushbutton activation return-to-straight that make the most of a seasoned operator’s skills and helps to bring inexperienced operators up to speed.

“The electronic controls can turn any half-decent grader driver into an excellent one straight away.”

The operator sits down rather than stands up in the grader’s spacious walk-through cab, which has excellent visibility of the job site.

David says the versatile GP model comes with a joystick steer lever as well as a steering wheel.

“The steering lever is mounted alongside the eight fingertip

“At the moment we have nine Hitachi excavators in the fleet, ranging from 3.3 to 33 tonnes. They are great machines to operate and their reliability is excellent – definitely ahead of other brands on the market.”

controls on the armrests on either side of the steering wheel. It really is a brilliant machine to operate.”

With a taller mainframe, the John Deere 670 GP grader has the ability to efficiently shoulder larger loads and navigate over obstacles with ease, he adds.

“It provides plenty of clearance for a mid-mount scarifier, and simplifies blade set up and operation too. The grader’s exclusive Event-Based Shifting transmission is another great feature that delivers smooth gear and direction changes, resulting in exceptional control and grading precision with no extra effort.”

Sam started Sam Pemberton Civil in 2006, but has a family history dating back 60 years in the civil contracting industry in the Waikato region.

Most of his company’s work is large civil projects for commercial clients with some recent jobs including supermarket projects for NZ Foodstuffs, various Fonterra projects, work at the Base Shopping Centre for Tainui Group Holdings, and a year-long drainage project as part of the Waikato Expressway in conjunction with Higgins Contractors for NZTA. General services provided by the company include roading, subdivision development, kerbing and concrete, pavement construction, retaining walls, commercial site works, concrete pads, drainage, underpasses, erosion and sediment control, stormwater, sewer, pump stations and water-main installation.

“We have strong relationships with contacts in the region. They

rely on us to do a good job every time, and to provide top quality staff and gear. We can’t afford downtime which is why the reliability of our machinery is so important.”

Sam is a “long time Hitachi fan”, and has bought several excavators from the CablePrice Hamilton team since he started the business.

“At the moment we have nine Hitachi excavators in the fleet, ranging from 3.3 to 33 tonnes. They are great machines to operate and their reliability is excellent – definitely ahead of other brands on the market.”

Sam likes to keep his fleet well maintained and up to date with the latest gear.

“We turn machines over every four to five years on average to get the best out of them, and have purchased three new excavators from CablePrice each year for the last three years.”

The relationship between CablePrice and the Pembertons goes back nearly 20 years through Sam’s father’s former company.

“The backup and service we get from CablePrice is great.

It’s rare there is a problem with the machines. But if we do need their help they’re good at getting out there and getting stuff sorted.”

CablePrice rep David Neilson says the relationship is a two-way street, with Sam a “great guy to deal with”.

“Sam knows quality when he sees it and drives it, which is why he’s stuck with us. He knows what he wants and we always do our best to make things happen for him.” l MARCH 2014 19

CONTRACTOR PROJECT

BOOSTING the Bridge Street Bridge

As heavy lifts go, it was one small step for a Christchurch bridge, but one big leap for the company that did it.

HUGH DE LACY reports.

SHOVING AUCKLAND’S 2600-TONNE Stanley Street railway bridge sideways 17 metres was a technological triumph for Auckland-based HTC Lifts in 2003, but hoisting a slightly lighter earthquake-damaged Christchurch bridge just 200mm in December last year was even more of one.

The Auckland sideways shove, to position the pre-fabricated rail-bridge on its Stanley St/Beach Road/The Strand site, was achieved by the then-standard method of deploying hydraulic jacks whose movements were synchronised by workers on walkietalkies and blowing whistles at each of two pulling and eight

HTC Lifts’ managing director Robb Huskinson and Christchurch branch manager Daniel Brice, ‘lifting’ the Bridge Street bridge.

20 MARCH 2014

lifting and powering points.

The lifting of Christchurch’s 1600-tonne Bridge Street bridge 11 years later was, by contrast, performed with a single touchscreen display module controlling the operation of no fewer than 72 separate hydraulic rams, each with a lift capacity of 100 tonnes.

The 2011 quakes in Christchurch caused the two-lane concrete Bridge Street bridge across the Avon River to slump as much as 200mm, forcing its closure and cutting Bexley and South New Brighton residents off from their direct route into the central city.

One lane of the bridge was re-opened, for city-bound traffic

MARCH 2014 21

CONTRACTOR PROJECT

Above: Robb Huskinson with three of the five Syncmaster synchronised lifting systems from Durapac.

only, in August 2012, and for the next 12 months commuters had to make a five-kilometre detour to get back home.

The rail-bridge job, completed over Auckland’s 2003 anniversary weekend, was the highlight of HTC Lifts achievements up till then, but last year’s Christchurch job was the first of its kind in Australasia.

HTC shelled out a million dollars in 2013 to buy five Syncmaster synchronised lifting systems from Queensland high-pressure hydraulic tool manufacturer Durapac.

The Syncmaster units can be set up to create and control new fewer than 128 lifting points – accurate to 0.5mm - through the single touch-screen, giving a level of precision and control that greatly reduces both the risk and the cost of heavy-lift operations.

Lead contractor Fulton Hogan had been engaged by the 22 MARCH 2014

Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team (SCIRT) to repair the Bridge Street bridge for its owner, Christchurch City, and HTC was sub-contracted to lift it back onto the level, plus a bit more to allow for the repairs.

The quakes had badly skewed the bridge by twisting the abutments, and it had slumped by varying degrees between 8mm and 200mm.

After levelling the bridge, HTC’s job was to lift it high enough for temporary packing to be placed between the bridge and the abutments and to allow for the abutments themselves to be repaired, something that won’t be completed for some months yet because of the complexity of the renewed piling system.

Once the abutments are repaired the bridge will be lowered back onto them, and onto the two mid-river piers that support it.

CONTRACTOR PROJECT

“We had four lifting positions across the width of the bridge at the abutments, and on the two piers we were able to fit a whole bunch of very small low-height rams,” HTC’s Christchurch branch manager, Daniel Brice, told Contractor.

“On the abutments, Fulton Hogan had to put in temporary structures going down about 38 metres into the ground to give the stability for the lift-off.”

Once all 72 rams were in place, each was connected to a hose than ran onto the deck of the bridge and into the synchronised lifting system.

HTC had a team of five of its own staff on the job, supplemented

by Stuart Smith, an engineer who had been involved in the building of the bridge in 1980, and who was lured out of retirement to advise on its repair.

HTC began setting its gear up on-site on December 5; the lift itself began eight days later, and was completed by December 16.

“We did the actual lift over a 24-hour period – just over – which 24 MARCH 2014

is what we’d planned for,” Brice said.

Fulton Hogan had been working on and around the bridge long before HTC came on-site: it had renewed the smashed wastewater infrastructure along Bridge Street, digging trenches up to 3.5m deep, de-watering by spear and pump, and installing a new PVC main pipe and the laterals to the houses.

It had sunk the piles to take the hydraulic lifts at the abutments, re-built the abutments themselves, and repaired and upgraded the services that run under the bridge.

HTC Lifts was involved in the conventional lifting of several of the other dozen bridges over the Avon that were damaged in the quakes, but the Bridge Street job drew a small crowd of onlookers following Fulton Hogan’s opening up the worksite a few days before to media and industry visitors.

The exposure resulted in a surge of industry inquiries not only from Australasia but around the world, giving the company confidence in the value of its big capital investment.

CONTRACTOR PROJECT

A Durapac representative shows Robb Huskinson of HTC and Cherie Leckner of Fulton Hogan the Syncmaster controls. .

For transport between projects, the five Durapac lifting systems can be loaded into a single container, turning the whole of Australasia into HTC’s target market.

The computer that runs the system keeps each hydraulic ram operating within a pre-set tolerance of the others, and it also monitors weight and subsidence at each lifting point, pausing the operation if anything gets out of kilter.

HTC Lifts has a total staff of 25, and was launched as the Hydraulic Tool Company from a Howick garden shed in 1982 by Roy Huskinson, the father of the present managing director, Robb Huskinson.

The older Huskinson is a fitter by trade, and he started out selling a range of high-quality, high-pressure hydraulic tools, especially those of the Japanese manufacturer Riken Kiki.

As the business grew, Huskinson found himself increasingly involved at the operational stages of heavy-lifting projects using the equipment he was marketing, and the company’s focus has 26 MARCH 2014

now switched from supplying tools to include the planning and executing of heavy lifts.

One of the earliest high-profile jobs for which HTC provided equipment was the lifting of Parliament’s House of Represntatives to enable base isolator bearings to be installed within the brick piers, rendering it safe for earthquakes up to 7.5 on the Richter Scale.

Robb Huskinson took over the managing director’s role from his father in 2005, and though heavy lifts are now a core part of HTC’s overall business strategy, its tool distribution and rental businesses remains vigorous, with more than 1000 product lines offered from bases in both main islands.

The company also has a hire service for most of the equipment it sells, giving it an insight into how they perform in the field and what parts to carry in-stock.

The company also provides both on-site and laboratory calibration services for a wide range of torque tools.

CONTRACTOR INTERNATIONAL PROJECT

ACROSS THE ANDES 28 MARCH 2014

An ambitious transport and infrastructure plan in Colombia will see road builders in some parts of the country grappling with rugged mountainous passes in the Andes, gushing rivers and deep gorges – all somewhat reminiscent of the television series, “World’s Most Dangerous Roads”.

BY ANNIE GRAY.

MARCH 2014 29

CONTRACTOR INTERNATIONAL PROJECT

HERE’S AN AMBITIOUS OBJECTIVE: The Government of Colombia, in South America, is looking to generate a five-fold increase in kilometres of double-lane highways over the next five years; a three-fold increase in operational railways; doubling the capacity of ports and increasing by 50 percent the number of passengers in airplanes.

President Juan Manual Santos has allocated a sizeable 10-year, US$55 billion transport and infrastructure investment budget, including public-private partnerships, of which $25 billion will be undertaken by 2018.

And building all those roads won’t be easy. Colombian geography presents formidable challenges to road builders, as it links its largest production centres deep inside the Andes with major ports in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

All of this carries a heavy premium to road building.

Naturally enough the ambitious infrastructure plan is attracting a lot of international interest. An Infrastructure Investment Guide on Colombia by the Infrastructure Journal in conjunction with the British Foreign Office says that Colombia has the potential to be one of South America’s great success stories.

It is the fourth largest economy in Latin America after Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. It lies in the North-Western region of South America with a total surface area of 1.14 million square kilometres, which makes it roughly five times the size of New Zealand. With a population of almost 47 million it is now establishing itself as one of the CIVET (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt and Turkey) countries set to succeed the fast-growing BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China). The CIVETs all have resources, diverse economies and young and growing populations.

Other reports “marvel” at Colombia’s transformation over the past decade, as its Government tames violence, encourages investment, stokes exports and strengthens links with markets worldwide.

One Colombian roading project highlighted by the Spanish crane producer, Linden Comansa, is dubbed The Route of the Sun and it will link the cities of the interior of the country, including the capital Bogota, with Barranquilla, one of the main ports in the Caribbean.

The Route of the Sun is one of the 11 roads the Colombian Government has declared of strategic importance. It is 1,071 30 MARCH 2014

kilometres long (roughly the equivalent of Auckland to Christchurch via SH 1) and is one of the most ambitious roading projects in Latin America. It has a budget of more than US$2,500 million and will reduce the car journey between Bogota and Barranquilla from the current 18 hours to just 10 hours.

The first 78-kilometre sector of the project is being managed

by Helios Consortium, formed by CAS, IECSA, ConConcreto and CSS Constructores.

Linden says this is the shortest of the three stretches that make up the highway, but also the most complex, since it will cross the Colombian part of the Andes range, a very mountainous area lined with numerous rivers and gorges.

The topography means it will include nearly three kilometres of tunnels and up to six kilometres of bridges and viaducts.

Six of Linden’s tower cranes, operated by Gigacon, the official distributor of the Spanish manufacturer in Colombia, will be used for the construction of the bridges.

The tower cranes will be used in building a total of seven bridges on this section, so when a bridge is completed, the cranes are disassembled, transported and erected again to start on the next bridge.

One of the biggest difficulties the contractors faced was the transportation of the cranes to the rural area of the Magdalena Medio – a rugged and unpopulated area, 100 kilometres from Bogota, with poor road conditions. On top of this the team is also grappling with the high temperatures in the region where 32 degrees Celsius is the annual average.

FOOTNOTE: Still in South America: www.WorldHighways.com

reported in November that a tender for a project to build the Chacao bridge in Chile, which will link Chiloe island with Chile’s mainland Los Lagos region, attracted only one bid. The Chilean Government has earmarked a maximum project budget of US$740 million for the project and the consortium that submitted the bid to build the four lane bridge includes Hyundai of South Korea, Systra of France, Brazilian company OAS and Aas-Jakobsen of Norway. Construction work is due to begin in 2015 with completion in 2019.

CONTRACTOR PROJECT

THE TWIN BRIDGES OF THE WAITAKI The New Zealand frozen meat trade was about to be launched down the road near Oamaru when the twin bridges at Kurow were first built. HUGH DE LACY reports on their replacement.

A 20-HECTARE MID-RIVER ISLAND made the bridging of the Waitaki River near Kurow a less daunting prospect than it might otherwise have been to the builders in 1881, and more than a century and a quarter later the island is doing the same for McConnell Dowell Constructors.

Defying the tendency for the South Island’s braided rivers to build and demolish islands from one peak flow to the next, Kurow Island has so stolidly endured the ravages of the Waitaki that it will not only continue to link the two bridges but will become a local tourist feature in its own right.

As well as the two new bridges a little down-river from the old ones, the island will become home to a legacy display consisting of two spans salvaged from the old wooden Howe truss bridges.

All of which has made the Kurow and Hakataramea Valley communities, on either side of the Otago- Canterbury boundary and linked historically by the Kurow Island bridges, more closely involved in the construction of the replacement bridges than would be the case in less relatively isolated communities.

The bridges’ replacement is funded by the NZ Transport Agency 34 MARCH 2014

which has developed the project under an Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) form of contract.

This has involved collaboration with McConnell Dowell and the engagement of local communities.

A partnering charter cements this involvement and provides the community with the ability to influence and be involved throughout the construction process.

Not only has McConnell Dowell given jobs to half a dozen Kurow villagers and sub-contracted Ashburton and Oamarubased Rooney Earthmoving to move the earth, but Kurow’s Town Enhancement Group is turning the island itself into a local enhancement project.

The island owes part of its survival in the face of the river’s ravages to the locals using it for decades as a landfill and dumping ground.

Now they aim to reverse that history and have begun enhancing and remediating the island with landscaping,walking tracks and roads to show off its gentle braids and backwaters – and, of course, the two 40-foot (12.2 metre) connected spans of the old

ALL IMAGES SUPPLIED BY MCCONNELL DOWELL CONSTRUCTORS.

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The island owes part of its survival in the face of the river’s ravages to the locals using it for decades as a landfill and dumping ground.

bridges that will remain.

The old bridges, which have a combined length of 762m, were originally built to carry the Duntroon railway branch line into the Hakataramea and a planned terminus 24km up the valley.

But the rail never got beyond the north side of the bridge, and the line itself was closed in 1930, leaving the bridges, whose trusses were carried on trestle piles braced diagonally with iron rails, to serve into the 21st century as single-lane road bridges on SH82.

The over-estimation of the value of a branch railway line possibly had something to do with the imminent emergence of

]

the frozen meat trade in New Zealand in the early 1880s.

The technology had been proven in Argentina and Australia the previous decade, and the first New Zealand export slaughterhouse was built at the Totara Estate, 55km downriver from Kurow, in 1880.

Great hopes were held out for the impact of the new trade on both Otago and Canterbury, though a railway up the Hakataramea Valley was taking expectations a little too far.

Designed by Waimate County engineer Naylor Hillary, the old bridges were regarded as a major engineering feat when they were opened on November 7, 1881, and the northern one has for MARCH 2014 35

CONTRACTOR PROJECT

Right: Bridge 1 Abutment and piling construction.

View from Hakataramea to the Island.

Below right: Bridge 2 Abutment pier construction. View from the Island to Kurow Town.

Below left: Bridge 1 Piling 3rd pile off the temporary trestle. View towards Hakataramea.

decades been the longest Howe truss bridge remaining in the South Island.

They have been severely battered by the river over the years, with the most serious recent incident occurring in early 2011 when a couple of structural piles were washed away.

It was primarily the rising cost of maintenance that prompted the NZTA’s decision to replace the bridges with two two-lane steel and concrete composite bridges, the northern one – Bridge Number One – of 206m and Number Two of 92m.

The lanes are each 3.5m wide, with 0.75m shoulders to accommodate over-size and agricultural vehicles, and a barrierseparated 1.3m wide pedestrian/cycleway on the downstream sides of both.

Construction got under way at the end of March last year, and by mid-November three of the seven piles on Number One had been driven, while Number Two, whose four piles were completed in August, was at the steel erection stage.

The bridges’ piers are single 1.5m diameter reinforced concrete columns sitting on 1.8m diameter steel-cased excavated piles 36 MARCH 2014

driven between 22m and 25m into the gravelly riverbed, and terminating about 40cm above the normal river level.

Number Two bridge, on the Kurow side of the river required rock protection work, and other earthworks included improved and realigned approaches from both banks.

While Rooney’s has the earthmoving subcontract, the Downer Group will handle the road construction.

The beams of weathering steel for the bridges have been fabricated in Napier by Eastbridge, which specialises in steel bridging, towers, poles and heavy steel fabrication.

Once the beams are fitted onto the pier headstocks by site cranes, the pre-cast concrete panels will be placed on them and a concrete topping poured, followed by an asphalt surface.

With the new bridges in place, the old ones will dismantled and two spans of them re-assembled on the island.

The Transport Agency is donating the remaining Australian hardwood timbers to the Waitaki and Waimate District Councils, which will distribute them for use on a range of local projects.

McConnell Dowell project manager Denis Faamau told

Left: Bridge 2 Structural steel erection.

View from Island to Kurow Town.

Contractor the project has gone well from the start, with thanks in large part to the river behaving itself so far.

“We’re pretty much on time at this stage, but you never know what you’re going to encounter underground, and we’ve still got four more piles to drive on the Number One bridge,” Faamau said.

It had been a notably happy construction site because, “The community’s really been supportive,” he said.

Scheduled to open late this year, the new bridges will cost a little over $20 million and are part of NZTA’s billion-dollar

2012-2015 investment in Canterbury’s roading network.

Aside from safeguarding the links forged between Kurow and the Hakataramea Valley by the old bridges, and giving security to SH82 between Kurow and Waimate, the new bridges will provide an emergency alternative route to SH1 when it’s closed by accidents or floods.

And for the locals, Kurow Island will become a tourist amenity where it was once little more than a rubbish tip between the two old bridges.

MARCH 2014 37

CONTRACTOR PROFILE

The backroom boy For more than 30 years Ron Brown has worked tirelessly in areas that have led to safer travel on the roads. Now the nation has honoured him for his contribution.

BY GAVIN RILEY.

A WELCOME SHRINKING of the nation’s annual road toll is generally attributed to improved roads, better driving and safer vehicles. It is in this last area that Ron Brown has toiled unceasingly for more than 30 years, doing valuable work in an unheralded backroom capacity.

Unheralded, that is, until now – Ron was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Year Honours List for services to the transport industry.

That the Crane Association and the Heavy Haulage Association each saw fit to publicly note and applaud his award is testimony to how highly transport professionals rate this veteran consultant.

Ron, a member of the Crane Association council, has worked constantly with members of both organisations on matters of vehicle roadability since he and his wife Lynette founded Transport Specifications Ltd in late 1980. The company was the country’s first transport consultancy and

[

Vehicle Industry Association and Ministry of Transport to develop testing standards for used-car imports; developed seatbelt anchorage codes for privately imported vehicles for the Land Transport Safety Authority; worked with the Police’s Commercial Vehicle Investigation Unit on road accidents and the weighing of commercial vehicles; and developed quality-assurance systems for vehicle safety compliance for the Fire Service, for whom he has been the preferred supplier of engineering services for 20 years.

Ron’s ability to contribute at such a sophisticated technical level can be traced back to the solid grounding he gained in his early days when he was employed by “the types of companies that allowed you to explore”.

Born in Auckland 70 years ago, the son of a motor mechanic, he began his working life with an Onehunga firm, Danes, which built truck bodies, crane cabs and other

“I could see the market wasn’t going to stay at proposal drawings – which we still do but only a very limited number. I did the usual thing, working through midnight till the early hours to get through the workload.”

Ron later became the inaugural president of the Transport Consultants’ Association.

“When the [New Year] honour came along it made me reflect on all the staff who have worked for us over the years and the support all those guys gave us,” Ron says.

“Certainly I steered the vehicle and they wouldn’t release anything without approval. But when you look at the volume of work, you remind yourself that it wasn’t all Ron Brown, it was a bunch of guys.”

That “volume of work” has been painstaking and time-consuming. Ron has worked with the Imported Motor 38 MARCH 2014

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vehicle types.

When he was 22 he was invited to join the workshops of General Foods, which had a fleet of more than 700 vehicles and built its own truck bodies.

Some five years later he became Auckland sales engineer for Rotorua truckand-trailer designer and builder MillsTui. The job was an education. Staff were given the latitude to do what they thought was right by the client and in most cases that meant preparing proposal drawings.

These assured the client that the axle spreads were correct and the regulations complied with, and consequently resulted

in reduced warranties.

“The general manager, Ian Kerr, allowed us to go with the flow so long as MillsTui met client requirements and made a profit,” Ron says.

His seven years with the company included being involved in supplying high-tensile steel truck bodies to United Carriers at Whangarei and being in at the start of Mills-Tui building fire engines.

“The first fire engine that came to Auckland was Papatoetoe’s and I’d take it home at weekends and whenever it was available to modify the controls – that’s how I got my grounding in how fire trucks work,” Ron says.

When Mills-Tui closed its Auckland office and wanted Ron and his family to move to Rotorua, Ron and Lynette decided to remain in Auckland for the sake of the education of their daughter and son. That’s when they founded Transport Specifications, based in the former Mills-Tui office in Parnell and greatly encouraged by two vehicle franchise dealers who promised them work in the form of proposal drawings.

“I could see the market wasn’t going to stay at proposal drawings – which we still do but only a very limited number. I did the usual thing, working through midnight till the early hours to get through the workload,” Ron says.

“After a couple of years we employed a couple of guys and it slowly developed from there. Further down the process we got involved with the Imported Motor Vehicle Industry Association with a court case, then some seatbelt anchorage testing, which caused us to grow like you wouldn’t believe.

“It was always our objective to work with the authorities – work with them rather than be aggressive towards them.

And with the vehicle manufacturers and potential owners to try to amalgamate a project so it works for our clients.

“A lot of those guys in the transport industry are very innovative in how

they want to develop their fleets. With innovation you’ve got to deal with bureaucracy because sometimes the rules have got to be changed.”

An outstanding example of this was when Ron worked with an engineer to develop stinger-steer eight-and-ten car transporters for a specialist company. The regulations were altered to accommodate a new front axle ratio, the company subsequently reported a considerably reduced accident rate, and the change is now incorporated in the VDAM rule.

When a waste-disposal company imported a truck which infringed axlecombination regulations, Ron obtained permits for the vehicle to operate while he prepared a detailed submission to the authorities. The submission was approved and the combination became a legal option under new rules for a wide range of vehicle types.

Ron also presented a submission on the draft dimension and mass rule regarding over-dimensional vehicles’ “road space” when comparing a standard “B” train (which has the largest off-track of any of the road-legal vehicles) to a multi-axle steering vehicle such as a six-axle mobile crane. Tests were carried out in conjunction with Heavy Haulage Association house movers in support of the submission – and the rule was changed.

Ron has been instrumental in producing good outcomes for crane owners on a number of occasions. In 1983 his protracted negotiations with the authorities helped make the first Kato NK800 crane in New Zealand “roadable” for New Plymouth owner Ian Roebuck – a feat Ron repeated

a decade later with Roebuck’s Demag AC435.

He has helped establish the acceptability (within the regulations/ policies) of hydro-pneumatic suspensions on mobile cranes, of cranes with boom over the front, of boom support trailers to transport counterweights and other equipment so long as the crane’s vehicle axle index is reduced, and of taxi cranes to tow to a work site a counterweight trailer (boom facing forward) which can include a crane driver’s service vehicle. A current project is to convince the authorities of the benefits of multi-steer vehicles with hydro-pneumatic suspensions in reducing pavement wear.

Since 2010 Ron has had a major input in a Crane Association campaign for cranes to be allocated lower road-user charges.

His contribution has included writing articles in Contractor (Sep 10 p52, “RUC for Cranes Unfairly Weighted”, and Dec 2012 p61, “It’s a RUC-king mess”) and preparing a submission to a parliamentary select committee. The protracted battle looks like being successful, with a likely saving to owners, when the dust settles, of $1.5 million.

Three years ago Ron and Lynette Brown handed over ownership of Transport Specifications to their son, Mike, who has worked for the company for 15 years.

The company currently has five staff and is based on Auckland’s North Shore

after 20 years in Epsom.

“The guys do the work. I fill the knowledge gaps for them. I’m there as a mentor,” Ron explains, adding that he also handles liaison with long-standing client the Fire Service. He says his reduced role in the company’s operations allows him more time for family, fishing, walking, travel and visiting friends overseas.

He describes being made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit as “very humbling” and adds: “It’s made me thankful that I’ve worked in the transport industry. Also it reminds me, repeatedly, of the staff and the people who have worked for us over the years, and the clients we’ve been very privileged to work with.

“Our goal has always been to improve safety if we can. It’s [about] just developing concepts and ideas of ways to improve.

The culture is still there. You can see it in the work that’s going on here right now.

“In fact, I think Mike’s going to be better at it than me. Truly.”

Ron Brown … was employed in his early days “by the types of companies that allowed you to explore”.

MARCH 2014 39

CONTRACTOR PROJECT

Suburban bay’s beauty restored What a motorway diminished in the name of progress in the 1970s is now being revitalised by the contractor’s art.

GAVIN RILEY reports.

Aerial view of the Onehunga foreshore restoration looking northwest from the town centre. On the harbour side of SH20, the reclamation will extend from the Manukau Cruising Club (the white building adjacent to the motorway at bottom-left) to the base of the Hillsborough cliffs. A cycle-pedestrian bridge will span SH20, linking the new parkland to the lagoon in Onehunga Reserve. The right-hand shore of the tidal lagoon seen in this photograph is the original shoreline of Onehunga Bay, where Beachcroft Road was once a typical seaside esplanade.

AERIAL PHOTOS SUPPLIED BY THE ONEHUNGA ENHANCEMENT SOCIETY

40 MARCH 2014

MARCH 2014 41

CONTRACTOR PROJECT

A sea bund at high tide. The bunds were constructed at low tide and eventually sealed to separate the fill sites from the harbour.

42 MARCH 2014

CREATING MOTORWAYS TO SOLVE an expanding city’s transport problems can often come at a cost of spoiling urban character and separating communities.

When SH20 was built in Auckland in the 1970s it had the detrimental effect of bisecting Onehunga Bay and reducing it to being a mundane part of the landscape that went unnoticed by visitors travelling the motorway from the airport to the city and eager to glimpse what Auckland had to offer.

That regrettable state of affairs will soon be in the past, however. The Onehunga foreshore restoration, currently underway, aims to bring back a natural coastal edge and create recreational amenities for the community.

The project will provide high-quality open spaces, beaches, picnic areas, and a bridge for pedestrians and cyclists to re-connect the restored area to an upgraded Onehunga Bay Reserve and lagoon on the other side of the intervening SH20.

Constructing this $28 million little local paradise are Fulton Hogan, Tonkin & Taylor, Isthmus and URS. The cost is being shared between the NZ Transport Agency ($18 million) and the Maungakiekie-Tamaki Local Board ($10 million) through Auckland Council – a funding partnership that prompted Contractors’ Federation chief executive Jeremy Sole to say at the outset: “This is exactly the kind of collaboration we need to see and, where appropriate, we hope it sets a

precedent for future projects countrywide.”

While the whizz-past motorway traveller may notice only an impressionistic improvement when the scheme is completed in April 2015, people living nearby have much more detailed expectations. Around 1000 submissions were received in late 2011 on the project’s consent application, most of them from supportive local residents. Earlier, 250 people had provided feedback and suggestions at a community open day.

The foreshore restoration extends about 600 metres from Seacliffe Road in the west to the Manukau Cruising Club in the east and will contain the following key elements (besides the pedestrian and cycle bridge): 6.8 hectares of parkland, sandy beaches (three), gravel/shell pocket beaches (five), and a pedestrian walkway and cycleway. There will also be amenities such as toilets, park furniture, an upgraded car park and a boat ramp.

Recent months have seen improvement works carried out at Onehunga Bay Reserve, large amounts of fill being placed to form the new parkland and beaches, basalt rock imported, and headlands, bridge pile cap and pier being constructed.

Progress has been helped with the availability of fill from the $1.4 billion Waterview tunnel motorway project. About 55,000 cubic metres of material have been imported from the Alan Wood Reserve in Owairaka, where the southern approach

MARCH 2014 43

CONTRACTOR PROJECT

Top left: Southern abutment of pedestrian and cyclist bridge.

Top right: Aerial view of the foreshore restoration project showing a fill area and the southern bridge abutment.

Above: A view of the foundation layer of one of the sandy beaches, taken at about the midpoint of the reclamation and looking west towards Hillsborough. The western end of the new park will have a boat ramp and a picnic area.

44 MARCH 2014

trench for the tunnel has been excavated.

The sea bund for the foreshore restoration is one 600-metre-long embankment built of granular SPR (soft pit run) imported material.

The bund forms the outer edge of the project, encloses the fill area, and separates it from the Manukau Harbour. It is between three and 4.5 metres high and is trapezoidal in section, being about 15 metres wide at the base and six metres wide at the surface.

The truss of the pedestrian and cyclist bridge spanning SH20 will be 80 metres long between the bearing plates on the abutments. It will be lifted into place across the motorway in July, and PCC (Portland cement concrete) deck units, timber cladding and PCC MSE wall units will be added by November.

Works already completed in the Onehunga Bay Reserve include extension and diversion of an existing stormwater drain and construction of the bridge north abutment MSE wall. Over the next few months general fill and topsoil will be placed, footpaths constructed, and grassing and planting carried out to complete development in the reserve.

Fulton Hogan is employing a number of subcontractors on the Onehunga project: Smith & Davies (earthworks), Natural Habitats

(planting, grassing and landscapes), Fulton Hogan Northern Civil (the bridge), ITC (traffic management), Tree Brothers (tree clearance and trimming), ATF Fencing (temporary fencing and security), Geotechnics (geotechnical testing) and B N Walker (survey and set out).

Orpheus Drive, which runs parallel to SH20 and separates it from the foreshore, has been closed to private vehicles since mid-October and is likely to remain so until bulk earthworks for the project are completed next November.

The closure does not apply to pedestrians and cyclists, but even maintaining limited public access, as well as access to the Manukau Cruising Club and Sea Scouts, is a challenge for Fulton Hogan construction manager Chris Marshall and his team, given the need to import large volumes of fill material involving many truck movements on local roads.

Other challenges include building a bridge above a busy motorway and having to work with tide movements and the occasional stormy conditions sweeping in off the Manukau Harbour. Oh, and this more unexpected difficulty – “Carrying out earthworks while trying not to disturb the dotterel and pied stilt birds that have nested on our site recently,” says Chris.

CONTRACTOR TECHNOLOGY

46 MARCH 2014

App’d timing Mobile apps have become more than simple distractions for downtime. Clever business tool technology and ways of scheduling, planning and reporting that have proved increasingly useful to smart operators within the construction industry can be found behind these shiny tiled logos in your favourite online app store.

SUCH IS THE SPEED WITH which mobile application software (or ‘apps’ to you and me) has become part of our daily smart phone and portable computing device-influenced life, there are already many apps we utilise most days without a second thought.

Mobile versions of your preferred newspapers and magazines, sports live scoring apps, banking apps and phonefriendly versions of YouTube, Instagram and Facebook... the list goes on.

Business-focused apps like Google Drive and Microsoft’s SkyDrive for document storage and sharing, Office Mobile, Apple’s Keynote and the Evernote notation app are also ubiquitous icons on many smart phone screens.

Increasingly managers and business owners – especially those with multiple teams on-site – are looking to apps to provide realtime information on crew and machinery movement, clocked hours, job scheduling and costing.

Within the past two or three years, sophisticated desktop tracking and organising software being offered as project management solutions also incorporate an app-based portal – whether it be for a smart phone or tablet device – to increase usability out in the field.

For example, KernMobile recently announced a reseller agreement for the sophisticated work scheduling engine Visitour

by German-headquartered Fast Lean Smart (FLS).

The scheduling engine software combines multiple factors such as planned and emergency tasks, workers, vehicles, equipment, postponements and trips to the depot, all serving to automate the arrangement of appointments and routes.

Essentially enabling real-time updates from multiple crews out on the road, the FLS software is aimed at the mobile market, and uses what KernMobile calls its Client Console, which acts like an app to provide you with a visual picture of what is going on day-to-day for any construction company.

[

“...designed to allow you to see equipment on multiple job sites in real time from your laptop, desktop or – increasingly – smart phone and tablet devices.

]

Meanwhile, GPS positioning and machine control technology provider Topcon’s Sitelink3D site communication system (shown above) has similar organisational goals in mind. It provides data control, machine tracking and a comprehensive reporting system all in one – and all designed to allow you to see equipment on multiple job sites in real time from your laptop, desktop or – increasingly – smart phone and tablet devices.

While these systems use secure web portals rather than standalone apps, the ease-of-use of such reporting and tracking systems suggests that app developers will incorporate elements of these more comprehensive systems into smart, simple, cost effective plug-and-play apps in the future.

In fact it does seem that logistics – be that a specific task and transport-related logistical issue or more peripheral scheduling concerns – is a chief driver of app adoption within the construction sector.

Turning away for a moment from purely operational apps and operating platforms, it shouldn’t be a complete surprise to find that popular apps ranking highly among business users relate more to peripheral logistics. In other words, what’s the weather doing, how do I get there and will my plane be departing on schedule?

It may seem a little obvious, but it’s all too easy to overlook MARCH 2014 47

CONTRACTOR TECHNOLOGY

the importance of accurate weather information when planning team movements between projects or estimating a short term finish-date.

Sure, you could cast a cynical eye heavenward and assume there’ll be “rain with some dry spells”, but for a more scientific approach New Zealand’s MetService offers a handful of apps (on both Android and Apple platforms and including standalone marine and rural weather apps) for those wanting a reasonable picture of what’s going on up there for the next few days.

We’re also in the habit of checking NZ Weather and Traffic, a home-grown app available through the Google Play Store that gives simple daily rain radar breakdowns. It’s a good macro level indicator of whether you’ll be coping with dust or mud on site and – in our experience – is reassuringly accurate too.

In fact, locally produced apps like NZ Weather and Traffic remind us that, while it’s easy to rely on apps preloaded into your device, there is a variety of alternative services, often offering more detail or a localised view. Take the NZ Topo Maps app for example; available in either free or ‘pro’ (ie. paid for) versions, this app mixes the simplicity of general mapping software available through the likes of Google or Bing, but with an additional layer of detail many in the primary and construction industries will find beneficial out in the field.

The ability to create and edit multiple waypoints, edit routes, record speed and elevation or create an overall record of the journey with the Tripmaster function takes the app from a simple “Where to?” directional tool. And of course it features richly detailed New Zealand maps.

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Conexpo’s free app includes interactive maps, exhibitor search function, education search, show alerts and contact details for exhibitors and other attendees.

48 MARCH 2014

]

If you’re also moving around the country by air, these weatherrelated apps will also keep you informed of traffic congestion in the main centres before you set off on that run to the airport.

The other essential pre-departure check that consistently scores highly with businesspeople on the move is the Air New Zealand mobile app.

It’s free to download and gives you nicely designed overviews of all aspects of your pending trip; flight details, virtual boarding pass and boarding status, upcoming flights, mobile check-in and – if you’re a member of their airpoints rewards programme – all the info on what you’ve accumulated and where it could take you.

In fact, if there’s any situation where you think, “wouldn’t it be good if…..”, then there’s a fair chance an app already exists and it’s worth taking a look. You may be pleasantly surprised, and many are free, or cost so little that the price is designed to make the purchase a no-brainer.

Increasingly overseas we are also seeing individual machinery brands launching their own apps. While in many cases these are yet to offer a localised New Zealand spin on service, overseas customers of the likes of Scania, Mack, Volvo or Caterpillar can use apps to locate dealerships and service centres, read the latest news on their brand of choice (or entire digital copies of their in-house customer magazines) and check out what the company shares are trading at. Agri plant manufacturer New Holland even offers its own ‘FarmGenius’ game and branded weather reports.

A visit to the major international machinery exhibitions, such as Conexpo, on this month in Las Vegas, can all be managed via app. Conexpo’s free app includes interactive maps, exhibitor search function, education search, show alerts and contact details for exhibitors and other attendees. And as evidence of the effectiveness of such changes, Caterpillar is using the app to source contacts by offering a chance to win a share of $100,000.

A company like this would not be doing something like that, if they didn’t see the benefits.

The adoption of these services services such as these by local distributors might be slower in this part of the world, but it will happen.

New Zealand smart phone and mobile device usage has increased hugely; midway through 2013 Vodafone reported a quadrupling of data usage during the preceding two years. As at the end of last year the country boasted over 2.5 million mobile broadband users, with big gains in usage outside of the main centres in places like the Central North Island and the bottom of the South Island.

The trend will continue too, with the help of continued Ultra Fast Broadband (UFB) roll-out, tech incentive ventures like the provincially-minded Gigatown competition (whereby the winning community becomes the first town in the Southern Hemisphere to offer residents and businesses a one gigabit-persecond (1Gbps) internet connection speed). Add to these social and infrastructural changes, the advent of faster processors, better battery technology and specialist ruggedised waterproof and shockproof hardware for field work in the primary and

construction industries (Panasonic’s ToughPad, for example).

We’ll become increasingly familiar with apps as a means of business communication and information... more so than just as a way of dispatching Angry Birds while waiting to catch that delayed flight to Wellington.

Oh, and some housekeeping to finish with...

Always remember that whenever you install apps that provide maps or give you information on nearby points of interest (namely the ones that ask your permission to ‘use your location’), they utilise the GPS receiver in your device, which is a common battery life-chewer. If you want to save on battery power while you’re out in the field, check how many such apps you have actively running.

While many apps need to be manually switched on, others will work quietly in the background, using up vital battery power. So be vigilant as to how many of your downloaded apps are constantly working. Regularly perform a stock-take of the apps on your phone or tablet and decide what you definitely need and what you don’t – manage them cleverly and you’ll always be informed, but never caught short with a red flashing battery indicator.

NOTE: While the apps and operational platforms mentioned by name in this article were reviewed and found to be worthy of inclusion, Contractor Magazine and Contrafed Publishing Co Ltd take no responsibility for their performance on individual devices. Nor does this article serve to endorse the wider product lines of the companies named.

MARCH 2014 49

CONTRACTOR COMMENT

NZ’s economy back on track; Good for contractors CHRIS OLSEN ROADING NEW ZEALAND

AFTER FIVE YEARS OF RECESSION that has profoundly affected the contracting industry it is really great to see New Zealand’s economy back on track and that growth and prosperity are around the corner.

“New Zealand will be the rock star economy of 2014,” HSBC, a leading global bank, said via the American news channel CNBC and, “New Zealand’s growth is set to outpace most of its developed markets peers”.

While HSBC is predicting 3.4 percent growth this year, Treasury is forecasting growth to be 2.8 percent, while the NZIER is predicting it to be between 2.8 percent and 3.1 percent over the next couple of years.

This growth is reflected in two reports looking at the civil/infrastructure construction sector. The first is the AECOM Sentiment Report released late last year which found that 68 percent of those surveyed from the private and public sectors and covering funders/ clients/contractors and consultants

50 MARCH 2014

expect more work in the transport infrastructure delivery market over the next three years. Looking at this at a regional level it found the following growth expectations: • a 71 percent expectation for the Upper North Island • a 44 percent expectation for the Lower North Island • a 57 percent expectation for Canterbury.

The second report was commissioned by the Construction Sector Productivity Partnership and is entitled the “National Construction Pipeline” report. While this report focused mostly on the building sector it also looked at non-residential construction, including civil, and predicted a 40 percent increase in civil construction work in the first quarter of 2015. This increase then cycles between a 40 percent and 20 percent increase until 2018.

Activities covered by this civil report include: • Broadband roll-out • Roads of National Significance • Energy • Water/wastewater.

Unfortunately, the National Construction Pipeline report did not analyze civil construction at a regional level, but from NZTA information we know that road construction will be focused in Auckland, Canterbury and Wellington over the next five years.

At present a number of large projects are coming to an end in Auckland while the massive Waterview project is now well underway. We are also seeing the roll-out

of the very first stages of the next generation of Auckland Transport projects as announced last year by the Prime Minister. Widening of the Northern Motorway between the Upper Harbour Highway and Greville Road was the first cab off the rank last year.

Work on improvements to the Southern Motorway is also well underway. Also on the books are the Kirkbride Road intersection upgrade near the airport, investigations into a new East/West link across Auckland and further work on progressing the proposed Auckland Harbour tunnel.

Canterbury projects continue, while Wellington projects are ramping up with the Kapiti Expressway underway, the Transmission Gully PPP preferred tenderer announced and the proposed Basin Reserve Flyover being examined by a Commission of Inquiry. It is possible that road capital expenditure per annum over the next five years in Wellington could equal the annual Canterbury expenditure of SCIRT (the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team).

It is also great to see the land development subdivision market coming alive again. In some regions this is very strong, which is good for those contractors who have traditionally worked in that market.

I guess the only area that gives concern for roading is the regions. Recent years have seen work reduce substantially. This is not only a concern for the industry; it is also a concern for local regional economies that need a sound reliable and efficient road network.

Roading New Zealand has been talking to the Ministry of Transport about this issue as the Ministry prepares the next Government Transport Policy Statement which will set direction and funding levels for the next three years.

The future certainly looks rosy for the contracting industry as we now come out of the recession. Let’s hope that this can apply across the whole of New Zealand.

CONTRACTOR COMMENT

Education, training and research: Fostering trust, capability & productivity ROB GAIMSTER CEMENT & CONCRETE ASSOCIATION OF NEW ZEALAND (CCANZ) NEW ZEALAND READY MIXED CONCRETE ASSOCIATION (NZRMCA) THERE ARE MANY CHALLENGES currently facing the concrete industry (and wider building and construction sector), including the issue of investing wisely in education, training and research.

A long-term strategy will help establish ‘trust’ through strengthened relationships, knowledge transfer and innovation stimulus, and in turn create ‘capability’ as well as advance ‘productivity’.

CCANZ education and research strategy With this in mind CCANZ consulted heavily with industry to develop a Tertiary Education and Research Strategy (TERS).

Over a five-year period, the TERS seeks to establish a framework for coordinated activities that foster quality concrete industry professionals, and support engineering and architecture graduates, to extend the proficiency of concrete design and construction. Specifically, the TERS will endeavour to: • Introduce a targeted education and research strategy aimed at professionals (engineers, architects etc) and academic institutions.

• Introduce an academic collaboration programme to deliver education projects to support teaching and research.

• Establish a Research Agenda Committee to align research initiatives with government investment and/or social priorities, and leverage available funding.

Trust – key to productivity At the core of the CCANZ strategy is a drive to enhance trust. It is important to realise that while concrete (and cement) is our industry’s day-to-day concern, customers are ultimately looking to build something that gives them benefit, and which they can trust.

Trust in this sense would be to ensure the customer is confident that the product is economical and was made, delivered and installed by trained personnel to meet the highest standards.

Outside of robust legislation and regulation, as well as the product 52 MARCH 2014

assurance framework, decisions made by practitioners of other disciplines, such as architects and engineers, have a huge bearing on the end product.

It is imperative therefore that CCANZ reaches out, connects with, informs and encourages discussion between these groups. More so, as the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission recommended that there is scope for further constructive, and early, collaboration between architects and engineers.

ArchEng workshop To this end CCANZ recently organised the 2013 ArchEng student workshop to encourage aspiring architects and structural engineers to work together to incorporate the best insights and latest technology into building design.

Building on the inaugural 2012 proofof-concept event in Wellington, the 2013 ArchEng student workshop was hosted

by Auckland University’s School of Architecture.

Working in cross-disciplinary teams of two, 20 students from across the country gained extra motivation through the $5000 first prize. The quality of the team’s final design development on a Mt Eden site was outstanding.

The three-day ArchEng workshop is a large part of the CCANZ drive to engage with early career professionals, and assist in promoting concrete as a premium construction material to the next generation of designers and construction experts.

Visit the CCANZ YouTube channel to watch short presentations on ArchEng 2012 and 2013 – www.youtube.com/user/ cementconcrete

Skills maintenance website CCANZ has also recently developed a Skills Maintenance website to assist both industry and early career professionals.

The site has been designed so that once accessed, the learner can enrol in any course they wish, and access the course material, but their course status will not register ‘complete’ until a grade of 9/10 in the quiz has been achieved.

A collection of eight videos covering the basics of fresh and hardened concrete testing comprises the content of the site’s launch course. This mirrors the CCANZ Concrete Technician’s Fresh and Hardened Concrete Testing day course (for the NZQA modules 26053 and 26063).

The site is not a replacement for the in-person accreditation requirements to achieve the NZQA standards, but it is expected to be a complementary service for their existing training programmes.

These are just two examples of the tactical initiatives being undertaken by CCANZ to achieve the TERS objectives.

In addition, research projects into the acoustic benefits of heavyweight (ie, concrete) construction in apartment buildings and the data collection possibilities of imbedded sensors in concrete structures will also soon yield results.

Ongoing challenge The aging demographic in senior positions across the building and construction sector, along with the recruitment issues currently faced as part of the Canterbury rebuild are immediate reminders that education, training and research constitute a major strategic issue.

Despite the boom-bust cycle that has historically characterised the construction industry in New Zealand, and which has made investment in people difficult, the CCANZ TERS illustrates the concrete industry’s commitment to addressing this issue.

CCANZ Skills Maintenance website To access the website (www.construction. school.nz) contact CCANZ using the details below to set up a User ID and Password.

CCANZ is eager to gauge industry feedback in response to the website, and is looking to talk to organisations interested in utilising and contributing to the content.

Contact CCANZ Education & Development Manager Dr Joe Gamman to discuss – joe@ccanz.org.nz or 027 286 7121

COMMENT CONTRACTOR

Incidents and accidents – hints and allegations Reflecting on the process, and what can be learnt, from accidents within the industry JONATHAN BHANA-THOMSON CEO, NZ HEAVY HAULAGE ASSOCIATION

ON-ROAD INCIDENTS and accidents don’t happen that often in the heavy haulage sector. Between the heavy loads and wide loads there are provided numerous methods of warning and control mechanisms associated with the various special permits that mean that the risks are reduced and managed.

However, from time to time there are issues that happen on the road – such as the very unfortunate accident early this year where two people died in a fireball after a laden truck crashed into their car which was slowly moving behind a wide load. This illustrates the fact that despite the best efforts of all the personnel involved, the risks can never be completely removed. The sympathies of the Association and its members are passed onto the family of the two people killed in this accident, and we also acknowledge the impact of this accident on the other vehicle drivers involved in this accident as well as the drivers and pilots with the overdimension load.

The immediate question that always arises with such high-profile incidents is what caused it, and then the bigger question of what can we do to prevent this recurring? I don’t propose to analyse this or any other accident in

Unfortunately, often the person best placed to offer their view has died and therefore there is no way of telling what their version of events would have added to the picture of what happened and why.

detail – there are other bodies that do that; but I’d like to take this chance to reflect on what we have learnt over the years from the small number of accidents that have punctuated my time with the Association.

1. Speculation doesn’t pay Within the transport industry, and often from the general public, there is often un-thought through speculation and allegation about what caused the accident: everyone is suddenly an expert. As accident investigators will tell you, most accidents have many factors involved, and often there is not a single issue that caused any specific accident to occur. Unfortunately, often the person best placed to offer their view has died and therefore there is no way of telling what their version of events would have added to the picture of what happened and why.

2. W itnesses have their own story One coroner’s hearing that I attended a few years ago included the written affidavits from many other drivers who had driven past a wide load that later was involved in an accident. The variation between the accounts of the various witnesses to the load was incredible; there were differences in the number of pilot vehicles that were ahead of the load, no one agreed on what signage was displayed on the vehicles, they had little recall of what colour lights were displayed – and these were all from accounts written down on the day of the accident or the day following. Each person has their own recall of events, and you need to take in the whole picture in order to gain a better view of what happened.

3. Regulators don’t need to jump The risk with a sector like ours is that

regulators will review the accident, along with recommendations from coroners and outcomes from any police investigations, and jump to conclusions that the coincidence of events that caused the accident needs to be addressed right across the industry.

Now in my experience, the coroner’s recommendations that have come forward are usually well-measured and place the emphasis on the regulators (usually NZTA) to consider this in light of other information and policy analysis that needs to be carried out. In my view, NZTA has taken a reasonable approach to most incidents and has followed up where necessary. However there is always room for improvement when it comes to policy development, and the industry, through organisations like this Association, will bring forward those areas where safety advancements can be made.

4. Industry takes incidents seriously No one likes to see or be involved in accidents, and operators within this transport sector have an interest in maintaining the high levels of safety associated with the transport of wide or heavy loads. In fact they wish to maintain the health and safety environment of their staff, other road users, as well as look after the often valuable load that they are carrying for their client.

Transport company principals will need to take on board the outcomes of investigations into accidents to ensure that their company procedures are ever evolving to keep up to date with what is “best practice”. Forums such as the Association and industry conferences also add to the ways to discuss accidents and incidents, and between us we aim to reduce the level of gossip and allegations, and focus on improving the safety of our industry sector.

MARCH 2014 53

CONTRACTOR COMMENT

New contracts provide new opportunities MARK KINVIG NZ TRANSPORT AGENCY & JEREMY SOLE NZ CONTRACTORS’ FEDERATION

OVER THE PAST TWO YEARS there has been a lot of work and consultation between the NZ Transport Agency and industry regarding the need to review road maintenance delivery models to gain better value for money and to be able to deliver road maintenance activities in a cash-constrained recessionary environment.

While Government is focused on new infrastructure including the Roads of National Significance to drive economic productivity, the Transport Agency and local government are working together to find more efficient ways to deliver maintenance and operations.

During the consultation and development process for the new Network Outcomes Contracts (NOC) there were many different opinions as to what the right answer would be. The Transport Agency and the industry were determined to work together no matter how hard the conversations became – and they did become hard at times.

Much has been written and said about the subsequent contract model and we want to take this opportunity to discuss the specific mechanisms and opportunities in these contracts that can provide opportunities for suppliers within the road maintenance sector.

The Transport Agency and industry have always been conscious of the need to maintain a healthy, viable roading industry. A sustainable open market with good competition, where innovation is encouraged, is good for everyone. For this reason, the Transport Agency and industry, including NZCF, have worked hard to agree some mechanisms within the contract to maintain a healthy market.

The NOC includes key result areas and key performance indicators relating to maintaining a healthy market. Primary suppliers are required to provide a healthy industry statement that explains how they intend to maintain the local road maintenance sector in good health at the end of their contract term: this is scored as a supplier attribute. This is 54 MARCH 2014

an important aspect given performance in this dimension will impact on a primary supplier’s ability to secure subsequent contracts, and this aspect of the contract fits cleanly with the overall collaborative intent of the new model.

Barriers to entry have been lowered.

Prequalification has been opened up to a wider array of suppliers, weightings on track record and relevant experience have been removed, and multi-party arrangements can now bid for work providing they can demonstrate the right experience and technical knowledge.

This significant change will also enable consultants to act as a primary supplier.

Some SME firms have suggested to the NZCF that this collaborative aspect of the new model is primarily focused on the relationship between the Transport Agency and the Primary Supplier.

However, a healthy industry outcome can only come from having the collaborative ethos operating at all levels of road maintenance contracting and operations, including material suppliers.

The Transport Agency, as a government agency, is aware of its responsibilities to ensure fairness exists throughout its supply chain. The NOC includes mechanisms to require Primary Suppliers to engage and treat SMEs fairly. An additional sense of comfort can be gained in this area with the Transport Agency looking to establish a channel for those working under the Primary Supplier to raise issues regarding any unfair contractual conditions and behaviours directly with the Agency.

Another important aspect of the contracts is the requirement for the Primary Suppliers to subcontract out a percentage of the physical and consulting works. The default minimum setting for this is 20 percent, with detailed local market analysis to establish the appropriate level of subcontracting for each contract area. In some areas there is typically more than 20 percent being undertaken by subcontractors, which will be reflected in the specific contract requirements. Where

“...a healthy industry outcome can only come from having the collaborative ethos operating at all levels of road maintenance contracting and operations, including material suppliers.” areas currently have less than 20 percent, the opportunities for SMEs will increase accordingly to match the percentage identified in the regional market analysis.

The aspirational goal for the Transport Agency is to have a minimum of four Primary Suppliers holding multiple NOC contracts and a minimum of three consultancies working within the state highway M&O sector, involved in three or more contracts each.

This is supported by the NZCF as there are potentially opportunities for new entrants at the Primary Supplier level. The NZCF encourages SMEs to consider taking on these opportunities when they arise and can offer advice and assistance in this area. The Transport Agency will be actively monitoring how the market responds to this new approach, and will intervene if it identifies opportunities to improve the market situation.

It should also be noted that other works will still be procured outside the NOC. Typical projects include new capital projects, emergency works reinstatement projects, some specialist activities (such as traffic signals, bridging, ITS, traffic monitoring) and minor improvements (unless they are associated with other contract works).

Overall, the new model seeks to create a significantly greater degree of transparency over the way contracts are managed, the way work programmes are developed and implemented, and over the outcomes from the work itself.

COMMENT CONTRACTOR

HPMVs: Bigger, faster, cheaper and safer HARRY WILSON FREIGHT PORTFOLIO DIRECTOR, NZ TRANSPORT AGENCY

THE TRANSPORT AGENCY is working hard to make New Zealand’s freight transport system both safer and more efficient.

Improving safety, while reducing the cost of doing business, will make New Zealand a better place to live and work.

Reducing the cost of moving freight will help improve the competitiveness of our exports, reduce the costs of the goods we buy, and grow our economy.

Alongside the challenge of improving the current freight transport system, we also need to ensure it will have the capacity to handle New Zealand’s growing freight task.

The amount of freight moved is growing, and with it the number of truck trips.

Over the past few years, for example, the volume of imports and exports moving to and from our sea ports has jumped from 42 million tonnes in 2008/09 to 55 million tonnes in 2012/13.

All of these goods, at some point, needed to be moved by road – with rail and coastal shipping also providing important components of this freight’s overall journey.

We’re working on several different fronts to improve the safety and efficiency of our freight system.

Over the coming year we will be working with stakeholders to complete our freight plans for the Upper North Island, Central New Zealand and the South Island.

These plans will set out a shared view, across industry and Government, about

the main challenges and opportunities we are facing along with possible solutions.

We also have a number of initiatives underway to improve the safety of freight movements, such as the development of the Operator Rating System and our work on safe speeds.

One of the Transport Agency’s key priorities is to move more freight with fewer truck trips. That can be achieved, in part, through the uptake of high productivity motor vehicles (HPMVs).

For the next three years we are focusing on the uptake of HPMVs because there is clear evidence that using these vehicles will provide significant long-term safety and productivity benefits.

Our analysis and what we have heard from industry has also shown that this lift in performance can be achieved relatively quickly and with relatively modest investment in infrastructure and new vehicles.

We know that the potential freight productivity gains of HPMVs would see a 20 percent decrease in truck trips using over-mass permits, a 14 percent decrease in trips for over-dimensioned permits and around 10 percent decreases for 50MAX combinations.

This means HPMVs will undertake 1020 percent less travel to move the same amount of freight as standard trucks.

This reduction in travel offers significant commercial benefits, like reduced vehicle operating costs, driver hours and fuel.

HPMVs also tend to be newer, more fuel

efficient and quieter than the trucks they are replacing and reduce carbon emissions for each tonne of freight moved.

There are also significant safety benefits for everyone who uses the road.

Fewer truck trips reduces the risk of heavy vehicle crashes, as does the trend to bring newer, safer truck combinations onto our roads.

The approach to reducing the number of truck trips is part of the Transport Agency’s wider work with our partners on implementing Safer Journeys, the Government’s strategy to guide improvements in road safety.

This includes work on safer speeds, better roads and roadsides, and smarter enforcement of road rules for trucks.

As a result of this the number of truck crashes involving death and serious injuries is declining, even though the volume of freight being moved by trucks overall is increasing.

In saying that the Transport Agency is looking at how we can further improve the safety of road freight and recognise that there is more work to be done.

Moving more freight more safely and more efficiently with fewer trucks will benefit us all – road transport operators, other road users, ratepayers, communities, consumers and our exporters.

This article was widely distributed to NZ media as Contractor went to press.

Given the topic, however, we felt this was worth bringing to the attention of anyone who may have missed it [Ed].

MARCH 2014 55

CONTRACTOR CLASSIC MACHINES

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The International Harvester TD30 In the years immediately following WWII there was an explosion of sorts in the development of the track type tractor, with several well established companies vying for the title of biggest, best and most powerful.

BY RICHARD CAMPBELL

Factory photo dated 1961 of a direct drive TD30 minus attachments ready for delivery. Family resemblance to the TD25 is very obvious, however this machine weighs 5 tons more than a TD25.

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ALLIS-CHALMERS WAS THE FIRST to offer a really big track-type tractor in the form of its HD19.

Things didn’t stay that way for too long however, as International Harvester launched its very popular TD24 in 1947 which quickly assumed the role of “biggest, best and most powerful”.

Allis-Chalmers then countered with its HD20 and so on it went until Caterpillar brought out the D9 in 1955.

The D9 was quite unlike anything that had been introduced before and was a real metal monster.

The only machine that came close to it was the Euclid TC-12 but that had two engines for power whereas the D9 only had one.

The D9 had been in development since the mid-40s but Caterpillar was not satisfied with the various prototypes and kept on improving the design until it were sure the D9 was ready for public consumption.

The introduction of the D9 gave Allis-Chalmers

and International-Harvester quite a shock – AllisChalmers never actually caught up until 1968 – and International, which was basking in the success of its TD24, went into panic mode.

Long time rivals, International-Harvester was always trying to gain an advantage over Caterpillar so the urgent request was made to the design team to develop a tractor that could take on the D9.

The result was the TD30.

Initial studies were based on modifications to its newest model (and TD24 replacement), the TD25.

The first TD30 prototypes went into testing during 1959 but the results were disappointing as many of the existing TD25’s components were not designed for the extra power or weight of the new tractor. Also by this time, Caterpillar had brought out its first D9 upgrade, the D9E, putting International even further behind.

Following more hasty design changes and upgrades, the TD30 was rushed into production, arriving with much fanfare in 1962.

Unfortunately for International, the end results of all this haste were more than predictable with TD30s failing all over the place.

The chief area of concern was the machine’s drive train, with transmission and final drive failures aplenty and many, many dissatisfied customers.

The TD30 had made an impact as intended, but for all the wrong reasons.

Despite attempts by IH engineers to rectify the TD30’s problems, the machine had been put into production well before it was ready and with inadequate testing.

The writing was on the wall for the big tractor with production of the direct drive model ending in 1965 and the slightly more reliable powershift version in 1967.

Total production of the TD30 amounted to only

683 machines.

International did go on to make a successful big crawler however in the form of the International/ Dresser TD40 introduced in 1985.

The TD30 described Based on the chassis of the existing TD25-250 series but weighing a whopping five tons more, the TD30 was powered by an in-line 6-cylinder International DT-817C turbocharged, after-cooled diesel rated at 320 flywheel horsepower. This was also the same engine used in the TD25 but with an increased rack setting.

Customers had their choice of transmissions, either a direct drive, 4-speed synchromesh with oil clutch and 2-speed planetary powershift steering in each track or a full 2-speed powershift type with a high and low range, effectively giving the machine 4 forward and reverse speeds.

The main chassis was comprised of two sections

Haynes Construction uses a pair of International TD30s to carve out a part of Interstate I-40 in North Carolina, USA. Both cable and hydraulically equipped machines are in use with the machine on the left fitted with an Ateco radial ripper.

MARCH 2014 57

CONTRACTOR CLASSIC MACHINES

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1. International TD30 with canopy removes shale overburden at a mine in this undated, photo. The white seat is noteworthy, designed by International Harvester to reflect sun and remain cooler for the operator.

2. Cushioned pushing.

As referred to in the body of this article, here are a pair of TD30s belonging to Buchanan Bros. Construction, tandem pushing IH 295 scrapers in silty sand alongside the Arkansas River. What makes this pair unusual is the cushion blades both machines are equipped with, being of a type and design not seen on any other International track type tractors and probably unique to the TD30.

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– a substantial one-piece welded and machined rear case, which contained the transmission, clutch (if fitted) and final drives, and a parallel box section front frame which held the machine’s engine and crosswise mount for the track equaliser bar. The front frame was bolted to the rear main case.

Featuring some fairly hefty track frames, the TD30 had seven track rollers and two carrier rollers per side and was usually delivered on 26” extreme service track shoes. Track gauge was 84 inches.

The operator’s deck was wide and reasonably unobstructed apart from the steering levers which projected out from under the seat.

It featured a tapered engine hood for good visibility to the blade. Instrumentation was grouped in a panel at the end of the hood.

A deeply cushioned seat was provided for the operator and this was often in silver or white, International’s answer to keeping the operator cooler!

Attachments & options International designed a completely new set of work tools for the TD30 and did not adapt existing hardware to outfit the tractor for duty.

Customers had the choice of cable or hydraulically operated blades and the usual combination of one of these tractors was normally a 16 foot semi-U bulldozer with tilt cylinder and an Ateco radial arc ripper on the back. Full-U and angle blades could also be fitted.

As a number of these machines went into service as push tractors, International manufactured a most unusual cushioned push blade operated by a single hydraulic lift cylinder and featuring a cushion cylinder either side of the radiator cowl. It is not known how many of this particular version was produced but we have included a photo of one of these strange beasts for you to marvel over!

Carco manufactured a logging winch for TD30s that went to work in the woods.

Creature comforts included a cab, heater, wipers and ‘winterization kit’ for those tractors working in less than hospitable environments.

3. High above Salt River Canyon near Phoenix, Arizona, a TD30 push loads International 295 scrapers as they reshape a dangerous section of US.60 in 1965.

The TD30 is equipped with a semi-U bulldozer, Ateco ripper and an amazing view!

4. Cab equipped TD30 removes and stockpiles overburden in a small quarry, 1964. What is unusual about this particular tractor is that it’s fitted with a parallelogram ripper instead of the usual radial type.

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5. Two TD30s and two IH 295 scrapers work in the red clay of Oklahoma doing excavation for the southwest toll-way through to Texas in 1965. The fleet belongs to contractor Ben Haskins of Oklahoma.

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The New Zealand connection At least three TD30s were imported by International Harvester New Zealand, initially all into the South Island. The last time the author saw one in action was in 1975 in Wellington on the Police Training College site that was a major Ministry of Works development at the time. It spent most of its time there with its cab off being attended to by mechanics.

Given the machines’ poor reliability record, it is unlikely that any survive but I would like to be proved wrong.

For the model collector Regrettably another non-starter, there are no models – past or present – of the International TD30.

Perhaps some enterprising soul will offer one some day as, apart from the machine’s rather dodgy reliability record, it would be nice to pose one in a representative lineup of 1960s bulldozers.

BRIEF SPECIFICATIONS

International Harvester TD30 Engine: International DT-817C, 6-cylinder, inline, turbocharged and aftercooled diesel rated at 320 flywheel horsepower at 2000 rpm Transmission: Choice of 4-speed direct drive with oil clutch or 2-speed.

Powershift with high/low selector Steering: Planetary 2-speed power steering with contracting band brake.

Top Speed: 6.5 mph Track Gauge: 84” Std.Track Shoe: 26” Track Rollers: 7 per side Carrier Rollers: 2 per side Length: 16’ 8” (bare) Width: 9’ 1” (bare) Height: 8’ 5” (to top of stack) Operating Weight: Approx 35 tons with S-blade & ripper.

MARCH 2014 59

CONTRACTOR MOTORING

BY PETER GILL

GOT A SPARE MILLION?

Then the new Porsche 918 Spyder is for you. The cost is four times that of your average new Porsche. But it gets to 100km/hr in about 2.5 seconds. Which has to be good business for chiropractors specialising in cricked necks.

SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT There is no stopping these South Koreans. For the second year running, one of their cars has won the award of International Car Of The Year at the Tokyo Motor Show. The Kia Cadenza is a medium to large sedan, getting towards Commodore size. It sits above the Optima in the Kia range. We get the Optima here, but the Cadenza is not yet made in right hand drive.

The slightly smaller Optima won the same award last year. Kia is an offshoot of Hyundai that took on one of Europe’s most creative car body designers, Peter Schreyer.

Seems it does not matter how hard a car designer tries these days, the products all look the same.

Example? Have a look at the new Subaru Legacy on these pages.

Then look at the Edsel picture. They didn’t all look the same back then.

60 MARCH 2014

THE KIA CADENZA IS A MEDIUM TO LARGE SEDAN, GETTING TOWARDS COMMODORE SIZE. IT SITS ABOVE THE OPTIMA IN THE KIA RANGE.

DO YOU THINK I’M SEXY? EYE LIFT FOR GENERATION SIX I well recall the first Subaru Legacy model to reach New Zealand in 1990. I bought one from that shipment.

It was the first Subaru for which you did not need anti nausea pills before looking at it. It had shapes and curves. And it continued the Subaru mission, which was to prove that four wheel drive in an ordinary car or wagon was actually a good thing. The only other brand I recall that seemed to have the same awareness back then was Audi. Subaru had been working to get awareness for 4WD in ordinary cars since the mid 70s. The argument was that 4WD gave greater grip in the wet on the public road, in snow and ice, on damp grass, and in many other situations that the driver of an ordinary car might encounter.

The sixth generation Legacy has just been shown at the Chicago Motor Show. They are brilliant cars.

Just a shame that the new one looks like every other car. See the new Kia on these pages. The fronts looks like a plastic surgeon performing an eye lift operation has gone a bit too far.

1989 Subaru Liberty LX

Right from 1989 when Subaru introduced the Legacy, the company was already aware that its earlier vehicles had become popular in Australia and Australia was developing as one of the brand’s stronger markets. I take my hat off to Subaru, which luckily does not reveal a bald head. Because they accepted that the name Legacy was almost sacred in that country. Reason? Legacy is a major Australian charity that helps descendants of those who fought in wars. In the charity’s earlier days, some of its beneficiaries fought the Japanese. And so the name Liberty for the car has remained.

When Ford America emerged from the Model T and Model A era, it ceased to concentrate on budget vehicles as its main market objective.

The Ford family continued to own the company and to call the shots.

Grander and grander cars were designed. And there was even an attempt to memorialise one of the family sons by naming a car after him. Edsel Ford was that son. The creation that was to bear the Edsel name was introduced in 1958 and was extravagant, almost hideous in appearance. It was a time when American car companies were locked into a war of presenting designs that were ever more extravagant, ever more ridiculous. The 1958 Edsel was in rigor mortis by 1960.

This followed the spending of vast sums on promotion. Unhelpful in the cause of the Edsel was the front of the car. Unfortunate and inappropriate comparisons were widely made with female genitalia.

The second that happens, your product is dead.

ROBUST AND RELIABLE “the harder you pressed the accelerator, the slower the wipers scraped across the screen.”

It was enormously popular In New Zealand. Arguably, it’s the smallest truck Ford ever produced. It was the Fordson Thames E38W. They were introduced in 1938 and continued until 1957. There was a bit of a gap in production during World War Two, when all British vehicle assembly plants were diverted to making parts for aircraft and ships. You could argue that this vehicle was not really a truck at all.

It was based on the Ford Prefect saloon car of the time. And there was a panel van version. But then you could say the same about the iconic Model T. It began as a car, but it soon became available as a small truck and van. This little truck was nothing if not reliable and sturdy. But being part of the Ford 10/Ford Prefect family of the late 40s through until the early 50s, it had some highly perverse features.

The windscreen wipers were run off engine vacuum which meant the harder you pressed the accelerator, the slower the wipers scraped across the screen. Cresting Auckland Harbour Bridge in a rain storm, the wipers stopped altogether. Going down the other side, the wipers raced so fast that they nearly came off their spindles.

MARCH 2014 61

CONTRACTOR PRODUCTS

Increased safety from new quick coupler Miller International launched its new fully automatic quick coupler, the PowerLatch, at the inaugural Plantowrx show in the UK last year. As reported in Contractor recently, non-automated couplers will be phased out as safety concerns grow around the world and automated replacements become more readily available.

Miller has taken it one step further, however, with the development of CASS (Coupler Alert Safety System), an audible and visual coupler operating system, and the Miller Mate, which was designed to work with the PowerLatch and CASS. The

in-cab Miller Mate has been designed to encourage the safe and correct operation of a Miller PowerLatch coupler during the changeover process. It replaces the existing toggle style switch with a simple and intuitive full-colour LED interface which can be mounted in the excavator cab above the machine’s own monitor. By following the on-screen diagrams and instructions, the operator can quickly and safely change attachments with just four easy-to-control buttons. The last 50 attachment changes, along with all the operator’s acknowledgements of

performing the correct actions are recorded by the Miller Mate.

The device can be retrofitted onto machines already equipped with a PowerLatch and CASS.

across an area extending up to 13 metres.

By calculating an average during the height measurement, a virtual reference level is determined and the screed of the paver is controlled accordingly. The leveling system evens out bumps in the sub-grade and,

as a result, achieves greater smoothness during asphalt paving. The higher number of sensors incorporated into the Big Sonic-Ski’s offers improved precision by smoothing out road waves that occur in intervals of five to seven metres.

Big Sonic-Ski smoothes the way Now featuring four ultrasonic sensors, the next-generation MOBA Big Sonic-Ski offers consistent results, even when paving cross an uneven sub-grade and can even smooth out road waves that occur in small regular intervals and which might not otherwise be detected.

As Mike Milne, managing director of Synergy Positioning Systems, explains, the new Big Sonic-Ski leveling system comes into its own during resurfacing work on asphalt roads and surfaces.

“Every roading contractor knows that time is of the essence when engaging in resurfacing work. The Big Sonic-Ski proves an efficient time-saver in this environment – where the sub-grade could be particularly uneven – achieving a consistency of smoothness when paving the top asphalt layer.”

The Big Sonic-Ski scans the sub-grade

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11 8

CONTRACTOR TRAINING

Taking qualifications to the road WITH 12 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE in the transport industry behind him, Marcello Giacon seized the opportunity to study for a formal qualification – and together with managing his busy workload and family life, he’s achieved his goal.

“I read about MITO’s programme for the National Certificate in Heavy Haulage on the Heavy Haulage Association website, and thought it sounded like a great idea,” he says.

Marcello works for Goodman Contractors, a specialist earthmoving business based in Waikanae on the Kapiti Coast.

The family-owned company, which currently employs around 100 people, has an impressive commitment to staff training.

“These days qualifications are more important than ever,” says director Stan Goodman. “Our existing and potential clients are requiring us to show that we meet certain standards, whether it’s in the work we do, or in our commitment to health and safety.

Employee qualifications can make all the difference when it comes to getting new work.”

The company already has a number of staff undertaking MITO apprenticeships and with business growing rapidly Stan expects

that number to increase. “It’s a worthwhile investment,” he says.

Marcello has been with Goodman Contractors for the past two years, truck driving and operating heavy haulage transportation.

He spends most of his day moving heavy equipment to and from worksites. It’s a challenging job, with requirements to transport gear weighing up to 40 tonnes all over the central North Island. It means he’s driving both during busy times of the day and at night, and often on narrow winding roads.

“You have to plan your journeys and be prepared for anything when you’re on the go,” he says. “It certainly keeps my mind active!”

After all his hard work, which included off-job-training in Bulls with specialist industry trainer Peter Jacob, he’s delighted with his success. “It’s great to have proof of my skills and I am so glad I did it.”

For more information on heavy haulage training programmes see the MITO website www.mito.org.nz or visit the Heavy Haulage Association website www.hha.org.nz.

CONTRACTORS’ DIARY Date Event

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4-8 Mar 14 13-15 Mar 14 8-11 May 14 24-26 Jun 14 9-12 Jul 14 6-9 Aug 14 13-16 Aug 14 25-28 Nov 14 15-18 Dec 14 21-24 Oct 15

Las Vegas Convention Centre, USA Field Days, Feilding Verona, Italy Tarmac’s Hillhead Quarry, Buxton, England Rydges Lakeland Resort, Queenstown Energy Events Centre, Rotorua Distinction Hotel, Rotorua International Expo Centre, Shanghai, China India Expo Centre, Greater Noida, Delhi Santiago, Chile

www.connexpoagg.com tricia@nzcontractors.co.nz www.samoter.com www.hillhead.com www.cranes.org.nz www.nzcontractors.co.nz www.hha.org.nz www.bauma-china.com www.bcindia.com conexpolatinamerica.net

Conexpo-Con/AGG & IFPE NZCF NEOC Finals SaMoTer & Asphaltica Hillhead 2014 Crane Association Conference NZCF / ACENZ / Roading NZ Conference Heavy Haulage Association Conference bauma China bC India Conexpo Latin America

Please send any contributions for Contractor Diary to kevin@contrafed.co.nz, or phone 09 636 5710

64 MARCH 2014