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ADVERTORIAL
Chris Lambe, co-founder of Detailed Strategic Engineering (DSE) discusses modernising assurance delivery in the rail industry
Changing the mindset when it comes to assurance delivery
D
espite the advances and new technologies coming to the rail and construction industry, processes regarding assurance delivery and hand back remain old-fashioned and heavily reliant on standard paperwork documentation. Working hard to change that is DSE, a provider of bespoke assurance strategies ensuring assurance compliance from design to hand back and supported by smart digital solutions that facilitate implementation, management, communication and reporting of assurance data. “The role of assurance is incredibly important in terms of delivering a quality product in accordance with the design. However, despite this, it can be challenging to get projects to plan in how this will be delivered and costed as part of the project planning or tendering phase,” said Chris Lambe, co-founder and implantation director. “Typically, this leads to focusing on assurance once infrastructure is close to completion or complete. The challenge here is a common one we have seen many times over the years, which results in project prolongation and additional costs due to key suppliers/people leaving without assurance completed in line with the construction deliverables. “From the outset of DSE, we have strived to change this and pull the focus onto assurance and the delivery of it forward to project inception. This allows all parties involved in the design/delivery and stakeholders to know what and when assurance is required. Projects can then understand the cost of resourcing this from the outset as opposed to the costs in delaying the closeout of the projects.”
15-year history The company was set up by Chris and delivery director Wilson Caro four years ago. The pair have worked together in rail infrastructure since 2008, entwined with asset hand back in all their roles across several sectors and on projects including London Underground drainage systems, substations, London Underground station upgrades and Network Rail (NR) station redevelopments. During his time at London Bridge station, Chris started as the Network Rail entry into service project manager and asset management plan manager.
With two years of construction remaining, the NR project director realised they were facing a big task to get the project handed over to Network Rail maintenance due to the scale of the project. He was challenged to deliver the plan to carry this out. “Wilson took on the entry into service (EIS) project manager role and I took on the asset management plan (AMP) hand back role,” said Chris. “I developed an assurance spatial breakdown link to Network Rail AMP certification to allow the project to deliver assurance to each of the heads of assets prior to project completion. This was achieved by breaking up the project by discipline and zones linked to the construction profile. We called these AMP packs, and they contained the related design, assurance files, operation and maintenance services and as-built drawings for the given zone. “Our team then sat independently from the principal contractor (PC) and NR with both wanting to understand what assurance was required to
achieve hand back and more importantly evidence it. We had a team helping to identify the assurance readiness deliverables for EIS and the hand back requirements and producing the AMP packs and Network Rail certification from AMP 001 to 018 certs. Together we saw the importance of a dedicated assurance team that could benefit both the PC and the client; helping to navigate the path of assurance requirement identification and means of tracking reporting of the asset assurance completion to hand back.”
Greater connections DSE provides project readiness dashboards linked to NR engineering standards for entry into service and asset management, working with project delivery teams to ensure documentation trackers are associated to its Power Business Intelligence (Bi) operational and hand back readiness dashboards.
April 2023
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19/04/2023 17:14