PROJECT MANAGEMENT
It’s With Crossrail about to enter the crucial tunnelling phase, project manager Andy Alder says the key to success rests
with getting the details right.
Europe’s biggest construction project: a rail tunnel underneath
one of the world’s busiest cities, linking east to west. It is high profile and complex in the extreme. It is also extremely ‘boring’, says the man in charge of the Western Tunnels contract.
“People used to enjoy dealing with a crisis but it’s not effective project management,” said Andy Alder, Crossrail project manager, who will oversee construction of the new tunnels from Royal Oak to Farringdon. “Good project management is about looking forward, dealing with things proactively, and solid planning so you don’t get the crisis at the end of it.”
Tunnelling on the western section will begin in late March. On that day the first giant Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM), costing a cool £10m, will start boring into the earth deep beneath the capital’s streets – and won’t stop (essential maintenance aside) until the 6.5km tunnel is complete, some 18 months later.
Moving methodically – and relentlessly – at up to 120 metres per week, the machines will
32 | rail technology magazine Feb/Mar 12
follow, to the millimetre, a carefully defined course, weaving their way through a maze of existing infrastructure and London Under- ground tunnels.
In short it’s not a straight A to B dig; it’s a zig- zagging, up and down type of dig, through soft ground and hard. Therefore, it pays to plan ahead, lower the risk and avoid any untimely and costly surprises.
“One of the key challenges on a project of this type is what happens above the ground,” explained Alder. “There are a number of critical utilities that we pass under; the challenge therefore is to make sure all the engineering is done correctly so that we don’t affect them.
“There’s always a risk but it’s a very low probability, given the technical and organisational controls we have in place.”
As lead project manager on site, the scope of his responsibilities is wide-ranging. On the one hand it involves the ongoing monitoring of project works, including the two new stations at Bond Street and Tottenham Court Road. On the other it involves keeping everybody above and below ground informed of what’s going on.
He explained: “Now that we’ve got to the
© Crossrail td, Dec 2011
© Crossrail td, Dec 2011
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