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Post by fish on Dec 5, 2023 19:10:31 GMT 12
SH 25A rebuild has come in well under budget. Don't quote me but I think it was about $17m. But did they get 50k worth of pie Friday like those on the Mt Messenger bypass?? If you've ever worked on a complex civil construction project, you would understand that $50k is incredibly good value for money for the team briefing, H&S discussion platform and general staff engagement and project communications. The staff can't just drive diggers, sometimes you need to tell them what to dig up and what to put back. Strewth, I've been on a project as Engineer, where every time the client started kicking up (normally cause he didn't know or understand what was going on) the contractor would just throw sausage rolls at him. Client liked sausage rolls very much. There would be 4 or 5 of us in project meetings, and the contractor would walk in one like a whole box (maybe 2 dozen) sausage rolls. My first thought was, who the feck is going to eat all of them? My second thought was, I've really under-estimated my client... |
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Post by fish on Dec 5, 2023 19:24:57 GMT 12
That would require a change in culture from trying to screw the Contractor and Consultants for as much as you can, to actually working WITH the Contractor and Consultants for the greater good of the project and the community. I agree with you in principle, but it is a 2 way street. I have been in all roles over my career - client, consultant and contractor. Certainly from my recent experience in NZ and previous jobs overseas the behaviour of some consultants and contractors also leaves alot to be desired, looking for every possible way to profit from a job whilst not performing. The way some contractors here exploit the Building Construction Act to their own ends is quite breath taking. As you well know there are several forms of contract relationship and all have their pro's and con's, the biggest issue being the rush to get a job going and not having proper scope definition. The engineers on P2Wk were truly shocked when I insisted they provide proper scopes of work for me to tender and engage contractors, "but but, we just need to give the contractor the drawings and specs and they know what we want". I find proper definition goes a long way to build the relationships I have a saying I use a lot. I often really struggle to get people to understand it. "To speed the delivery of the project, we need to slow the work down". It confuses the crap out of demanding clients. They basic concept is that if you rush or cut corners you will fuck things up, have to repeat work and that will delay delivery of what ever the client wants done quickly. In this context the 'client' can be internal, as in upper management. The normal response is "we wont fuck anything up. We are too good for that. We have ISO audit QA systems up the wazzoo etc..." Classic example is diving into preliminary and detailed design without doing a proper options assessment. Client was "no, we want this" "We know what solution we want" "Just do what we tell you to do" "You are not paid to think, you are paid to do". About 2 years later, they are ripping up 500m of just laid 700 diameter pipe to replace it with 1m diameter... If only they took the time at the start. Properly scoping work is the best example. Take the time to write down and spell out what you want. If you just chuck it to the contractor (or any component of the process, design team etc), you can wait for all the work to be done and it turn out that it wasn't what you wanted. Then there is this big stress and ball-ache sorting it out. Or you could have just taken that extra day or week at the start of the project and got it right first time. Here is a bit of a concept. One large water authority in NZ pay their consultants to scope and price projects. The other large water authority doesn't, and require consultants to price strictly what was in the Request for Tender. One large water authority gets innovative solutions to problems, saves 10's to 100's of millions on construction and generally successfully delivers their capital programme. The other large water authority generally goes over budget, has delays in delivery and struggles to organise a root in a whore house. Can you guess which one gives the designers (consultants) free reign on scoping and pricing? |
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Post by GO30 on Dec 5, 2023 19:50:32 GMT 12
Having watched 4 lots of road works, the biggest being 100m of widening the road so they can move it sideways 1/2 a lane due to a slip 18 months ago, along SH12 for the last few months it's no wonder NZ's productivity is near non existent.
For every dude working there are 6 sitting in their vehicles, one vehicles each of which some would be 250K, on their phones just in case a road cone falls over. I could have do the same job they have by myself with a ute and I would have done it in 1/2 the time no worries easy peasy....and without having traffic stop for 20 minutes to wait for 1 dude to shift 10 cones while 20 lazy fuckers watched.
We prioritise road cones FAR more than we do getting shit done.
As we will be fucked over by all the SH1 traffic being sent the long way so they can do 4hrs of work a day on the Brenderwyns, we also have been saying NO unless the road crews work 24hrs. We're told no can't do that as a person may complain about the noise. Not only are many road crews taking the piss so are the Govt cock wombles behind them.
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Post by fish on Dec 5, 2023 19:54:20 GMT 12
Having watched 4 lots of road works, the biggest being 100m of widening the road so they can move it sideways 1/2 a lane due to a slip 18 months ago, along SH12 for the last few months it's no wonder NZ's productivity is near non existent. For every dude working there are 6 sitting in their vehicles, one vehicles each of which some would be 250K, on their phones just in case a road cone falls over. I could have do the same job they have by myself with a ute and I would have done it in 1/2 the time no worries easy peasy....and without having traffic stop for 20 minutes to wait for 1 dude to shift 10 cones while 20 lazy fuckers watched. We prioritise road cones FAR more than we do getting shit done. As we will be fucked over by all the SH1 traffic being sent the long way so they can do 4hrs of work a day on the Brenderwyns, we also have been saying NO unless the road crews work 24hrs. We're told no can't do that as a person may complain about the noise. Not only are many road crews taking the piss so are the Govt cock wombles behind them. That is a good point re working 24/7 on the Brynderwynns. Is NZTA proposing that, or just a regular 40 hr week while they close SH1 and choke the Northland economy? Perhaps they could transfer the Coro crew to the Brynderwynns. They've shown it can be done. Should be no reason not to do it again on critical routes. |
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Post by Fogg on Dec 5, 2023 19:54:31 GMT 12
Had exactly the same dismal experience with roadworks whilst driving between Auckland and Christchurch the other week.
There were enough idle road-workers browsing their phones to fill all the potholes in NZ.
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Post by sloopjohnb on Dec 7, 2023 7:37:00 GMT 12
Just spent 6 weeks (4400 kms) driving around the South Island plus the leg Auckland to Wellington and back. SH 1 (North Island) is the worst road of the lot. Road works every where, idle plant sitting everywhere but no an operator to be seen. The only real productivity was the sight of road cones, and the traffic management of these road cones.........can anyone tell me why we need operators for the Stop - Go traffic lights?  ? There was one section of road south of Waiouru that was been lime-stabilized when heading south, 6 weeks latter still unsealed and you could see round wet spots forming.... future potholes. A lot of the newly laid seal was starting to lift, plus the resealing just covered the rough road below, real notice it on the moho. May be the full time couch warmers should become seat warmers on the idle plant. |
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Post by Hugh Jorgan on Dec 7, 2023 9:44:19 GMT 12
Having watched 4 lots of road works, the biggest being 100m of widening the road so they can move it sideways 1/2 a lane due to a slip 18 months ago, along SH12 for the last few months it's no wonder NZ's productivity is near non existent. For every dude working there are 6 sitting in their vehicles, one vehicles each of which some would be 250K, on their phones just in case a road cone falls over. I could have do the same job they have by myself with a ute and I would have done it in 1/2 the time no worries easy peasy....and without having traffic stop for 20 minutes to wait for 1 dude to shift 10 cones while 20 lazy fuckers watched. We prioritise road cones FAR more than we do getting shit done. As we will be fucked over by all the SH1 traffic being sent the long way so they can do 4hrs of work a day on the Brenderwyns, we also have been saying NO unless the road crews work 24hrs. We're told no can't do that as a person may complain about the noise. Not only are many road crews taking the piss so are the Govt cock wombles behind them. That is a good point re working 24/7 on the Brynderwynns. Is NZTA proposing that, or just a regular 40 hr week while they close SH1 and choke the Northland economy? Perhaps they could transfer the Coro crew to the Brynderwynns. They've shown it can be done. Should be no reason not to do it again on critical routes. Bryderwyns is a easy fix? Keep it open while building a tunnel. At the same time, reinstate cheap passenger and fright services on the train line from whangarei to Auckland. To easy, For every except the " decision making morons " Q |
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Post by GO30 on Dec 7, 2023 10:41:12 GMT 12
Having watched 4 lots of road works, the biggest being 100m of widening the road so they can move it sideways 1/2 a lane due to a slip 18 months ago, along SH12 for the last few months it's no wonder NZ's productivity is near non existent. For every dude working there are 6 sitting in their vehicles, one vehicles each of which some would be 250K, on their phones just in case a road cone falls over. I could have do the same job they have by myself with a ute and I would have done it in 1/2 the time no worries easy peasy....and without having traffic stop for 20 minutes to wait for 1 dude to shift 10 cones while 20 lazy fuckers watched. We prioritise road cones FAR more than we do getting shit done. As we will be fucked over by all the SH1 traffic being sent the long way so they can do 4hrs of work a day on the Brenderwyns, we also have been saying NO unless the road crews work 24hrs. We're told no can't do that as a person may complain about the noise. Not only are many road crews taking the piss so are the Govt cock wombles behind them. That is a good point re working 24/7 on the Brynderwynns. Is NZTA proposing that, or just a regular 40 hr week while they close SH1 and choke the Northland economy? Perhaps they could transfer the Coro crew to the Brynderwynns. They've shown it can be done. Should be no reason not to do it again on critical routes. Apparently the noise annoys the locals. The problem with that though it there are no locals. Something the Te Ora Waka Whatever person took great effort to ignore.
When doing a dirty ride (all off road) in Vietnam not long before covid one of our locals said follow me I have a awesome spot, we did to end up in road works. They are building a 8 lane motorway the length of Vietnam. So lots of dug up bits and awesome shapes to have fun on. But in doing that we learnt the road crews work 24hrs 6 days a week and they turn a km of bush into a finished road per month. The closest I can think NZ got anything close to that is probably the new northern motorway. Anyone know what day the first spade got pushing into the ground on that one?
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Post by harrytom on Dec 7, 2023 11:47:21 GMT 12
Now those in roading game can you please explain this. A 1 km stretch on the mamakus ,Tirau to Rotorua. Nothing wrong with it,then gets dug up.Left as dirty for 2 weeks,bloody smooth good to do 80km no problem not even spill the coffee.Now sealed and need to hang on as not to get bounced out of seat. How does this get signed off?
How much long is the Horotu/te Rapa stretch going to be,closed south bound every night and see no diifference when returning,is it a place to hide resources?
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Post by Cantab on Dec 7, 2023 12:12:44 GMT 12
Be nice if they fixed the train line before closing the highway, take a huge truck burden off the bypass routes.
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Post by harrytom on Jan 12, 2024 3:18:05 GMT 12
Govt must of found a wad of cash The amount of road works this week amazing doing resurfacing of roads done before Xmas digging up perfectly good rds.Road marking in our street where 10 cars may travel a day.painting the speed humps and on it goes seems like a waste of $$
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Post by GO30 on Jan 12, 2024 6:57:27 GMT 12
I had a good chat with a reading working team yesterday. They have all been moved off 'slips' and are now in to culvert clearing so less mess next big wet. They reckon it'll be 2 years before they start rebuilding the roads, this is mid northland not SH's. They said one of the biggest hold up is lack of staff, which they did admit looked weird when there was 6 of them, 4 of which were there only road management i.e road cone movers, only 2 there actually working. The road this happened on is full rural unsealed and see's maybe 3 cars and 5 tractors on a busy day. I was the first one they had seen and that was 1pm ish.
They seemed as frustrated as everyone else.
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Post by ComfortZone on Jan 12, 2024 7:53:52 GMT 12
Govt must of found a wad of cash The amount of road works this week amazing doing resurfacing of roads done before Xmas digging up perfectly good rds.Road marking in our street where 10 cars may travel a day.painting the speed humps and on it goes seems like a waste of $$ As I am sure you know HT, local roads in your area are under AT's umbrella, so maybe their contractors had some leftover paint from all the bus lanes and cycle paths they have been creating over the last few years. What is really sad, thanks to the late unlamented incompetent Labour/Greens governments 2017-2023, is that the next phase of SH1 heading north from Warkworth to Te Hana should have been well underway. However thanks to them stopping it in 2017 it will be years away and cost will have more than doubled, same applies to other essential roading projects they put the stops on. |
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Post by harrytom on Jan 12, 2024 8:55:38 GMT 12
Just came hwy27 to the tahuna/Paeroa roundabout Road is bloody mint.Now coned .no diggers or thing.Just spraying current surface and laying chip in too Yep that last until tonight when we rip it up Not going to cure with this heat 27c waste of money Funny thing about the Rd painters in our street.rhey gave the no stopping dashes a extra cost.They were never until I painted the Rd in November.Munnys blocking my drive way while precious can't walk home or catch the bus
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Post by eri on Jan 12, 2024 10:00:27 GMT 12
hearing of water restrictions in wellington while >1000 leaks go unrepaired and wellington water refuses to answer questions from wellington council, because they don't have too (while their highly paid engineers post videos, boasting of doing nothing)
meanwhile here in jaffaland i noticed a small leak on the grass verge outside the neighbors house on boxing day....looked like a cabbage tree root had damaged the feed from the below the street to the neighbors meter box
it was difficult to report to watercare as their webpage didn't have a phone number but a form that required my account number to complete, the leak had nothing to do with my account and i wasn't going looking for the number
so kept googling and finally found a telephone number that someone answered
they took the address, severity of the leak, minor, and about a week later a young guy came round with a truck of tools, dug and pumped below the tree to find the old galv pipe that was busted in the morning, came back in the afternoon with new parts and repaired it in a day by himself
even though the leak was minor, to not risk creating a lethal sinkhole under the road it needed to be inspected and dealt with reasonably quickly
was impressed that old school response times, skills and timeline still exist
well done watercare auckland
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