Silver

Raising the standards
Quality, profitability and safety: Richard Thorpe exceeded on all fronts

GlaxoSmithKline's new HQ was a very large project: 100,000m2 of office and ancillary space, £210m construction cost, £12m peak monthly cash flow, up to 1,800 workers, five million man-hours worked - the figures are daunting. But the one thing that comes through from interviewing Richard Thorpe, from reading his report and citations, and from visiting the project is the pivotal role he played and the influence he exerted on the successful outcome of the project.

The works consisted of a 16-storey tower and three five-storey buildings joined by a covered street containing retail and conference facilities and a restaurant. There was also a separate multi-level car park and external landscaping. Thorpe was responsible for managing all pre-contract and post-contract matters, as well as relations with neighbours.

After their appointment Thorpe and his team arranged for the design and construction teams to be co-located on site for the first few months turning the concept design into the detail design. Procurement by paper was out and procurement by disk was implemented. Thorpe brought motivation and leadership to the project, and they remained his strengths throughout.

Thorpe also brought to site the first use of a digital communication system, a fully integrated IT network infrastructure, a full reprographic facility, an extensive training programme (not just for health and safety) and new standards in site facilities.

An impressive quality has been achieved for such a large site. This was achieved by the use of benchmark-quality mock-ups from each contractor and the implementation of quality management systems, including key stage inspections.

The final construction cost undershot the budget and finance was controlled robustly throughout. Thorpe was a key figure in managing risk, financial and otherwise, during the project, and pushed for all practical contractors' accounts to be agreed before completion.

Great efforts were made to run a safe site. There was extensive health and safety training. The effort resulted in statistics for the incident rate and the frequency rate being 60% and 80% lower, respectively, than the national averages.

Winner: Richard Thorpe
Contractor: Mace Ltd
Client: GlaxoSmithKline
Contract location: Great West Road, Brentford, Middlesex
Contract description: 100,000m2 new headquarters building
Contact value: £210m
Contract terms: Construction Management

Bronze

When the wheels came off...
... Gareth Lewis got the huge project back on the road

When Gareth Lewis joined the project for a new financial HQ, the works were in delay, site morale was low and the frustration level high. Everyone knew the enormity of the task ahead, but no one seemed able to galvanise the whole process into action.

Lewis reviewed progress and the programme and re-established the critical path. He then broke down the project into five smaller projects, each with its own management team and programme - a total of 17,000 programme activities. Progress was then planned and controlled by weekly "programme workshops" with the trade contractors. At the same time, a sense of team ownership was encouraged by introducing a cluster management approach to deliver work types rather than geographical areas. Each of the trade contractors was encouraged to buy into the revised programme.

As well as tackling the practical issues of programming and construction, Lewis had the tricky task of understanding both the design and the design team so that he could quickly contribute to the discussions on design development. He understood the designers' aspirations and the client's quality expectations and integrated these within the severe time constraints of the programme and the abilities of the 120 trade contractors.

The sheer size of the project (60,000m2), the client's requirement for certain areas to be handed over early, and the incorporation into the works of significant areas of refurbishment of adjacent listed buildings meant that shell and core works had to be carried out at the same time as final finishing. This created difficulties in sequencing and controlling the work. The programmes became increasingly detailed and flexible to cope with the ever-changing situation on site.

One of the factors in successful completion is strong leadership. There is little doubt that Lewis provided strong and focused leadership throughout.

Winner: Gareth Lewis
Contractor: Mace Ltd
Client: Merrill Lynch
Contract location: City of London
Contract description: 60,000m2 new financial HQ and other work
Contract value: £180m
Contract terms: Construction Management

also Commended in category 1
Maurice Cooper, Amec; Barry Johnson, Sir Robert McAlpine; Rolv Kristiansen, Sir Robert McAlpine; and Andy Smith, Laing Construction.