Safety regs save cash on Merseyside

Construction managers greeted the introduction of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations in 1995 with much head shaking. The EU-inspired regulations, they said, were a form-filling exercise that would increase red tape without improving site safety.

Five years on and the worries look justified. The major and fatal accident rate for construction in England has soared from 232.6 per 100 000 employees in 1993/94 to 399.0 per 100 000 employees in 1998/99.

While the injury figures look bad, the regulations, when applied properly, have improved site management dramatically, says Glenn Christiansen - senior works civil engineer with construction client Vauxhall Motors. He argues that on a recently completed 10 000m2 warehouse, CDM helped Vauxhall's construction team cut 25% off the original programme and 18% off the contract cost.

The key to this success is that Vauxhall takes on the role of main contractor and planning supervisor (in charge of implementing CDM) for its £30m-a-year construction spend. Critics say to Glenn Christiansen that in the real world, life isn't that comfortable. "But", he says, "we are not insulated from the usual pressures just because our construction management is contained within the company."

Construction (Design and Management) Regulations help the non-expert client to set up a safe site because it is a good checklist. Christiansen says that at Ellesmere Port car plant on Merseyside, the client and its designers have a better understanding of their responsibilities in the construction process due to their adherence to CDM principles.

"Our commitment, not so much to the regulations themselves but to the principles behind them and the benefits they can give, is playing its part in changing the culture of the construction industry, very much in line with what the Movement for Innovation is doing on a national scale.

"The amount of work we do outside Vauxhall Motors to promote CDM is in the knowledge that we are changing the attitude of contractors and designers who work for us. We know that because when they go off and do a job elsewhere, they take advantage of what they have learned here. They come back and tell us, we did it that way on another job and it really went quite well."

Quicker and cheaper

So what are the fundamentals of CDM? "There are, of course, obvious benefits such as enhanced safety and fewer accidents, but for me the benefits are much greater than that. They are seen in better organisation, better relationships with the contractors and the client, and with the design groups. There are also the savings - savings in cost, in delay, in programme and in claims. They are what we call measurable benefits. These we can demonstrate, for example an 18% cost reduction on one job and a 25% saving in programme time."

He stresses that implementation of CDM principles requires careful planning at the pre-construction stage. "We find that, as a rule, the designers we work with tend to design things the way they always have done. But as both client and lead designer, what we do is provide design guides covering topics from excavation through to steel erection.

"The guides lay down a set of principles which are mandatory on the design office. Every Vauxhall structural steel designer subscribes to the principles in the steelwork guide. It is also given to all our sub-contractor designers, and it is a condition of employment that they work to the provisions of that guide. We also give it to all the contractors who are going to be erecting the steel.

"An example of how that works in practice is that whenever a truss is being designed, the design engineer must put on his drawings the weight of the assembled truss and the lifting points from where that truss is intended to be raised. Also, that the engineer will specify a lifting cleat that can easily be fixed in order to lift the truss. All that information goes on the drawing.

"The great thing about that is that when the contractor gets the job to price, he doesn't have to guess at any of the information. He knows what lifting equipment he will need, there is no ambiguity over where the sling is going, and there is a fashioned lifting medium to do it from. Also our practice of insisting on standardised bolt sizes has cut down errors and difficulties on site."

The 18% cost saving referred to on this job arose from the prescribed method of steelwork design and erection, and the change in painting procedures

Drainage details

"Despite all the efforts we make," continues Christiansen, "we still received from an engineer drainage details which were typical details. There was a detail of a manhole with a backdrop where it was shown as a typical detail. On the drawing it looked about a metre deep. In reality that backdrop was 7m deep in made-up ground on an embankment at 45 degrees. The plan drawings showed all the correct levels but the detail for the backdrop was typical and it was left to the contractor how he was going to build it.

"We won't accept that approach. We say that an excavation permit must be obtained before the job is designed. We must first find out what is in the ground and design so that we miss any services. Nine times out of ten we design around them. In my experience, at least 50% of engineers design the drainage and the foundations without doing detailed investigations of what is in the ground.

"When we plan excavations, we find out about the nature of the ground and what services are in it. Then we know what we will be working with. The engineer is encouraged by the design guide to go as far as suggesting to the contractor what method of dig we would recommend. We say to the designer, draw what you are going to build; if you are going to build a battered excavation, then draw it.

"All these aspects are covered in the design guides that designers must read and agree to work by before they are allowed to do design work for Vauxhall Motors.”