colin mackenzie's harding lecture

British Tunnelling Society at

The Institution of Civil Engineers

THE2002 HARDING LECTURE

Reflections on 40 years in Tunnel Contracting Colin Mackenzie BSc(CE)at The Institution of Civil Engineers20 June 2002. 5.30pm

1THE 2002 HARDING LECTURE

Editorial

Anthony Umney,BSc CEng FICE,

Chairman, British Tunnelling Society

T here has been an increasing demand for the use of underground space in urban areas around the world as ourcities have become more and more congested. Tunnelling technology has equally taken enormous strides for-ward over the last 30 years. This has enabled tunnellers to meet these new demands whilst the improved per-formances of the Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) have held the costs of tunnelling against the generally increasingcosts of construction.

Inevitably these advances with tunnel technology have been matched by ever increasing demands and the chal-lenges faced by todays tunnellers have led to difficulties in two areas. The first has been the difficulties experiencedwith the insurance of tunnel works, and a second the recent collapse of gardens at Lavender Street on a Channel TunnelRail Link TBM Contract. For the former the BTS has been working with the Association of British Insurers (ABI) todevelop a Joint Code of Practice for the Procurement, Design and Construction of Tunnels and AssociatedUnderground Structures in the United Kingdom. The objective of this Code of Practice is to promote and secure bestpractice for the minimisation and management of risks associated with the design and construction of tunnels.Contract insurers will require compliance with the Code of Practice, and although the Code has not yet been publishedthe industry is already effectively using the current draft of the Code. For the latter, the BTS is proposing the re-estab-lishment of the Closed Face Working Group (CFWG), originally established to report on serious failures on two recentUK tunnelling projects at Portsmouth and Hull. Union Railways have agreed to this tunnel review as being a construc-tive move to reassure not only the HSE but also the ABI. It is intended that the CFWG will be chaired by an independ-ent person and its brief will be to include the assembly of data from incidents that have occurred in other parts of theworld.

The BTS have also recently established an All Party Group for Underground Space (APGUS). This has provided animportant opportunity to lobby Government on the benefits of the use of underground space and the capabilities ofour tunnelling industry. The BTS has experienced a welcome increase of membership and the number of entriesreceived this year from the Second Tunnel Industry Awards reflects an increased focus on the important part tunnellingis taking in UK construction today.

The Fourth Harding Memorial Lecture was delivered by Colin MacKenzie. Colin has spent some 40 years in tunnelconstruction and in his lecture he has been able to pass on to the younger engineers in particular the benefits of hisexperience. Colin is probably the longest serving graduate of the Institution of Civil Engineers! This he relates was dueto all his documents, prepared for his professional interview, being destroyed in a site office fire and with his busy work-load and without modern means of reproducing his documents he never managed to sit the interview. Colins careerhas covered a very full range of tunnel construction in the UK and more importantly his contribution to it. His lecturedemonstrates the importance he has placed on safety from an early age and some lessons that can be learnt.

This Fourth Harding Memorial Lecture should be essential reading for todays aspiring tunnel engineers.

Colin Mackenzie BSc(CE)

Colin Mackenzie retired in May 2001 after a 40 year career in Civil Engineering, much of which was on Tunnelling projects.

In 1961 he graduated with a degree in civil engineering from the University of Aberdeen, and immediately went to work for MitchellConstruction on the Awe Hydro-Electric project in Argyll in Scotland.

After three years of rock tunnelling and dam construction, he left wonderful Loch Awe to join Mowlem on the Victoria Line Project inLondon and there got his introduction to soft ground tunnelling.

He remained with Mowlem for 24 years, with that time split about 50/50 between tunnelling and other branches of Civil Engineering.

The projects with which he was involved include the Victoria Line (Victoria to Oxford Circus), the New London Bridge (where he wasConstruction Manager for four years), the first Piccadilly Line extension into Heathrow, the East West Tyne & Wear Metro Tunnels, theLewes Road Tunnel, the Carsington Aqueduct Tunnels, the Don Valley Sewer Tunnels, the two Dorchester Bypasses, the OkehamptonBypass, the QE2 Conference Centre Substructure in Westminster and the Molesworth Cruise Missile Shelters.

From 1982 to 1988 he was a Director of Mowlem Civil Engineering Ltd.

In 1988 he transferred his allegiance to AMEC, initially as Director for Tunnelling, and subsequently in a wider role encompassing otherCivil and Airport works.

The AMEC tunnelling works included two major sections of the London Ring main, the Fylde Coast Tunnels in Blackpool, tunnels forAnglian Water at Clacton and at Ipswich, together with numerous other projects scattered across the UK.

He completed his career with a three year stint as the Resident Project Director on Contract 102 of the Jubilee Line Extension Project (thesection which included Westminster and Waterloo).

Colin served on the BTS committee for nine years, including two years as Chairman in the early 90s.

Colin is a recipient of the Telford Gold Medal of the Institution of Civil Engineers and of the James Clark Memorial Medal of the BritishTunnelling Society.

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THE 2002 HARDING LECTURE

The author (left), at the Clacton Clearwater Project of Anglian Water,with his daughter Karen, AMEC Project Manager Alan Barker, andAMECs much-travelled and very capable 2.5m od Lovat TBMnamed Karen Fiona Mackenzie after his daughter.

1. I never knew Sir Harold at a personal level, butI did have contact with him when I worked forMowlem, and I frequently saw him in action asthe first Chairman of this Society. At the time that theBTS came into being, in 1972, I was working on thefirst Piccadilly Line Extension into Heathrow and Ilived in Pimlico, just round the corner from the ICE. Itwas easy, therefore, for me to attend every meeting,and that is just what I did, without fail.

2.Harding was a formidable Chairman, oftencalling directly on individuals to make a con-tribution when proceedings were a little slug-gish. I recall one occasion, when the merits of rockTBMs were being discussed, the Managing Directorof Nuttalls, Richard Triggs, sitting near the front,minding his own business, when out of the blue hewas assailed by Harding with the following question -tell us Mr Triggs, do you feel that these new-fangledmachines have a future, or would we be betteradvised to continue to drill and blast, as God intend-ed ?. To his great credit, Triggs rose and gave a veryinteresting dissertation on the current state of devel-opment of rock TBMs. I dont know whether Hardinghad a prior agreement with Triggs to call upon him,but he made it appear to be spontaneous, and Triggsdidnt appear to know that it was coming. Togetherthey made it memorable, the proof of which is thathere I am telling you about it thirty years later.

3. Some years afterwards, when I was theMowlem director responsible for tunnelling,London Transport commissioned MottMacDonald to make a report on the condition of allthe cast iron linings of all the LUL tunnels. Amongother things, the report was required to identify themanufacturers of the cast iron segments. Eventually,Motts managed to do that, with the exception of onetype of segment which had a manufacturers castingmark which nobody could identify. It existed in alength of tunnel built by Mowlem some time beforethe First World War. Motts contacted me in Mowlem.I couldnt help. I contacted John King. He couldnthelp either, but he suggested that I might try SirHarold. I telephoned Sir Harold, who by that time waswell into his eighties and in retirement in the WestCountry. He said that he was not familiar with thatparticular casting mark, but he undertook to look forit in some old papers which he had retained whenleaving Mowlem.

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Harding Memorial LectureReflections on 40 years in Tunnel Contracting

4. A week later he came up with the goods, in aletter which started off -Dear Mackenzie.That showed that Sir Harold hadnt lost any ofhis old Mowlem style. In old Mowlem you didnt havea first name. To Sir Harold I was therefore justMackenzie, to be addressed in correspondence asDear Mackenzie.

5. I telephoned him to thank him for his efforts.He was delighted to have solved a puzzle thathad beaten everybody else, so delighted thathe regaled me with tales of how, in those far off days,cast iron segments were manufactured in the Northand transported by ship to Hays Wharf in the Pool ofLondon, from where they were delivered to tunnelsites by horse and cart, with each segment swathed instraw to prevent it suffering damage as the carts clat-tered their way through the cobbled streets. I wasreally sorry when he eventually hung up. I could havelistened to him for hours. As I reflect on that conver-sation now, I think of how appropriate it is that theSociety honours his memory each year. Long may itcontinue to do so.

INTRODUCTION TO LECTURE

6. I turn now to the lecture itself. When PeterSouth, on behalf of the BTS Committee, invit-ed me to give the lecture, I asked him if he hadany particular theme in mind. He replied that, while Ihad a relatively free hand, he thought that reflectionson what I had learned during my forty years in theindustry would be suitable. So that is what I havedone. I propose to talk about some things that I havelearned which are relevant to the management oftunnel contracts, and which I would like to pass on,mainly to the younger members of our profession.But you are not going to hear about Lovats and WorldRecords and so on. I, and many others, have spokenenough about them in the past and theyve beenreported in great detail in the technical press. Imgoing to talk about such things as Safety, Assessmentof Ground Conditions, Partnering, Costing,Productivity, Payment of Labour, and about someissues concerning Engineers for tunnelling.

The fourth Sir Harold Harding Memorial Lecture was delivered by Colin Mackenzie BSc(CE)at the meeting of

the British Tunnelling Society held at the Institution of Civil Enigineers on Thursday,20th June 2002, 5.30pm

7. I think that I should make you all aware that Ihave only ever been a contractor. In a careerspanning almost exactly forty years I haveworked for only three companies - all contractors.Firstly, for Mitchell Construction, for three years on aScottish Hydro-Electric Scheme Secondly, forMowlem for twenty four years on a wide variety ofCivil Engineering projects and, lastly, with AMECfor the final thirteen years of my career. I have neverworked for a consulting engineer, nor for a client.Even my formal design experience was gained in acontractors design office. Accordingly, I speak as acontractor. So, if in giving my views from such a nar-row base, I stray from the paths of reasonableness, Ihave no doubt that I shall be held to account for it,preferably in the bar afterwards.

SAFETY

8. The first subject which I am going to discuss issafety. That will come as no surprise to any-body who has worked for me. Safety wasalways the first item on my agenda. It is an issue closeto my heart, possibly because I was introduced toindustrial safety when I was very young. My fatherwas a Marine Mechanical Engineer with a business inthe port of Stornoway in the Western Isles ofScotland, mainly supporting visiting cargo vessels,the local fishing fleet and distant-waters trawlersoperating out of Hull, Grimsby and Fleetwood. I,therefore, grew up in a state of constant awareness ofthe hazards which exist in an engineering environ-ment, because of the amount of time which I spent inthe workshops or on ships and boats with my father.A concern for safety which developed in me at thattime has remained with me ever since. That back-ground is also what stimulated my interest in mecha-nised tunnelling.

9. Safety is a huge subject. I shall thereforeconfine myself to some personal observa-tions concerning safety in tunnelling. Goodsafety management requires leadership from themost senior levels of any company. If there is anydoubt of the sincerity of the commitment of thedirectors and managers to safety, that doubt willbecome a reality down the management line of acontract and it will make it impossible to achievethe best safety results. However, on some projects,providing the right sort of leadership is not enough.Sometimes individual projects present challengeswhich have to be resolved at ground level. I shallgive you an example from Jubilee Line ExtensionProject Contract 102 where we came up with an ideawhich turned out to have impressive results.Contract 102 was the section which includedWestminster and Waterloo. It was a 50/50 BalfourBeatty-AMEC Joint Venture, (BBA). It had the fullsafety support of both companies. It had excellentstaff on site, excellent safety professionals, an excel-lent safety management plan and a variety of safetyincentive schemes. It also had a very capable work-

force. Yet, despite all those advantages, safety per-formance, as measured by Accident Frequency Rate,was not as good as on some of our other contracts.

10. Accident Frequency Rate is the number ofReportable Accidents per one hundredthousand working hours. It is a long estab-lished measure recognised in many parts of theworld. The 100,000 hours was, originally, an approxi-mation to a full industrial working life in the middleof the twentieth century. That is, approximately 50years by 2000 hours per year. A modern working lifewill rarely have so many working hours, but the100,000 is still a valid reference period.

11. By late 1997, on Contract 102, despite ourbest efforts, the rolling twelve monthAccident Frequency Rate was close to 1.0.With a workforce of about 1250, and a staff of about250, we seemed to be reporting a three day accidentevery week. Some of them were trivial, but each onewas some form of personal injury, with all the unhap-piness that that brings. We were simply not able todrive down the frequency to our target level of 0.6. Wemade all sorts of detailed examinations and analysesof the accidents. These showed that the majority ofthe accidents were attributable to such things as defi-ciencies in access arrangements, edge protection,manual handling arrangements, and conflictbetween plant and personnel in restricted workingspace. Particularly worrying were the number of acci-dents arising from improvised expedient actionstaken by foremen and engineers to cover gaps indetailed planning and method statements.

12. By early 1998 we came to the conclusionthat none of our accepted safety manage-ment techniques could produce theresults we wished to achieve. We therefore decided tohave discussions with two HSE specialists who took aregular interest in the contract, independently of theHSE Inspectors and at a different intellectual level.Their names were Jim Nielsen and Steve Peckitt. Wegave them free rein to examine all our arrangementsand to talk to anybody in BBA. Their key finding wasthat the undoubted determination of my senior col-leagues, and of myself, to make the contract a safeplace to work, was being diluted on its way downthrough the layers of site management to the work-place. I had suspected this myself but I was surprisedby how widespread the HSE specialists had found itto be.

13. I had my own reasons for concern. I had alot of contact with the workforce throughmy frequent personal safety inspections. Ifound most of the members of the workforce to beintelligent and conscious of the potential safety haz-ards to which they could be exposed. Much of mycontact came through my making of on the spotawards for useful contributions to site safety and tidi-ness. The awards were made to individuals and werein the form of tax-free Marks & Spencer vouchers for

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10, 20 and 50. (BBA paid the tax). Sometimes,when I queried why an individual was not dealingwith an obvious defect, such as faulty edge protectionat a high level within the Westminster box, I wouldfind that he was unwilling to stop doing the workallocated to him by his foreman, in order to deal withthe defect, because he was fearful of the reaction ofthe foreman to him taking such action on his own ini-tiative. It seemed to me that the attitude of some ofthe foremen was that the workers were there to dowhat they were told to do, and that anarchy wouldreign if workers were given the freedom to do thingson their own initiative. I believe that this attitude isprevalent throughout the construction industry, andthat it is a key factor in our safety problems.

14.We concluded that we would have to find ameans of delegating real authority to a levelclose to the actual execution of work. Ofcourse, such delegation would not relieve myself andmy senior colleagues of responsibility for safety onthe site. We decided to place our trust in the hands ofour Section Engineers and in senior members of theworkforce.

15. After much deliberation, we decided to cre-ate, on each of the sites, groups which wenamed Safety Task Teams. Each Task Team,usually of eight persons, included trades charge-hands and was led by a Senior Section Engineer.Initially, no foremen were included in the Task Teams.The Task Teams were supported by SafetyProfessionals.

16. In common with many other sites the mostimportant categories of accidents were asshown below.a. Falls and trips at same level

(Gravity) (Clear walkways)

Falls of objects from above (Gravity) (Edge protection)

Falls of persons to a lower level (Gravity) (Handrails, stairs)

b. Manual handling 20%c. Contact with machinery 20%d. All other groups 10%

My references to gravity are to draw attention to thefact that the force which drives all falls is the forceof gravity. It is powerful and it is ever-present. Wemust guard against exposing ourselves to its effects atall times. The reference to stairs is intended to drawattention to my practice of insisting on the use of pro-prietary staircases rather than ladders. I generallypermitted ladders to be used only where it was virtu-ally impossible to install staircases.

17.We asked the Task Teams to give priority tocategories a, b and c, putting thefalls category as top priority. It was

explained that, while the Task Team would receivecorporate policy on safety management fromabove, its decisions on safety actions would NOThave to be sanctioned from above these were to beimplemented, forthwith, at section level by theSection Project Manager, with copies of the TaskTeam notes being passed to Project Director level inorder to keep senior management fully informed ofdevelopments.

18. At two week intervals, each Safety TaskTeam made a formal inspection of its sec-tion of the works, and then held a meetingto discuss the findings, to decide how to deal with thesafety deficiencies found on site, and how to preventsuch deficiencies occurring in the future. The inspec-tion and the discussion usually occupied about fourhours. Following the site inspection the Team markeda standard inspection scorecard whose format hadbeen agreed with myself and my fellow directors. Asample scorecard from Westminster is shown inAppendix 1. The Section Engineer then completed asuccinct record of the teams discussion and deci-sions, and prepared a coloured graph of the scorecardresults for that day, with comparisons with the scoresof previous inspections to illustrate trends in thescores. A sample report chart is shown in Appendix 2.The decisions and recommendations of the TaskTeam were usually implemented without delaythrough the Chargehands and the Section ProjectManager, the latter ensuring the full cooperation ofthe Foremen.

19. The improvements in safety performancewere surprising and rapid, and appliedacross all types of work. Within a few weeksof the introduction of the new arrangements the acci-dent frequency dropped markedly and set out on atrend which culminated in over 1.6 million manhoursbeing worked without a single reportable accident, iea frequency rate of 0.06 approximately ten timesbetter than our supposedly ambitious accident fre-quency target at the time when the Safety Task Teamconcept was introduced. Thereafter, the improve-ment was sustained to the completion of the con-tract, albeit at a figure slightly above 0.06.

20.Some people have tried to pooh-poohthe importance which we have attributedto the Safety Task Team concept, butnobody has put forward a sustainable alternativeexplanation of the dramatic improvement which weexperienced. I believe that the implementation of theconcept achieved the observed results through thefollowing factors.

a. It mobilised the latent capabilities of a large intelligent workforce.

b. It immobilised the antiquated attitudes ofsome of the Foremen.

c. It proved to everybody that a ZERO accidentfrequency over an extended period is a realistic objective.

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50%

21. I am convinced that a dramatic improve-ment in the safety performance of theindustry could be achieved if formalbasic safety education were to be given to everymember of the workforce and if companies had theconfidence to trust them to apply it, as we did onContract 102.

22. There is one other aspect of safetywhich I wish to mention. It is that Inoted, over the years, that certain engi-neer managers had fewer accidents on their sitesthan others who, superficially, appeared to be just aswell qualified and just as interested in safety. Thesewere the engineers who had done a lot of temporaryworks drawings and programming. It seemed to methat in the planning of temporary works these engi-neers had developed enhanced visualisation skills.They therefore spotted safety hazards well in advanceof actual construction and either designed out thesehazards or drew attention to the need to managethem. This could have important implications forsafety as more and more drawing is done, as a spe-cialist activity, by CAD technicians rather than, aspart of their regular duties, by site engineers.

23. The ability to visualise, especially fromdrawings, is a vital facet of good safetymanagement. This has important impli-cations in tunnelling as, in my experience, very fewtunnel foremen are good at reading engineeringdrawings. Somebody who hasnt got good visualisa-tion skills isnt likely to spot hazards until it is too lateto manage them properly. Such a person may there-fore take dangerous expedient actions when the haz-ards are unexpectedly encountered, especially if he isin a position of authority to instruct the workforce totake such actions.

24.However, the latest 3D CAD softwareoffers us the opportunity to use VirtualReality techniques to take everybody,stage by stage, through graphical displays of the pro-posed construction procedures. When I say every-body, I especially include the relevant trades of theworkforce. 3D graphics proved useful on Contract 102for giving everybody an appreciation of what we wereconstructing, a much better appreciation than waspossible from conventional drawings which very fewsite personnel could fully interpret.

GROUND CONDITIONS ASSESSMENT

25. I turn now to the matter of assessmentof ground conditions. As an engineerworking for a contractor, generallyunder conditions of contract in which ground riskwas shared with the client, I was taught that I must bealert to changes in ground conditions and to the pos-sibility that these might provide a basis for claimingadditional payment. I was taught to base my assess-ment of what was reasonably foreseeable on the

information provided with the tender documents,placing particular emphasis on the borehole infor-mation. That approach seemed to me to be rathersimplistic, as the geology I had studied in universitymade me aware of just how non-uniform soils androcks can be. However, it appeared to be the accept-ed practice, and we often got paid for what appearedto me to be rather fine differences. The argumentoften used by the contractor, and accepted by theEngineer, was that the typical tender period of a fewweeks did not really give the bidders time to carry outextensive research. Almost needless to say, I wastaught to only ever mention worse conditions,never conditions better than those in the tender.

26. These arrangements may have provideda more or less equitable means of deal-ing with so-called unforeseen condi-tions when tunnelling was being carried out byhandwork or by open faced Greathead shields. Butthey do not provide for adequate assessment andmanagement of ground risks when closed face tun-nelling machines are being used. In an open-facedshield it is usually possible to see the problem and getaccess to it to deal with it. With a TBM, especially anEPBM, it is rarely possible to see the problem or to getaccess to it to do something about it. A relativelyminor unforeseen condition can therefore have a dis-proportionate impact on a TBM drive. So dispropor-tionate, in some cases, as to completely nullify thebenefits which are supposed to flow from the use of aTBM.

27. I feel that a very rigorous approach needsto be to taken to the matter of ground riskwhen TBMs are to be used, and that thereshould be a requirement on the bidder to make clearexactly what he has allowed for in his bid, in a man-ner similar to that in which these things are dealt within a Partnering contract.

28. If the client proposes to award the con-tract to the lowest bidder, he would bewell advised to make sure that the bid isgenuinely the lowest by requiring each bidder to pro-vide a fully evaluated risk schedule detailing what hehas allowed in his bid for those risks which he mayexpect to share with the client.

29. It almost goes without saying that all thiswill be pointless if the client doesntalready have an Engineer properly expe-rienced in tunnelling works. Contractors are expert atfinding ways of portraying tender information in themost favourable light so as to get the cost allowancesin the submitted bid as low as possible, and yet pro-vide a believable basis for subsequently claimingadditional reimbursement. There is no doubt thatthese practices have too often made a farce of bid-ding under traditional forms of contract.

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7THE 2002 HARDING LECTURE

30. Therefore, I was delighted when, aroundthe end of the eighties, more collabora-tive forms of contract came into use. Itthen became possible for all the contracting partiesto pool their knowledge, together with the knowledgeof any geo-technical experts engaged by them, tomake a genuine, in-depth assessment of the groundin which the tunnel is to be placed, and of the risksassociated with all the potentially difficult variationswhich might be found in that ground.

31. But how should the assessment of theground conditions be made ?. In recentyears, I have usually adopted the followingpolicy for TBM drives. Having put together a bidteam, we start by asking the best EngineeringGeologist available to us to discuss with us the gener-al geology of the region in which the tunnel is to belocated. We consult BGS Geology Maps, BGS RegionalGeology handbooks and any other information avail-able to us. We then ask the geologist to put the SIinformation into the context of the overview whichwe have just discussed. We then usually ask theEngineering Geologist to describe to us how theground came to be where it is now, and to describethe processes which, in the passage of geologicaltime, have led to it having its present physical prop-erties. That request usually results in the geologistgiving us a lecture about desert conditions, or aboutdeposition in shallow marine water, or about glacialrivers, or about Tundra phenomena, etc., as appro-priate.

32. In almost every case it is possible to iden-tify a region on the Earth where, at thepresent time, one can find conditionssimilar to those which gave rise to the soils or rocks inwhich it is proposed to drive the tunnel.

If one then consults photographs or diagrams ofthat region in geology text-books, such as HolmesPrinciples of Physical Geology, (1), it is usually pos-sible to get a good appreciation of the variationswhich occur in the general conditions, variationswhich one may have to deal with, but which have notbeen exposed by the boreholes. The TBM will have tobe made capable of penetrating these variations. Insome cases this will lead to the TBM having featuresadded to it, at substantial cost, to cope with some-thing whose probability of occurrence might berather remote, but whose potential costs would bemany times greater than the costs of equipping theTBM to cope with that particular condition.

33. These deliberations usually require inputfrom every discipline in the team. I madeit obligatory that the decision on whichtype of TBM to select, and how to tool it, be made bya multi-disciplinary team, and be ratified by theTunnelling Divisions Board. In my view, no individ-ual should be empowered to make that decision onhis own. Anybody who takes it upon himself to do sois, in my opinion, asking for trouble.

34. In passing, I should mention that I haveseen companies attempt to place all thecommercial risk inherent in these deci-sions on the TBM supplier. My experience leads meto conclude that that is not appropriate. My view isthat the risk should lie somewhere with the contract-ing parties. If the contracting parties cannot handleit, they shouldnt be tackling a tunnelling job.

35. Going back to geological issues, the dia-gram in Appendix 3, taken from ProfessorPeter Fookes 1997 Glossop Lecture, (2), ishelpful to the gaining of an understanding of the rel-evant geological processes which have created therocks and soils of the UK. This diagram provides awonderful insight into our geological history, and anunderstanding of how, for example, we come to havecoal, Bunter Sandstone and so on. These tectonicmovements are still taking place, at velocities similarto those at which our fingernails grow, according toan expert on a recent Radio 4 broadcast !.

PARTNERING

36. Turning now to Partnering. Earlier in thislecture I have used the expression col-laborative contracts, because that is ageneric expression which I have seen used by others.In most cases what I really mean is Partnering.Almost all the contracts for which I was responsiblein the final ten years of my career were formalPartnering contracts, both in tunnelling and in gener-al civil engineering. I have been amazed by what weachieved on some of these contracts.

37. I should mention at this point that I amnot a Johnny-come-lately to Partnering.My first experience of what could beregarded as a formal Partnering contract was in 1968,with Mowlem. It was the contract for the construc-tion of the East Greenwich Relief Sewer for the GLC. Itwas a rush job because a large, and politicallyimportant, contract for the southern approaches tothe Blackwall Tunnel had been let before it wasrealised that, as a consequence of its design, a newsewer tunnel would have to be built some distanceaway from the approach works. This new sewer wasnot small. It was seven feet in diameter, in ThamesGravel, close to the river, and with its invert threemetres below the water table. In addition, for a sub-stantial part of its length, the only alignment avail-able for the new sewer was alongside, and within afew metres of, the Southern Outfall Sewer which car-ried, I was told, something like a quarter of Londonssewage. I used to worry that, if we got it wrong, abouta quarter of the population of London wouldnt beable to go to the toilet !. Now, that really is somethingto get worried about !. The potential for embarrass-ment was acute.

38. I dont know the details of how Mowlemcame to have the contract, but I under-stand that it was the result of very rapidand close negotiation between Vincent Collingridge,the Mowlem Tunnelling Director, and senior GLCEngineers. The result was a form of contract based onthe ICE conditions, but with open books account-ing, with limits on profit and loss, and with facilitiesfor close cooperation between the GLC and Mowlemin regard to the management of the project.

39. It worked very well. The works were com-pleted inside the very tight programmenecessary to avoid disruption of the othercontract, and within budget. Despite the tunnelbeing relatively short in length, it was advanced onfour faces simultaneously from two working shafts,with all tunnelling being carried out in compressedair. All faces were advanced using clay pocketingmethods with Greathead shields and full horizontalface planking.

40. But the success achieved in Greenwichwasnt just due to the form of contract,nor to good Mowlem or GLC engineer-ing. We were blessed with two wonderful things. Thefirst blessing was a complete set of first class draw-ings which were not varied as the work progressed.We completed the works using the same bound set ofdrawings as we had been issued with at the start ofthe contract. The second blessing was a GLC ResidentEngineer named Harold Bubbers, a brother, I believe,of the famous Bernard Bubbers of Motts. Harold wasa superb engineer with a wonderfully calm diplomat-ic style which worked wonders with the many neigh-bours and authorities affected by our works.

41. The list below shows that Greenwich hadmost of the factors which my subsequentexperience has shown to be vital to thesuccessful and harmonious execution of tunnellingworks.

a. People who knew what they were doing, ie appropriate specialists

b. Clear and unchanging construction requirements

c. A comprehensive assessment of construction risks

d. Contingency arrangements for dealing withthese risks

e. A realistic budgetf. Open Books Accountingg. Collaborative management of the projecth. An excellent engineering representative of

the client who put a lot of effort into ensuring that construction never met thirdparty Red Lights.

42. I sincerely believe that there is no betterway than Partnering for a client to getthe required quality, the lowest costs forthat quality, and the best programme. Partnering issuperior to traditional forms of so-called competitive

tendering because everything is out in the open fromthe start. It eliminates virtually all the ingenious con-tractual manipulation which has characterised com-petitive tendering, and which has run so many con-tracts into trouble. It mobilises the talents of thewhole team and makes everybody concentrate on theout-turn result from the very outset of the project. Itis the out-turn that the client wants to know, not thestarting price. Clients do not like uncertainties.

43. I anticipate that Partnering, in the courseof time, will sort the more capable tun-nellers from the less capable. Partnering,because of the openness of partner selection, gives aclient an opportunity to run the rule over potentialcontractors, and designers, to an extent not open tohim in other forms of contract. Clients have choices.Basic logic suggests that a client will choose to part-ner only with the best available to him.

44. Long term Framework Partneringenables clients to get even greater bene-fits, benefits which arise from continu-ous performance improvement. On the now-famousBAA Paving Team infra-structure works on UK air-ports, the clients objective was to reduce his costs by30%, in real terms, over a period of five years. Thatwas one hell of an ask, but it was achieved. It would,almost certainly, not have been achieved if the workhad been packaged as a series of individual repetitivePartnering contracts, even though these would, indi-vidually, have produced better results than otherforms of contract.

45. Although the client is the real winnerfrom Partnering, the other parties alsowin. For example, Framework Part-nering, and Partnering on large projects, enable con-tractors to invest in highly productive, but expensive,equipment and enables designers to develop themost cost effective designs and permanent workscomponents. These developments make contractorsand designers more competitive when pursuing lateropportunities.

46. But not everybody can partner success-fully. It calls for styles of personal con-duct to which some people can not con-form. The traditional, fiercely competitive, and some-times secretive, nature of the tunnelling industry hasnurtured quite a lot of people who endeavour to max-imise their results through less than honourablecommercial behaviour. There are also those who rel-ish absolute power and to whom collaborative deci-sion-making is anathema. These are to be foundamong all of the contracting parties, not just amongthe contractors.

47. These factors have been recognised byseveral clients, as a result of which wehave found ourselves on a number ofoccasions being assessed by BehaviouralPsychologists engaged by the client to assist him in

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contractor selection. Even people with goodPartnering characteristics take time to make theadjustment from traditional forms of contract toPartnering. I said earlier that my first experience ofPartnering was at Greenwich in the late sixties. Mynext experience of it was at Tooting Bec, with ThamesWater and AMEC, at the end of the eighties.

48. A major problem had arisen on RingMain Contract 1A at the time whenThames Water was being privatised.There was a significant difference between AMECand Thames Water over extra payment for dealingwith the problem. This was a most unwelcome com-plication of the privatisation arrangements. It wasimperative that it be resolved in a manner whichwould enable Thames Water to have an immaculateprivatisation prospectus. Thames Water thereforedecided to switch from the traditional form of con-tract, on which the contract had been let, to an openbooks form of contract embodying Partnering. Allhistoric differences were settled quickly, in order tocreate the right climate for the remainder of theworks. The job went well thereafter, but some staff onboth sides found the transition difficult. On the con-tractors side, some found it difficult to be open aboutsuch things as internal plant hire rates, and abouthow to calculate workforce bonus payments. On theclients side, some found it difficult to treat the con-tractors staff as equals and to face up to sharingresponsibility for decision-making in regard to pro-gramme. But, in both cases, good cooperative behav-iour became established after about two months.That cooperation became closer and closer as ideasemerged to overcome, completely, a potential pro-gramme delay of about eighteen months, and asmore and more difficult work was successfully com-pleted.

49. It has never been clear to me whetherPartnering was introduced at Tooting Becas an expedient solution to a pressingprivatisation problem, or whether it was meant to bethe first step in a long term policy for the execution ofcapital works. As time passed, it turned out to be thelatter, and provided both the technical and contrac-tual foundations for all subsequent Ring Main con-tracts, with their remarkable successes and achieve-ments. The industry owes a lot to Roger Remington ofThames Water, whose introduction of the I Chem Eform of contract to tunnelling was such a courageousand far-sighted decision.

50. Roger subsequently drew my attention toa specific, and important, benefit whichPartnering gives to clients. It concernsthe effective use of capital. There was a stage inThames Waters capital works programme whenRoger had responsibility for capital works worthabout 200 Million, all of which were on an openbooks Partnering basis. He was called to theHighways Agency to discuss Thames experiences ofPartnering. The person he met in the Highways

Agency was also responsible for capital works worthabout 200 million, but all of these were on the tradi-tional non-partnering basis. They compared theamounts of capital immobilised by each of them asprovisions for legitimate contractual claims. InRogers case, the amount was 0.5 Million. In theHighways Agencys case, the amount was 40 Million.I acknowledge that that is a simplistic comparison,but it serves to illustrate a fundamental point -Partnering gives clients greater certainty in regard toout-turn costs, and thereby enables capital to be usedmore confidently and efficiently.

51. After the Ring Main, we used our new-found skills to win and execute furtherPartnering projects with Thames Water inthe South, with United Utilities in the North West,and with Anglian Water in the East. These jobs werenot without their setbacks, but in only one case didwe and our client fail to deliver the goods. The oneexception was a Thames Water contract in East Ham,where the contractor/client relationship at site justdid not gel, and AMEC lost a lot of money because wehad to meet the costs of overshooting the Final TargetCost. So the contractor doesnt always make moneyon Partnering contracts. That example proved to methe crucial importance of the leaders at site beingfully committed to Partnering, and of not reverting totraditional attitudes when the going gets tough. Thatwas the third contract in a series of twelve partneringprojects executed by AMEC Tunnelling up to the timeof my retirement. It was never allowed to happenagain.

52. In the course of these contracts we hadsome wonderful partners. In this contextI feel that it is appropriate to commenton the contributions to success made by three of thebest partners with whom it has been my pleasure towork. They are Andy Miller of Thames, Steve Smith ofUnited Utilities, and Adrian Henderson of Anglian. Allof them are knowledgeable, unusually competent,and so self-effacing that I feel compelled to mentionthem for fear of them otherwise not being given thecredit they deserve. In addition, each of them dis-played remarkable forbearance in putting the com-mon objective above any personal ambition or goal.And, none of them ever tried to be the contractorsAgent, a common failing of some client representa-tives in the early days of a Partnering contract.Engineers like these are worth their weight in gold.

53. Although I have said that East Ham wasour only Partnering failure, that is true ofmy AMEC experience. However, as a JointVenture partner of Balfour Beatty, we had a notablefailure on Contract 102 on the Jubilee Line, wherePartnering initiated by BBA was not reciprocated bythe JLE. It was their loss. In my opinion, it cost themmillions.

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54. So, Partnering has been a wonderfuldevelopment for tunnelling, and weshould do everything possible to fosterits adoption by all clients, but, in exchange, we shallhave to continue to get better and better at what wedo, to win and retain the confidence of clients in thePartnering concept.

COSTING

55. I now turn, but only briefly, to the subjectof costs. I have been surprised by howmany engineers have shown little knowl-edge of costs. To some extent this has been due tocontractors being very secretive about costs, and per-mitting only the most senior staff to be privy to them.Such a policy is a serious impediment to the properprofessional development of engineers. I dont seehow an engineer can do justice to his responsibilitieswithout a reasonable working knowledge of whatthings cost. Youve got to be on top of your costs to beon top of your job.

56. It has been my practice to get my staff oneach job to compile for me a single sheetlisting the current local costs of relevantmaterials and resources. I started doing so inMowlem and I kept doing so until retirement. Theseexercises were intended to be as much for their ben-efit as mine.. Appendix 4 shows an example of one ofmy standard lists of local basic costs. I had a similarsheet for plant costs.

57. Engineers should always have access to atleast this level of basic costs. They cant dolocal budgeting without them. Basic costsdont vary a lot from contractor to contractor. So thereis no great risk inherent in a breach of confidentiality.What does vary is the productivity which each con-tractor achieves with these resources. The out-turncost per unit of work can therefore vary substantiallybetween contractors.

58. Again, Partnering has been very goodfor the advancement of engineersfamiliarity with costs and productivity.The open books nature of these contracts has com-pelled the contractors to develop costing systemswhich make information available much more rapid-ly than before, and more widely. The formality ofopen books accounting enforces a strict disciplineon forecasting and costing, and on comparisonsbetween the two a better discipline than ever exist-ed previously in most contractor organisations.

59. Engineers have to be careful not to try tobecome amateur accountants. Reams offigures, giving every detail of every aspectof everything, are not what engineers need.Engineers need succinct, reliable information, rapid-ly. I believe in the single sheet approach. If, at eachlevel of the project, you cant get the information you

feel you need onto a single A4 sheet of paper, thenyoure trying to collect too much data, and it will pro-gressively bury you. You will end up trying to figureout whats wrong with the data rather than trying tofigure out what the data is telling you. So keep it assimple as you can. Pay particular attention to trends.I emphasise that point. Its the cumulative result thatmatters, not flash in the pan fluctuations whichmay be due to clerical indiscretions or to unusuallyfavourable transient circumstances. Appendix 5 illus-trates my single sheet approach. It shows a samplesingle sheet of the direct costs of a typical mediumdiameter EPBM tunnel, unidentified for reasons ofconfidentiality.

PRODUCTIVITY

60. I shall now talk briefly on the subject ofproductivity. Something that is muchmore highly developed in tunnellingthan in most branches of civil engineering. There ismuch published material on the subject, so I shallconfine myself to some of the aspects which I foundto be of particular relevance to soft ground tun-nelling.

61. Productivity is not production. It is ameasure of the efficiency of production. Insoft ground tunnelling it is usually aboutfinding the most cost effective balance between inputof resources and rings in the ground.

62. Tunnelling equipment is in a continu-ous state of development. It has alwaysbeen so, and it will continue to ever beso. As a result, contractors, when planning or biddingfor new work, regularly have to make assessments ofthe productivity which will be achieved by newequipment. They are able to do this by fragmentingthe main production activity into a number of sub-activities, for most of which they will have existingproductivity information. For example, a new type oftunnelling machine may be capable of excavatingmuch more quickly in a certain type of ground thanwas previously possible. In estimating the time forone complete ring cycle the contractor will be able torely on existing data for many components of thatcycle.

63. But where does all this existing datacome from ?. Well, it usually comes fromhours and hours of activity observationand activity analysis by young engineers. Most of ushave done it. In my case it started with recording datawhen rock tunnelling on the Awe Hydro-ElectricProject in Argyll. Mitchell Construction recordedcomprehensive details of every round fired in everyface on the project. That data was distilled andanalysed at the end of each month. It resulted in veryhigh outputs with modest resources. Discipline wastight, and downtime was virtually non-existent. I sup-pose it is no surprise that the company held the world

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high speed record for rock tunnelling at that time.

64. From there, I went to Mowlem on theVictoria Line in London, and got intro-duced to a more sophisticated level ofwork study and activity analysis on the LUL RunningTunnel drum diggers. That set the pattern for my sub-sequent twenty four years with Mowlem, both in tun-nelling and in general civil engineering.

65. So, my advice to all younger engineers,and to some more senior ones, is to col-lect and analyse productivity data atevery relevant opportunity and apply the conclusionsof these analyses to continuously improve productiv-ity either by refining existing methods of productionor by inventing new ones. You may find tedious themany hours you have to spend collecting andanalysing data in the early parts of your careers butyour efforts will be rewarded handsomely later inyour lives.

66. There is one aspect of tunnel drive pro-duction which I wish to touch uponbefore leaving this subject. It concernsthe early parts of tunnel drives, the so-calledLearning Curve Period. I mention it because it israrely shown on Gantt Chart programmes and hasbeen a regular source of differences, between thecontracting parties, in the reporting of progress. Itssomething that I have been asked about many times.

67. Over the years, I have analysed the recordsof many mechanised tunnel drives, and Ihave reached some conclusions as to howto assess the so-called Learning Curve Effect on theearly part of tunnel drive programmes. At this point itis necessary to refer to Appendices 6, 7, 8 and 9.

68. Appendix 6 shows a typical tunnel driveprogramme, in Time/Chainage for-mat, for a medium diameter EPBM-typedrive launched through a pre-formed eye in the sideof a shaft. It shows the TBM advancing a short dis-tance, using only the very short equipment trainwhich it was possible to accommodate in the shaft,and then stopping to install more parts of the equip-ment train. Advance then resumes until sufficienttunnel has been driven to accommodate the fullequipment train and pit bottom facilities. Followingthat final equipment installation phase, the driveresumes and continues to completion. Note that Ihave not shown a reduction of output when comple-tion is approaching. The final curve of the so-calledS-Curve, so beloved of work study experts, is hardlyever noted in UK soft ground tunnelling, in my expe-rience.

69. Appendix 7 shows the same programmewith the equipment installation periodsremoved. Having reduced many TBMdrive records to this format I found that the tangentpoint between the learning curve and the straight

line of the sustained output after the tangent pointtended to be found at approximately 300 metres fromthe start of the drive. Analyses which I made in the1970s, mainly concerning drives in clay, showed thetangent point to be found at a distance from the startapproximately equal to three times the length of theequipment train being towed behind the TBM. WithEPBMs the distance to the tangent point tends to bea little greater, ie the 300 metres referred to above.The difference may be due to the extra distance need-ed for the EPBM drivers to find the operationalparameters for optimum machine performance inthe more arduous ground conditions in whichEPBMs are used. My conclusion is that a distance of300 metres, from start to tangent point, is a good fig-ure to use in programming all advanced TBM/EPBMdrives. However, that conclusion only fixes the dis-tance. It is still necessary to find a means of establish-ing the time to reach the tangent point.

70. Appendix 8 shows the same programmeline as in Appendix 7 but with two addi-tional lines. a. The first additional line is a line joining the ori-

gin to the tangent point. I found that the slope of thatline was approximately 50% of the slope of thestraight line of the sustained output after the tangentpoint. There was a range of values for the slope of theline but, as 50% was approximately a mean value, Ifeel that the 50% figure is a reasonable figure to usefor general programming purposes, especially as,when the programme is being developed, thestraight line after the tangent point is still an esti-mate. Most engineers and estimators seem to able toassess the sustained output after the tangent pointwith a reasonable degree of accuracy, but many havedifficulty assessing learning curves. So, it seems rea-sonable to link the slope of the line between the ori-gin and the tangent point to the slope of the straightline after the tangent point. That being the case, I rec-ommend that the 50% figure be used, ie the averageoutput over the learning curve period be taken to be50% of the planned sustained output after the learn-ing curve period. The position of the tangent point atthe end of the learning curve can thereby now befixed in terms of both distance and time, for the pur-poses of both estimating and programming.

b. The second additional line is a dotted lineextrapolating, downwards, the straight line of thesustained output after the learning curve to inter-sect the horizontal axis, ie the time axis. The inter-cept, The Learning Curve Effect, between the originand the intersection of the dotted line with the axis,can be calculated using the recommendations madeabove. However, the magnitude of that intercept willbe between 2 weeks and 3 weeks for most practicalTBM outputs. I recommend that the intercept betaken, for preliminary programming purposes, to be2 weeks for TBMs less than 4 metres in diameter, and3 weeks for TBMs above that diameter. That takes usto Appendix 9.

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71. Appendix 9 is intended to show a simplisticprogramme for preliminary programmingpurposes. This simplistic Time/Chainageprogramme is constructed by marking off, on thehorizontal axis, an intercept equal in length to thesum of, (i) the time allowed for equipment installa-tion after the TBM has been launched, and, (ii) either2 weeks or 3 weeks, as appropriate, for the LearningCurve Effect. A straight line can then be drawn fromthe end of that intercept to the end of the drive. Theslope of the straight line is the same slope as for thestraight line sustained output after the learningcurve.

PAYMENT OF THE WORKFORCE

72. Im now on to my second last section. Itsabout the payment of the workforce. Asensitive subject, but, now that Imretired, I suppose that I can speak more freely than Icould as a tunnelling director.

73. It seems that a lot of people think that thehigh levels of payment made, historically,to face workers on handwork drives weredue to the conditions in tunnel faces, to the arduousnature of the work, to having to work shifts, and soon. That is a misconception. These payments wereEARNED under piecework arrangements in whichthe targets for the various elements of work werebroadly in line with the targets for other types of civilengineering works. What was different was the men.They were the physical crme de la crme of thehuman race. They could have earned the level ofmoney they got in tunnelling on other types of con-struction work. I have seen handwork miners EARNtunnelling money on deep cut and cover pipeinstallation and on major concrete pours.

74. For example, Mowlem had a pipelinecontract in Edinburgh at a time whentunnelling work was in very short supplyNorth of the border. A group of Donegal tunnel min-ers asked to be considered for employment on thepipeline. They were told that they would have toaccept the bonus task already set out for a civil engi-neering workforce. They did so, and proceeded toproduce outputs which earned them as much moneyas they would have earned in tunnelling. The samebonus task had been used with a civils workforcebefore the Edinburgh contract, and was used againafterwards, without outputs and payment levelsbeing achieved comparable with those achieved bythe miners.

75. It wasnt until I was at Greenwich, and wehad to send miners for compressed airmedicals, and the doctors started askingquestions about where we got these men from, that Icame to realise that handwork miners were not nor-mal human beings like the rest of the population. Thedoctors could always pick out the miners from the

other workmen. They told me that the best of themhad lung capacities close to double the norm, atrest heart rates in the forties per minute, and superbbone structure and muscle development. In addition,most of them had been introduced to physical workat an early age and had developed mind-sets whichcould cope with unbroken hours of arduous toil.Interestingly, these are the same characteristicswhich distinguish the crack Tour de France cycle rid-ers from general sportsmen.

76. The point which I am trying to make isthat the high wages paid to handworkminers were EARNED by extraordinaryindividuals from incentive payment schemes fromwhich typical construction workers would haveearned only typical construction wages. There is nofundamental reason why the high payments made tothese supermen should be made to normal individu-als just because they are working in tunnels.

77.Machines have removed most of the needfor supermen. It makes no sense to investin machines AND pay handwork wagesfor using them. However, it is a fact of life that, in theUK, levels of pay for mechanised tunnelling havebeen allowed to drift upwards to levels previouslyassociated with handwork. This is not the case out-side the UK. It is not my intention to discuss the rea-sons for the UK anomaly. I shall say simply that I havenever been happy about it.

78.When I came to London in 1964 to workfor Mowlem on the Victoria Line, allunderground work was carried out onthe basis of piecework, with all piecework Tasksbeing expressed in Hours rather than in money.One Hour was worth the Working Rule Agreementrate for one hour for the grade of employee for whichthe task was set. That meant that there was a lot ofstability in these Tasks because general inflationhad no effect on them. Some Tasks on the VictoriaLine had been in existence for many years,unchanged, from earlier LUL projects. However, in1972, following industrial unrest across the whole ofthe construction industry, there was a 25% increasein the base rate in the Working Rule Agreement.Tunnelling contractors decided, as a group, to stopsetting prices in Hours and to switch to settingthem in monetary terms. It was an effort to mitigatethe effects of such a substantial increase, but it meantthat thereafter all pricing was exposed to the effectsof general inflation. The stability of pricing was lostforever. Estimators and managers were then present-ed with serious difficulties in setting prices andTasks. The entry of Trades Unions into tunnelling,and the end of Hire and Fire, both in the mid seven-ties, generated even more uncertainty.

79. As an Agent, and as a Contracts Manager,I had a difficult time after 1972 endeav-ouring to assess movements in the labourmarket and trends in the pricing of Tasks and bonus

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schemes. But, I kept good records, with the result thatby 1980 I had sufficient data to allow me to draw up aset of tentative guidelines for my own use. I foundthem to be effective and I have updated them pri-vately ever since. They have their roots in the oldHours system, in an attempt to eliminate the effectsof general inflation.

80. Appendix 10 is a graph of how I link pay-ment to output for a TBM Ringbuilder the grade of employee which I haveselected for use as a benchmark. Ringbuilders areimportant. They install the permanent works which,after all, is the object of the whole tunnelling opera-tion. Appendix 11 shows my guidelines for linking thepayment of the Ringbuilder to the payment of thevarious other grades of employee on a typical TBMtunnelling contract.. Appendix 12 shows how to cal-culate the costs of employing these grades at theselevels of payment. (Note that the example given inthis appendix is for output matching programmerequirement.) Appendix 13 shows my guidelines forthe payment of a top class handwork Minerengaged on works requiring excavation to be carriedout using hand-held pneumatic clay spades, andspoil to be loaded by shovel. A handwork Miner isusually a member of a tightly knit gang whose num-bers are dependent on the diameter of the worksbeing undertaken. As an approximate general guide,the Leading Miner of the gang is paid 7.5% more thanthe Miner, and the Miners Labourers 7.5% less thanthe Miner. The determination of the level of paymentto be made to handwork miners should only be inthe hands of engineers/managers who are very expe-rienced in this type of work. Top class handworkminers should be treated with the utmost respect.The enormous effort which they put into their work isa much more personal thing than the effort put in byworkers engaged on machine tunnelling, where themain brunt of the work is borne by the machine. Menare not machines, and should never be treated assuch.

81. I hope that you will find the informationto be useful. I emphasise that it is forguideline purposes only. The figuresshould be reviewed in the light of all the circum-stances of any specific contract and may have to betuned to suit. I would be interested in hearing fromothers who have done similar exercises.

ENGINEERS

82. Finally, I wish to say a few wordsabout engineers. Tunnelling is astechnically challenging as any branchof civil engineering, with the possible exception ofbridge engineering. Consider the challenges of theChannel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) and the Jubilee LineExtension Project (JLEP), and then consider if thereare other civil engineering projects comparable withthem.

83. Tunnelling is no place for suck it andsee engineering. Everything needs tobe fully engineered, and planned indetail, before any construction work is put in hand.Some decisions in tunnelling are virtually irre-versible. For example, it is not possible to switchTBMs in the manner in which it is possible to switcheven the biggest machines on surface works.Tunnelling simply has to have top notch engineers.All the easy tunnels have already been driven. Thefuture will almost certainly consist of hi-tech railwayand road tunnels, and difficult water industry tun-nels. We shall need very good engineers for theseworks.

84. To get them, we need to persuadesome of the best products of ourschools to become tunnelling engi-neers because it is a stimulating and rewardingcareer, and one which is worth pursuing through uni-versity education and subsequent professional quali-fication. But, we have to compete for the talents ofthese young people against the many excellentopportunities open to them in other professions. Weshall only do so successfully if the financial rewardsof following a tunnelling career are comparable withthose available from following other professionalcareers. I am being deadly serious when I say that Ithink that we need to approximately double thesalaries we pay currently in tunnelling to our bestprofessional engineers. I have done as much as I havebeen able to do, to achieve that objective, within theconstraints of the human resources policies in thelarge public companies in which I have held directorresponsibilities. I have been fortunate to have hadsome excellent engineers work for me. Not just civilengineers, but mechanical engineers, electrical engi-neers, electronics engineers and mining engineers all essential to successful tunnelling. I used to derivea modest satisfaction from seeing the salaries paid tothem sitting at the top, or near to the top, of the com-pany salary lists. But these salaries were still not highenough to really catch the attention of top notchschool leavers.

85. Likewise, I feel that we need toimprove the working conditions forengineers. For example, I feel that theyshould not be obliged to work twelve hour shifts as amatter of course. In fact, I feel that we should droptwelve hour shifts altogether, for everyone. I shallcome to that later.

86. Some of you will, no doubt, tell methat we cant afford to increase engi-neers salaries by as much as I havesuggested, because of the cost increases which willflow from doing so. I shall try to demonstrate that theeffects will not be dramatic, and that they are wellwithin the improvements in costs which flow fromPartnering and from general improvements in effi-ciency of working. I show, in Appendix 14, a table

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14


which shows a typical pattern of costs for soft groundtunnelling using a medium sized EPBM in aPartnering environment. These costs are expressed aspercentages of Total Direct Costs, ie the total ofTemporary Works and Materials, PermanentMaterials, Subcontractors, Labour and Plant. That isthe form of presentation which I, at a personal level,have found to be the most meaningful for examiningtender summaries. Dealing with the cost of engi-neers, you can see that the typical cost of all staff is12% of Total Direct Costs and, therefore, 8.7% of theTotal Selling Price. Less than half of that figure is thecost of engineers, the remainder being the cost ofother staff. Doubling the salaries paid to engineerswould therefore, superficially, add around 4% to theTender Total. But I dont believe that the figure wouldactually be as high as that. The higher salaries wouldattract the very best engineers, whose abilities wouldgo some way, if not all the way, to offset the superfi-cial increase in costs arising from the increasedsalaries. So, it might actually turn out to be a no costproposition.

87. I recognise that there is an argumentthat an increase in engineer salarieswould create pressures to increase thesalaries of other staff. While I wont try to deny thatargument, I dont feel that that is a particularly strongone, because the salaries of some other grades arealready high enough to meet market demands, forexample foremen, and no other grade of employeeis as fundamentally vital to the industry as engineers.

88. If you reject completely the idea that areduction of the increased costs wouldbe achieved through having the bestengineers, you could simply regard the 4% to 5% asbeing the cost of attracting top quality school leaversinto civil engineering tunnelling something thatappears to be necessary in any case from inspectionof recent trends in numbers of entrants to UK univer-sities to study engineering.

89. The increase which I have advocatedabove would have to be made incre-mentally over, say, a five year period,but there would have to be some form of unequivocalpublic commitment to it, to make potential studentsaware that it was being made. In my judgement thatcommitment will have to be made soon, or we shallnot have the engineers to meet the needs of the coun-try.

90. Having already mentioned my dis-taste for twelve hour shifts, I wouldlike to finish by putting forward animmaculate economic argument for putting an endto them, but I find that I am not able to do so. I findmyself facing the same difficulty as must have facedreformers who argued for an end to slavery a coupleof centuries ago. The argument is essentially ahumanitarian one, but with an underlying convictionthat economic benefits will flow from a decision tostop employing a working practice which has out-lived its time.

91. Nevertheless, I do have some evidenceto support that conviction. I have hadmany contracts which operated a twelvehour double shift work pattern, a number which haveoperated an eight hour treble shift pattern, and anumber which have operated a ten hour double shiftpattern with a two hour gap between shifts. The pat-tern of ten hour shifts with two hour gaps producedthe most satisfactory overall results. Production tend-ed to be very good, and downtime tended to be verylow. And, perhaps most importantly, staff and work-force were happier than under the other arrange-ments.

92. The twelve hour shift pattern is simplytoo brutal. The eight hour pattern isfine for the workforce, and for some ofthe staff, but its intensity puts too much pressure onthe senior managers and supervisors who cannot beon an eight hour pattern. My experience is that thesesenior managers and supervisors get completelyworn out on contracts with eight hour shift working.On balance, therefore, I strongly favour ten hourshifts Monday to Thursday, and eight hours onFridays (to conform to European Working Hours reg-ulations).

93. I recognise that some clients may notbe over the moon with this proposal,but, over recent years, we have giventhem enormous advances in predictability, qualityand speed of construction, together with substantialcost savings through Partnering. I would like to thinkthat most of our client partners would agree that wehave earned the right to a more civilised existence.

References

(1) Holmes, Professor Arthur & Dr Doris, 1978, Principles of Physical Geology, Third Edition, published by Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd,Sunbury on Thames.

(2) Fookes, Professor Peter G., 1997, The First Glossop Lecture, The Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology, published by theGeological Society, Volume 30, Part 4, Nov 1997.

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Appendix 1

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Appendix 2

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Appendix 3

Source: Fookes, Professor Peter G., 1997, The First Glossop Lecture

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Appendix 4

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Appendix 5

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Appendix 6

Appendix 7

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Appendix 8

Appendix 9

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Appendix 10

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Appendix 11

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Appendix 12

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Appendix 13

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Appendix 14

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colin mackenzie's harding lecture

Documents

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