Significant time saved
Over 600 site technical queries (STQs) managed
Over 700 digital Material Acceptance Records logged
Visibility on key quality indicators increased
Customer experience and co-ordination enhanced
Overview
Costain
’s iconic Gatwick Station upgrade for
Network Rail
is exciting for several reasons. Gatwick Station handles more than 20 million passengers annually through the UK’s second busiest airport. Costain’s redevelopment is doubling capacity, relieving crowding, and improving capacity, speed, and connectivity to welcome visitors from across the globe when complete in 2023. This also represented Novade’s first project in the UK since its expansion in 2020 and the
construction management software
provider was enormously proud to be a key digitisation partner on the project to support Costain’s quality management objective of ‘Right First Time’.
PROJECT
- Costain’s iconic £150m Gatwick Station upgrade for Network Rail
CONTRACTOR
ISSUES
- Looking for a solution to speed up approvals and prevent bottlenecks to avoid onsite delays
- Complex schemes require complex assurance processes which can be challenging to digitise
GOALS
- Increase in progressive assurance across the Gatwick Station Project
- Improve quality documentation with the aim of improving quality performance
DIGITAL SOLUTION
OUTCOMES
- Significant time saved with the digitalisation and automation of approximately 500 Inspection and Test Plans (ITPs) and thousands of sub-forms
- Novade’s digital construction platform also managed over 600 (and counting) site technical queries
- Over 700 (and counting) Digital Material Acceptance Records (MARs) logged to track material compliance
- Quality inspections conducted digitally, with improved quality assurance and control
- Managed hold points with conditional workflows
- Quality & SHE observations, logged and managed more efficiently
- Involved employees, subcontractors, and the client Network Rail in the process for greater customer experience and co-ordination
- On-site assurance photos uploaded with ease
- Real-time syncing of progress captured
- Increased visibility on key quality indicators for all tasks
- Improved productivity, traceability and sustainability
About Costain
Founded in 1865, Costain is recognised as one of the UK’s leading smart infrastructure solutions companies. Costain continues to lead the way in digital innovation and is recognised for their focus on improving productivity and performance through data.
Costain was also a finalist at the
British Construction Industry Awards 2021
using Novade’s Quality module for Digital Initiative of the Year.
Why Costain Chose to Work with Novade
A similar story on many construction projects, Costain’s Gatwick Station project leadership were looking for a solution to speed up approvals and prevent bottlenecks to avoid onsite delays.
Kevin Van Der Merwe, Costain’s Gatwick Station Project Quality Business Improvement Manager said, “I was tasked with sourcing a digital quality assurance solution that suited the requirements of the project and after looking at several different providers, chose Novade as it ticked the majority of our requests, and they were willing to work with us to produce a system that addressed our needs.”
“We found Novade to be keen to land their first UK digitisation project and they came well-credentialed with other large infrastructure project experience in Europe with companies like Eiffage.”
Discussing the collaborative approach to working with Costain, Tejas Thomas Novade UK Country Manager commented, “There is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to working with customers undergoing industry 4.0 digital transformations.”
“Our project with Costain was in our sweet spot – there are very few, if any, construction management software solution providers who have fully customisable and configurable Quality Control systems in addition to local technical specialists on the ground to work hand in glove with clients to optimise existing workflows.”
Digitisation in construction is more than replacing paper forms
“The reliable, real-time quality data enables smarter and faster business decisions.”
– Kevin Van Der Merwe, Costain’s Gatwick Station Project Quality Business Improvement Manager
Novade’s digital consultants worked with Costain to map existing workflows and analyse site processes. With workflows configured, Costain’s Quality Team has significantly reduced the amount of paperwork by replacing their manual forms with digital forms – all from their mobile phones. Kevin Van Der Merwe went on to say, “We made the initial mistake of simply replicating our paper forms. All this did was highlight quickly that the underlying process wasn’t working as effectively as it could. Simply digitising what you have, does not necessarily make you more efficient.” “With Novade, we revamped our forms, consolidated and simplified our workflows for approvals to allow some activities to continue while others were held at stage gates with checks pending.”
Digital Progressive Assurance at Costain
The idea that quality assurance is delivered progressively as key construction steps are carried out and documented is not new. Such is the case with Inspection and Test Plans (ITPs) where they stipulate the key points and sequence of operations for inspections and verification to ensure the operations are satisfying their ISO 9001 or regulatory requirements. With each quality inspection and approval step to sign off each quality check sheet (QCS), the paperwork for contractors and third parties to monitor progress is voluminous.
Taking progressive assurance ‘digital’ however is a much newer concept. Digital Progressive Assurance demands a shift in thinking about quality and new ways of working to ensure digital processes are in place to check the right things at the right time.
Discussing the idea of Digital Progressive Assurance on the Gatwick Station Project, Costain’s Quality Business Improvement Manager Kevin Van Der Merwe said, “Costain’s guiding principle for delivering outstanding quality every time is ‘Right First time’. This of course is easier said than done. With Novade, we were able to bring Digital Progressive Assurance to the Gatwick Station Project.”
“Digitisation of quality processes will also make life easier when it comes to quality control monitoring during snagging. This gives the Project Quality Team and me certainty that the Gatwick Project will be completed to the highest quality – right the first time, every time.”
“Digital Quality Assurance gives Costain confidence that our Gatwick Station Project will be delivered within budget without delays due to quality.”
– Kevin Van Der Merwe, Costain’s Gatwick Station Project Quality Business Improvement Manager
Construction quality management at Costain
Costain’s client on the Gatwick Station project, Network Rail has full visibility on the ITP process with Novade’s construction quality management software. “Increasing client visibility of our quality management processes is an essential ingredient in building and sustaining our relationships with our clients throughout construction.”
“Being able to provide clients with structured data is also key to building enduring relationships with our clients beyond the project.”
– Kevin Van Der Merwe, Costain’s Gatwick Station Project Quality Business Improvement Manager
“Come time for handover in 2023, we will be able to easily extract Assurance Management Packs including all the ITPs, observations, necessary approval documents, warrants and guarantees to create a first-class handover pack – previous paper processes can take weeks to pull together,” added Kevin Van Der Merwe.
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