FEBRUARY 2020
A BIT OF PERSPECTIVE CANADIAN CITIES LOOK UPWARD
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VOLUME 65, NO.1 / FEBRUARY 2020
COVER STORY 20 A bit of perspective The remarkable views from Canadian job sites
IN THIS ISSUE 7 Comment A disconcerting lack of vision
20
10 News The major developments
18 Construction stats The key figures
32 Changing the lens Focussing on whole life-cycle value
53
35 On your marks Getting set for CONEXPO
49 Keeping score Standardizing data to help de-risk construction
COLUMNS 58 Software
26
Tech for safer job sites
60 Risk Collaborating to mitigate risk
62 Law Spoliation and the risk of remediation
61 Index of Advertisers
26
44
53
Demolition sets stage for multibilliondollar SickKids expansion
Traditionalists coming around to vacuum excavators
New developments extend paving season in colder climes
Clearing the way
Sucking it up
Ignoring the elements
COVER PHOTO COURTESY OF ELLISDON
on-sitemag.com / 5
COMMENT
A disconcerting lack of vision
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When engineers in Toronto were laying out plans for the Prince Edward Viaduct in the early 1910s, the subway line that would eventually carry trains along the lower deck of the bridge was little more than a far-flung possibility. For about five years, designers and politicians battled over whether or not the added deck was worth the expense. In the end, supporters of the subway won out. It was a display of vision rare in Canadian infrastructure planning, then or now. In 1918, when construction finished on the bridge that spans the Don Valley, its top level connected Bloor Street with Danforth Avenue, while the lower deck sat ready to support a rail line. Supporters would wait nearly 50 years for the Bloor-Danforth subway to become a reality, but the foresight in double-decking the viaduct played no small part in the milestone. In turn, these two pieces of infrastructure have shaped the way Toronto has developed over the past century. City building is a complex and, at times, unpredictable process, but more often than not our governments focus on addressing immediate concerns at the expense of longer-term planning. Today, Toronto is paying the price for what’s widely seen as decades of chronic under-investment in its infrastructure, particularly in its transit network. The latest provincial push to spend nearly $30 billion on four new or expanded transit lines will belatedly address some of the problems, assuming the plan moves forward. Still, in nearby Hamilton, Ont., the province’s recent decision to pull the plug on a new light rail transit project threatens to lead the historically industrial city down the same meandering path. A more complete post-mortem on the Hamilton LRT over the coming months will likely unpack further details about why the project
was mothballed, but Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney cited costs that had ballooned from $1 billion to $5.5 billion. The Ontario PCs also blamed the former Liberal government for misleading the public about the real cost of the transit project. Both claims likely have at least some grounding in reality, but the cost being higher than initially pitched doesn’t change the fact that Hamilton needs the light rail line. The city of more than half a million people continues to grow as affordability issues across Toronto and what have traditionally been its more popular suburbs drive people to Hamilton. The Ontario government still plans to spend $1 billion on transit in Hamilton and has created a task force to decide how to spend the money. If the province is unwilling to fund permanent infrastructure, however, it seems likely the funds will go toward stopgap solutions. While fiscal realities can’t be overlooked and governments have a responsibility to minimize expenditures, investing in infrastructure is a proven long-term benefit. Major projects typically pay for themselves many times over through the economic opportunities they create. At the same time, more and more people are moving to urban areas – a trend that shows no signs of slowing. Our governments need to have the vision to create cities Canadians want to live in, and accessible transit is a big step in the right direction. Of course, this also means spending money on infrastructure projects, even when they’re costly. Choosing to avoid picking up the tab today will only compound costs when playing catch-up tomorrow. As the old proverb goes, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now.
David Kennedy / Editor dkennedy@on-sitemag.com
on-sitemag.com / 7
CONTRIBUTORS
MEET OUR CONTRIBUTORS FOR THIS ISSUE ANIL SAWHNEY / Director of the Infrastructure Sector for the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors On looking at whole life-cycle value: “The construction market is responding to an increase in demand for more sustainable buildings and infrastructure. Project owners as well, see value in considering life-cycle costs as part of the financial management of building projects.”
NATE HENDLEY / Freelance Writer & Author On the rise of vacuum excavators: “Traditionally, vacuum excavators were used by construction firms for potholing purposes… Increasingly, contractors are using vacuum excavators for applications beyond potholing, such as slot-trenching and foundation excavation.”
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JACOB STOLLER / Principal, StollerStrategies On technology for safer job sites: “There’s no substitute for the underlying thought processes that form the foundation of a successful safety program. While technology can’t ensure that people think, it can increase the overall level of awareness by making safety risks highly visible and difficult to ignore.”
DAVID BOWCOTT / Global Director – Growth, Innovation & Insight, Global Construction and Infrastructure Group at Aon Risk Solutions On how to address risk allocation through collaboration: “Some of the key criticisms of the current procurement model include: it offers poor communication between separate phases of the asset’s life; it stifles innovation; it limits some stakeholders’ ability to provide input; and it focuses on low bid construction.”
GRANT MAYOVSKY AND SIOBHAN SMALL / Borden Ladner Gervais LLP On spoilation and the risk of remediation: “Spoliation is a defense raised in litigation when a plaintiff has intentionally destroyed evidence, depriving the defendant of support for its position.”
8 / FEBRUARY 2020
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INDUSTRY NEWS
INDUSTRY>NEWS Huge development with 37 separate towers planned for downtown Mississauga, Ont. Two big-name developers are planning a massive mixed-use development centred on the Square One shopping mall in downtown Mississauga, Ont. Oxford Properties Group, the real estate arm of pension fund OMERS, and Alberta Investment Management Corp., better known as AIMCo, announced plans Jan. 21 to transform 130 acres of what today is mostly parking lot space into a sprawling 37-tower neighbourhood. Eric Plesman, executive vice-president and head of North America for Oxford Properties, said the “bold vision” will repurpose land that’s currently underutilized into the largest mixed-use downtown development in Canadian history. “Our ambition is to build a community more than 35,000 people will be proud to call home,” Plesman said in a release. “This new community will support employment with world-class office space to help businesses grow while maximizing the positive impact of new transit being developed in Mississauga. It will be a place where business, life and leisure can come together as one.” The huge redevelopment plan for the city just west of Toronto includes 18,000 residential units, more than half of which will be rental apartments. The approximate boundaries of the development area — which covers roughly half a square kilometre — are Burnhamthorpe Road to the south, Confederation Parkway to the west, Highway 403 on the north end and City Centre Drive to the east. Growth in Mississauga, Canada’s sixth-largest city, is expected to continue with the population closing in on one million by 2041. Overhauling the city’s downtown won’t
10 / FEBRUARY 2020
Renderings of the new mixed-use development planned for downtown Mississauga, Ont. Designers aim to incorporate a significant amount of walkable civic space to accompany the new towers. PHOTOS: OXFORD PROPERTIES
happen overnight. The two developers pointed to the so-called Square One District as a multi-phase, multi-decade project. Construction, however, is already moving ahead on the neighbourhood’s first two towers. The 48- and 36-storey buildings will house nearly 1,000 condo units combined, with construction expected to get underway this summer. Oxford, which is also one of the driving forces behind prominent New York City development Hudson Yards, and AIMCo, have partnered with Ontario-based builder Daniels Corp. on the two towers. With the project linked up to the new Hurontario LRT, which is now under
construction, the developers said the Square One District will include a transit hub, a civic space dubbed the “Strand,” as well as parks and community buildings. Office space will also play an “important role” in the new development, the group said, but it did not release a specific breakdown of planned residential, commercial and office space. The developers anticipate getting to work on another 5,000 residential units over the next five to seven years. If advanced as planned, the project will be a boon for the construction industry, translating to up to 6,500 direct jobs over the first five years, with many more following.
B.C. pre-qualifies three build teams for final stage of highway project that will cost $125M per kilometre A costly highway widening project just east of Golden, B.C. is one step closer to being shovel-ready. The province’s Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure said Dec. 13 it has shortlisted three teams for the final stage of the long-running Kicking Horse Canyon Project. Three previous phases of work have widened just over 21 kilometres of the Trans-Canada Highway, or Hwy. 1, through the scenic canyon adjacent to Yoho and Banff national parks. Phase 4 will complete the final 4.8-kilometres, four-laning what’s currently a two-lane road, as well as installing avalanche and rockfall hazard protection. Due to significant technical challenges, the relatively short highway widening project is expected to cost a staggering $601 million — or about $125 million per kilometre. To take on the complex design-build project, the province has pre-qualified three construction teams: Kiewit Infrastructure BC ULC, Flatiron-Vinci Joint Venture and Kicking Horse Canyon Constructors. The unveiling of the shortlist follows the request for qualifications stage that got underway this September. B.C. expects to award the contract to one of the teams by summer 2020 and construction is scheduled to start in the fall. Currently, planners are targeting late 2023 or early 2024 as the completion date for the complex stretch of highway.
Fluor, Kiewit win multibillion-dollar contract to build new petrochemical facility outside Edmonton The Canadian and Kuwaiti companies developing a new multibillion-dollar petrochemical facility in Alberta have awarded a lump sum construction contract to a 50/50 partnership between Fluor Canada Ltd. and Kiewit Construction Services ULC. Calgary-based Pembina Pipeline Corp. and Petrochemical Industries Co. K.S.C. of Kuwait have been planning the facility within the Alberta Industrial Heartland development area northeast of Edmonton for nearly four years. The group announced a positive investment decision for the integrated propane dehydrogenation plant and polypropylene upgrading facility last February and has been working to secure contractors to take on the project since. The precise value of the new lump sum contract with Fluor and Kiewit was not disclosed, but Pembina said it covers approximately 60 per cent of the capital costs of the project, which is now estimated at $4.9 billion, up from $4.5 billion earlier this year. “Our relentless pursuit of a lump sum contract for the PDH facility reflects our disciplined and prudent approach to capital allocation,� Mick Dilger, the company’s president and CEO, said. “This project is highly strategic for Pembina and our producer customers in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. It offers a new demand source for domestically produced propane and supports ongoing development of Canada’s world-class hydrocarbon resources.� The deal with Fluor and Kiewit covers construction of the site’s propane dehydrogenation facility. Canada Kuwait Petrochemical Corp. said the contractor selection process for the polypropylene upgrading facility is still ongoing. Once in service, the petrochemical site, which will be located just north of Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., will produce about 550,000 tonnes of polypropylene per year.
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INDUSTRY NEWS Boring starts on Toronto’s Coxwell Bypass Tunnel, first phase of $3B water infrastructure project Components of a tunnel boring machine known as “Donnie” have been lowered and assembled at the bottom of a 50-metre shaft at a wastewater treatment plant on the east end of Toronto. The 1,000-tonne machine will begin moving material shortly for the 10.5-kilometre Coxwell Bypass Tunnel, a key component of the city’s long-term water infrastructure plan. City officials, including Mayor John Tory, were at Ashbridges Bay Treatment Plant to mark the official start of tunnel construction Dec. 14. “Through this tunnel we can capture and store rain and wastewater and transport it for treatment and disinfection so clean water is released into the lake,” Tory said in a release. “This project is of great importance to our city and the future of our waterways.” Prep work for tunnel construction began last year, with crews carving out a 50-metre shaft with a diameter of about 20 metres to accomodate the boring machine. Once preliminary testing is complete and “Donnie” gets to work, the subsurface digger can bore through at least 20 metres of earth per day, leaving behind a 6.3-metre diameter tunnel. “Years of planning, engineering and design will soon be realized as Donnie gets digging to create what will be a significant piece of infrastructure,” Coun. James Paster-
nak, said in a release. The tunnel will run west from the Ashbridges Bay Treatment Plant below Lake Shore Boulevard East. Once it reaches the Don Valley, it will swing away from Lake Ontario, following the valley north and east until reaching Coxwell Ravine Park, where an exit shaft will be prepared. After it’s put in service, the tunnel will store and transport sewer overflows and stormwater to the east side wastewater plant for treatment, preventing this type of water from getting into the Don River, and ultimately, Lake Ontario. The Coxwell tunnel project is phase one of the wider Don River and Central Waterfront Wet Weather Flow System that aims to improve water quality in the Lower Don River, Taylor-Massey Creek and along Toronto’s Inner Harbour. The five-stage project is expected to cost about $3 billion and will solve some of the problems caused by the city’s aging water infrastructure, which generally relies on combined sewers that can be overwhelmed during heavy rainfalls or intense snow melts. Several other components of the project include a new outfall at the Ashbridges Bay Treatment Plant, an integrated pumping station at the site and upgrades at the nearby Main Sewage Treatment Playground. The new bypass tunnel is scheduled to be completed by 2024.
The shaft at the Toronto treatment plant used to lower the big tunnel boring machine into the ground. PHOTO: CITY OF TORONTO
12 / FEBRUARY 2020
Infrastructure Ontario chief Ehren Cory returning to private sector The president and CEO of Infrastructure Ontario has announced his impending departure from the crownowned agency. Ehren Cory, who has been with Infrastructure Ontario for the past seven years — and served at its helm for the previous three — will return to the private sector following his departure April 30. His appointment, which was set to expire next month, has been extended to give Infrastructure Ontario more time to find a replacement. “The Government and I agreed to a short extension of my appointment, through to the end of April,” Cory explained in a release. “This extension allows time for government and our board to put in place next steps to transition.” During his time at IO, Cory led numerous major infrastructure projects and orchestrated the agency’s shift into enterprise real estate, its new approach to affordable housing projects and the expansion of public transit, which includes a nearly $30 billion quartet of planned projects in Toronto. “This government has entrusted IO with new and expanded challenges across the gamut of our work, and I have no doubt IO’s role will continue to grow in impact in the months and years ahead,” Cory said in a release. “Working at IO has been a dream job for me — a chance to combine private sector thinking and the public good, and working with a team of incredibly motivated and passionate colleagues. It’s also an opportunity that I have always planned on being one stop in my overall career journey.” IO is expected to conduct a search for a replacement for Cory over the coming months.
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INDUSTRY NEWS
Extension of Ontario Hwy. 407, new Hwy. 418 open east of Toronto
Looking south from the new Hwy. 407 and Hwy. 418 interchange. The major highway project stretching approximately 22 kilometres look about five years to complete. PHOTO: BLACKBIRD INFRASTRUCTURE GROUP
An eastern extension of Ontario Hwy. 407 and a new toll road to connect the lengthened highway to nearby Hwy. 401 opened Dec. 9 on the outskirts of Toronto. With the addition of 14 kilometres of four-lane road on its far eastern edge, the 407 now stretches to Hwy. 35/115 in Clarington, Ont. Drivers can also reach
the province’s main thoroughfare via a 10-kilometre north/south road, known as Hwy. 418, which links up with the 401 between Courtice and Bowmanville, Ont. The two new segments of road are designed to relieve some pressure on the increasingly crowded 401 through Oshawa and Toronto’s other eastern
suburbs. Combined with other sections of the 407, the latest extension allows through traffic to skirt around Toronto between Clarington and Burlington. Construction of the highways cost approximately $1.2 billion and has been underway for about four years, with early work beginning in fall 2015. Blackbird Infrastructure, a consortium made up of CRH Canada Group Inc. and Spain-based Cintra Infraestructuras, spearheaded the Highway 407 East Phase 2 project. Dufferin Construction Co, a subsidiary of CRH and Ferrovial Agroman Canada were in charge of construction. As the name implies, the latest project followed Phase 1 of the 407 expansion, which opened to traffic in 2016. Phase 2 stretched the provincially-owned section of Hwy. 407 another 22 kilometres — from Harmony Road in Oshawa to Hwy. 35/115 — and added the 418 connection to make it easier for drivers to reach the 401. Construction included three highway-to-highway interchanges, as well as five entrances/exits to surface roads. Unlike the privately-owned and operated 407 ETR farther west, the extensions are owned by the province, though they are still toll roads. The $1.2 billion contract for the highway project includes 30-years operations, maintenance and rehabilitation.
Equipment dealer Strongco to be bought by Portugal’s Nors in $193M deal Portuguese equipment dealer Nors has struck an all-cash deal to acquire Canada’s Strongco Corp. for approximately $193 million. The Mississauga, Ont.-based company, which carries a number of high-profile equipment brands, including Volvo, Case, Manitowoc and Terex, has 26 branches across Canada. Nors, meanwhile has operations on four continents and different 16 countries, though prior to the acquisition, it has not done business in Canada. “Nors’ international experience and capital foundation, in many of the same product lines on four continents, brings the know-how and experience to elevate our potential to deliver leading edge quality to our growing customer base in an
14 / FEBRUARY 2020
increasingly global environment,” Robert Beutel, Strongco’s executive chairman, said in a release. “The Strongco board is confident that this represents a favourable outcome for all of our stakeholders.” Nors will pay $3.15 per share, translating to a 75 per cent premium on Strongco shares, which closed at $1.80 on the Toronto Stock Exchange Jan. 23. The deal has the backing of Strongco’s board, as well as several key investors in the company, the dealer said. Along with other customary closing conditions, two thirds of Strongco shareholders will need to vote in favour of the deal before it can be finalized.
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INDUSTRY NEWS
More than 80-year-old highway bridge west of Toronto spared tear down as province pledges to rehabilitate A historically significant and vitally important bridge that carries the Queen Elizabeth Way over the Credit River just west of Toronto has be spared from the wrecking ball. Last year, the province shortlisted three construction teams to either tear down and replace the more than 80-year-old structure in Mississauga, Ont., or rehabilitate it, but had not decided on which route it would take. After weighing public feedback, the province said Dec. 18 it has elected to repair the bridge, as well as build a new span just upstream. “Our government has listened to the people of Mississauga and we will only seek bids that involve the preservation and rehabilitation of the existing Credit River bridge on the QEW,” Kinga Surma, Ontario’s associate minister of Transportation, said in a release. “We will be moving forward with rehabilitation of the bridge as announced in April.” Located between the Hurontario Street and Mississauga Road exits on the QEW, some 200,000 vehicles cross the bridge each day. The current bridge was widened to six lanes in 1959, while portions of the span date back to the mids-1930s. Recent investigations have found the heritage property is in need of significant repairs if it’s to remain in use. The distinctive
appearance of the open-spandrel arch bridge, which is made predominantly of concrete, prompted local groups and politicians to mobilize to save the structure this fall. While the latest announcement will preserve the bridge, a new bridge will also be built just to the north to allow for upgrades to the busy stretch of highway. Infrastructure Ontario said last year it expects to pick a construction consortium to take on the project by the summer of 2020.
GETTING THE JOBS DONE! HEAVY EQUIPMENT, ROAD BUILDING, FORESTRY, AGGREGATES AND MORE The aging bridge over the Credit River. Some of it dates to the mid-1930s. PHOTO: INFRASTRUCTURE ONTARIO
on-sitemag.com / 17 OnSite_AHES1_Feb20.indd 1
2020-01-29 9:48 AM
Workers Employed in Construction by Month
CONSTRUCTION STATS
2018
A selection of data reflecting trends in the Canadian construction industry
CONSTRUCTION LABOUR MARKET FINISHES STRONG IN 2019, POSTING A CONSIDERABLE 17,000-POSITION GAIN IN DECEMBER 2019
The positive close-out to the year, during which employment gains and losses seesawed back and forth, translates to a 1.2 per cent increase in personnel on job sites across the country, according to Statistics Canada. The federal agency pointed to new jobs in British Columbia and Ontario as the main contributors to the rise in employment in December in its latest Labour Force Survey. Year-over-year nearly 28,900, or two per cent, more workers were employed in construction at the end of 2019 than at the beginning of the year. The Canadian economy also showed positive momentum in December, adding 35,000 jobs -- enough for a small 0.2 per cent increase.
January February March April May June July August September October November December January February March April May June July August Septemeber October November December
1,433.9 1,433.9 1,452.2 1,433.3 1,420.3 1,447.5 1,435.2 1,418.8 1,446.8 1,443.4 1,458.2 1,453.4 1,444.9 1,438.30 1,435.90 1,465.10 1,456.50 1,449.10 1,474.10 1,472.00 1,481.80 1,460.50 1,465.30 1,482.30
In thousands of workers, seasonally adjusted SOURCE: STATISTICS CANADA
NON-RESIDENTIAL BUILDING SPENDING RISES AGAIN IN NOVEMBER Investment in non-residential building construction continued to rise toward the end of 2019. Spending inched up 0.8 per cent in November, the most recent month for which data is available, Statistics Canada said Jan. 21. The commercial component of the sector rose 1.4 per cent to $2.9 billion, earning a majority of the $5 billion spent in the non-residential building market during the month. The industrial component also rose 0.4 per cent, while investment in institutional buildings slipped 0.2 per cent, largely as a result of lower spending in Alberta. The November spending increase follows growth of 0.5 per cent October.
Commercial +1.4%
Institutional -0.2%
Industrial +0.4% 18 / FEBRUARY 2020
BUILDING PERMITS SLIP IN NOVEMBER The total value of building permits issued by Canadian cities slipped 2.4 per cent in November, the latest month for which data is available, according to Statistics Canada. The multi-family residential sector made up the bulk of the decline, slipping 11.3 per cent on the month, while permits for single family homes rose 5.6 per cent. The non-residential sector held nearly steady, despite major fluctuations for the individual components. The value of industrial permits issued during the month, for instance, was up 24.5 per cent to $753 million and the value of institutional permits rose 14.5 per cent to $894 million. Those combined gains were offset by the commercial sector, which saw the value of permits slip 13.5 per cent to $1.7 billion.
Value of Building Permits For Non-Residential Sector Month
In billions of dollars, seasonally adjusted
Month
In billions of dollars, seasonally adjusted
Jan-18 Feb-18 Mar-18 Apr-18 May-18 Jun-18 Jul-18 Aug-18 Sep-18 Oct-18 Nov-18 Dec-18
3.166 3.051 3.006 2.772 2.874 3.044 2.998 3.106 3.18 2.942 3.215 3.577
Jan-19 Feb-19 Mar-19 Apr-19 May-19 Jun-19 Jul-19 Aug-19 Sep-19 Oct-19 Nov-19
2.989 3.055 3.426 3.475 3.3 3.162 3.315 3.224 3.315 3.339 3.337
SOURCE: STATISTICS CANADA
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PHOTO CONTEST
A BIT OF PER
20 / FEBRUARY 2020
RSPECTIVE
On-Site announces winners of 2019 Canadian Construction Photo Contest
F
rom a small army of concrete pump trucks in Quebec, to multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects taking over downtown Toronto’s busy streets, this year’s submissions did not disappoint. The On-Site team received dozens of jaw-dropping shots taken at construction sites across the country for its 2019 Canadian Construction Photo Contest. Focusing on composition, originality and intent, clarity and quality, lighting, exposure and colour, the team narrowed the field to a handful of finalists before setting out on the tough task of picking a winning image. When the dust settled, it was a recognizable landmark that was left standing. Showcasing the tenacity of Canada’s construction industry – both past and present – a shot taken on a sprawling EllisDon construction site in downtown Toronto is our 2019 winner. Depicting a worker high above the ground on a crane, flanked by what is likely Canada’s most famous structure, the shot had a significant impact on our team. Not lacking in symbolism, the image, snapped by Andre Widjaja, a digital communication specialist at EllisDon, was taken at The Well development at Front Street and Spadina Avenue Sept. 18, 2019. The Well site itself sits on 7.8 acres of land that used to be home to the Globe and Mail office and press building. The mixed-use development will feature three high-rise condominium buildings, three high-rise residential rental buildings, one commercial office tower and a variety of retail shops and restaurants. While the bustling block that will house The Well is the city’s largest construction site, it’s far from alone. Toronto, as well as Canada’s other big urban centres – Montreal and Vancouver most notably – boomed in 2019. Our team could think of no better representation of the urban building market’s unflagging growth than this shot from the Mississauga, Ont.-based contractor. In recognition of EllisDon’s win, On-Site has made a donation in the company’s name to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada. We would like to thank all entrants for their submissions. The On-Site team received many spectacular images making this year’s contest a tough one to judge. We also encourage builders from across the country to hang onto any of the stellar shots they snap in 2020 for next year’s contest.
Company: EllisDon Photographer: Andre Widjaja Location: Toronto Date: September 2019
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PHOTO CONTEST
FINALISTS The On-Site team had a deep field of great images to look through this year and a long list of remarkable projects to assess – from complex rehabilitation work to unique high-rise jobs. Narrowing down the contributions to a half dozen shots was no simple task, but the six finalists here show off the diversity of what Canadian construction has to offer.
Taken in the early hours of the morning at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, Montreal-based photographer, Bruno Petrozza snapped this ethereal shot on behalf of EBC Inc. It depicts a complex concrete pour with workers, pump trucks and cranes hard at work while planes lay in wait on the tarmac. The concrete pour was one step in the construction of four-storey parking structure project at the airport that will add approximately 3,000 spots. EBC said more than 80,000 cubic metres of concrete were poured for the new structure, often in difficult winter conditions.
Company: EBC Inc. Photographer: Bruno Petrozza Location: Montreal Date: April 9, 2019
A crew of Metrolinx workers lay track for the new Eglinton Crosstown Light Rail Transit project along Eglinton Avenue in downtown Toronto. Slated for completion in early 2021, the project is part of an investment from all levels of government to expand the city’s transit network. Once complete, the new light rail line will have 25 stations and run 19 kilometres. Construction on an elevated guideway that runs over Black Creek Drive in the city’s west end is seen here.
Company: Metrolinx Location: Toronto Date: Fall 2019
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A superintendent walking a job site in Vancouver. Taken on behalf of SiteMax, the image depicts a tilt-up concrete project with support beams holding up newly-raised the concrete walls. SiteMax project management software was used on the project to log data points such as safety certificates, daily reports and photos.
Company: SiteMax Photographer: Site Partners Location: Vancouver Date: January 2019
Workers taking part in a bridge rehabilitation project at Devine Road and Highway 417 in Ottawa. Louis W. Bray Construction, in collaboration with Ireland Bros Ltd., took on the bridge rehab work. The job included a complete deck rehab requiring a redo of the deck top, rebar, concrete and asphalt. Depicted here are crews from Louis W Bray and Ireland Bros working on the deck overlay.
Company: Louis W. Bray Construction Photographer: Cory Houle Location: Ottawa Date: August, 2019
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PHOTO CONTEST
About 12 kilometers north of Peterborough, Ont. on the Trent-Severn Waterway, EBC Inc. is working to rehabilitate the Douro Dam. A number of locks on the canal have reached the end of their life, prompting Parks Canada to initiate repairs. EBC is responsible for replacing the entire existing dam structure, including the deck, piers, abutments, stop logs, spillways, upstream and downstream wing walls, and east and west approach slabs. Progress on the project early last fall is seen here.
Company: EBC Inc. Photographer: Peter Riedel Location: Peterborough, Ont. Date: September 2019
Westhills Stadium in Greater Victoria, B.C. has recently undergone $8.8 million in upgrades. Three new roofed grandstands were prefabricated by Bear Stadiums and its supplier, Rubner Holzbau, a timber construction expert. Components, including the massive glued and laminated spruce beams seen here, were shipped to British Columbia, where they were assembled over the last four months of 2019. The new Westhills Stadium is home to the Pacific FC soccer club.
Company: Verity Construction Photographer: Mike Lane Location: Langford, B.C. Date: September 2019
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DEMOLITION
CLEARING Demolition of eight-storey hospital building sets stage for multibillion-dollar SickKids expansion
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n era ended at the Hospital for Sick Children last summer as demolition crews carefully tore down a distinctive teal pedestrian bridge that had extended over Elizabeth Street in downtown Toronto for a quarter century. A mobile crane hoisted the main span of the bridge away from the hospital entrance in June, marking one of the first steps in a major expansion project that will reshape the busy health care complex over the next decade. Removing the more than 100-foot (30-metre) bridge cleared the way for the demolition of an eight-storey tower known as the Elizabeth McMaster Building, situated across the street from the main SickKids facility. Priestly Demolition Inc. is tackling the full scope of the demolition work – from taking down the footbridge, to reducing the eight-storey building to the ground and carting off the debris. But with the active hospital across the street, some 50,000 people working in the immediate vicinity and a high-traffic helicopter flight path at the site’s south end, the demo team has its work cut out for it. Even when you’re used to working in tight urban settings, it’s a challenge, says Kevin Garcia, the project manager at Priestly. “Space, proximity to neighbouring buildings, worrying about the high level of pedestrian traffic [and] vehicle traffic – logistically handling that and keeping that safe, was probably the hardest challenge of the job.” The first phase of demolition started last February and ran through much of 2019 with crews systematically dismantling the laboratory and administrative building built in 1987.
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Before the big iron arrived on-site, Priestly spent weeks laying out a gameplan that included pinpointing the technical challenges, such as equipment reach and slab load limits. Timing was also a significant factor. In place of the McMaster building, SickKids is putting up a new 22-storey tower. The Patient Support Centre (PSC) is scheduled to open in late 2022, meaning the demolition team and other subcontractors taking part in the project need to complete their scope of work and clear out. Curtis Paddock, the senior construction manager with PCL Constructors Inc., which is taking on the overall building project as the general contractor, says the job is more complex than most. “It is not unheard of, but it’s a little more intense, a little more unusual than normal,” Paddock says. Along with staying clear of the flight path used by air ambulances and dealing with the tight job site, he points to the Enwave Energy Corp. plant situated next door as a unique challenge. The facility distributes heat to a number of buildings in the area as part of Toronto’s wider district energy system, meaning underground pipes run “sometimes within a foot” of where the foundation for the new PSC will need to go. “All of it coming together, I won’t call it a storm, but it keeps you on your toes,” Paddock says of the long list of obstacles PCL faced when drawing up the construction schedule. Once Priestly got on-site, setting up a staging area for heavy equipment and space to process material as the building came down was priority one. Fortunately, at the site’s northwest corner, a single-storey add-on to the main building, not unlike
a portable, served the purpose. It was levelled first, giving the demo team enough space to work with. Dismantling the footbridge between the McMaster building and the main SickKids facility was one of the next items on the agenda, but its weight precluded the team from simply hoisting it away in one piece.
THE WAY
A top-down view of the job site as heavy Kobelco and Volvo excavators demolish the concrete structure. PHOTOS: THE HOSPITAL FOR SICK CHILDREN
“In order to not go crazy with the size of the crane… we had to lighten the load,” Garcia says. A mini excavator equipped with a hammer was sent into one segment of the bridge to break up and remove the concrete. Once the span had been slimmed down, a 300-ton crane was able to lift out the section. Other segments of the bridge
were sheared in place. With the peripherals taken care of, Priestly turned its attention to the eight-storey building itself. For the interior, it employed a pair of heavy-duty skid steers to strip each floor and used the elevator shafts as “internal chutes” to get the metal and other debris
to ground level. Everything was processed through the pre-prepared area at the northwest end of the site. After cleaning out the inside of the building, the demo team got creative to accelerate the schedule and make up a bit of time. “We did something there that’s we’ve on-sitemag.com / 27
DEMOLITION
A rendering of the new Patient Support Centre. The new pedestrian bridge can be seen on the bottom left.
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One of the main spans of the pedestrian bridge being hoisted away from the hospital.
actually never done on a full structural demolition before,” Garcia says. The crew, which reached about 35 workers at peak, installed shoring within the building and craned a pair of Komatsu PC138s onto the roof to demolish the tower from the top down. “Now normally, you wouldn’t go through the cost of reshoring floors on a building you’re knocking down, but the only way to accelerate the schedule was to get larger equipment,” Paddock says. “It was a very rigid structure.” The excavators chewed through one level at a time before being picked up and lowered to the next floor by crane. Priestly dealt with the top four levels of the building, the roof slab included, in this manner, before hoisting the PC138s off the fifth floor and letting the bigger gear take over. “That was kind of dictated by the close proximity to neighbouring buildings and pedestrian traffic,” Garcia says, pointing to the safety risks. “So, we brought it down to a safe enough height so that when we did perform that high-reach demolition, it was a little less risk.” A 100-ton Kobelco SK1000 and an 80-ton Volvo EC700C made short work of the rest of the structure, bringing it down
DEMOLITION The project site during the shoring installation process. The main SickKids entrance can be seen in the background.
to ground level in about three weeks. To mitigate any safety risks as the powerful demo machines worked, Priestly suspended an approximately 100-foot debris screen from a crane. Anything that may have been thrown toward the street would hit the screen and be forced back. In another somewhat unusual step, Priestly backfilled the building’s footprint with rubble from the demolition. “We don’t do that very often, but here, given the equipment we had on-site [and] the processors that went onto these machines, when we chewed the slab we could ultimately get it to a foot-minus,” Garcia says. “We could use that, and at the very end we just had to top the entire site with a more fine granular.” The chewed down concrete and other material formed a platform for the next crew on-site. While sitting atop the remains of the old building, the drill rig contractor was able to install the initial vertical pieces of
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An overview of the decade-long hospital expansion, known as Project Horizon
shoring for the new PSC. It got to work in late October and capped off its scope in the first few weeks of 2020. With the shoring in place, Priestly returned to the site late last month to dig out all the material from the former McMaster building and start the below-
grade demolition process that will set the stage for the PSC to begin rising. Garcia estimates finishing the demolition and excavation process will take about four months and require carting off as many as 2,000 truckloads of material. Priestly plans to crush the concrete rubble off-site, after
which it will be recycled on other building projects. As crews excavate the 50 or so feet (15 metres) required for the new building, Paddock points to installing the tie-backs as one of the final sticking points. Having worked on nearby projects, he says there’s “a lot of variation” to soils to the area, meaning it will likely take a bit of trial and error to ensure there’s enough tension to hold the tie-backs in place to support the excavation. In spite of the last few challenges with the demolition stage, PCL expects the new hospital building to begin rising by mid-2020. “We’ll get to the bottom of the hole by some time in the summer and then at that point, you’re at the bottom and you’re starting to build a new structure,” Paddock says. In what’s still a relatively unusual step on Canadian construction projects, PCL is employing building information modeling (BIM) on the PSC job. Along with refining the building process, making use of the technology will supply SickKids with valuable information once the new building
“SickKids... takes care of the most prized members of our lives at their most vulnerable moment. I think that’s a profound thought each day as you work through the job.” – Curtis Paddock, PCL enters the operations phase. “They’re going to spend many many times the capital cost of this building during the course of its life,” Paddock says. “They needed a way to understand it and maintain it properly and be able to allow future renovations to take place with knowledge.” Construction on the new administrative tower is scheduled to wrap up by late 2022, but the work at SickKids won’t end there. The PSC is the first stage in a multibillion-dollar modernization of the hospital campus known as Project Horizon. Planning is well underway for a new facility for critical care and inpatients at the west end of the current site. The Peter Gilgan Family Patient Care Tower is estimated to open in 2029,
followed by the renovated main atrium in 2031. To bring the project full-circle, the hospital also plans to put up a new, wider pedestrian bridge to connect the main facility with the PSC across the street. Work at the busy downtown site will keep crews engaged, in more ways than one, for years. “You’re looking at an organization, SickKids, that takes care of the most prized members of our lives at their most vulnerable moment,” Paddock says. “I think that’s a profound thought each day as you work through the job and you think at the end of the day that maybe you contributed in a small way to that mission.”
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PROJECT LIFE-CYCLE
CHANGING THE LENS
FOCUSSING ON WHOLE LIFE-CYCLE VALUE BY ANIL SAWHNEY
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© BLACK_MTS / ADOBE STOCK
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he construction market is responding to an increase in demand for more sustainable buildings and infrastructure. Project owners as well see value in considering life-cycle costs as part of the financial management of building projects. Taking a long view that considers not only the cost to build, but the cost to maintain and eventually demolish an asset, gives leaders a more detailed and prudent perspective. Life-cycle costs play a vital role in the financial management of construction projects. They allow critical decisions to be made relating to longer-term costs that ultimately affect asset performance, longevity, disaster resilience and sustainability. As design, build and maintain (DBM) contracts become the norm, project owners and other key stakeholders are rewarded for shifting to this whole-life approach. The current business model is highly transactional, providing little motivation for the hundreds of designers, contractors and suppliers to engage with each other at the early stages of a project. There is even less incentive to stay attached to, and learn from, the asset once it’s in use. This leads to the repetition of the same mistakes and the failure to adopt best practices. It often also means the delivery of a sub-optimal end-product, low margins and, ultimately, a lack of industry investment. Such issues become even more significant on megaprojects. Indeed, in infrastructure, the total cost of ownership is critical. Innovation in project delivery, such as Public-Private Partnerships (P3s) help to focus decisions on these broader issues and have a good track record of capital delivery success. Paradoxically, a recent study in the U.K. found that “48 per cent of key client programs across the industry do not consistently measure performance. In addition, 61 per cent do not take action to review procurement processes in light of lessons learned from past projects.” How do we improve design to avoid these common pitfalls? It’s done by bringing people, processes and technology together — particularly during the initial phase of a project when all stakeholders can come together to set expectations and prudently review all alternatives, including the lowest initial cost and best value over the life of the asset. Everyone benefits when at the outset, the stakeholders meet to engage on the key expectations and requirements of a project. For example, assessing wider metrics for business cases across whole life outcomes, design quality, program, capital cost and social value at the briefing will allow clarity for a value-based lens through which to make decisions.
LOOKING AHEAD AND LOOKING BACK For stakeholders to apply a value-based lens on a project, we need standards to set benchmarks for comparison, a process to weigh and apply learnings and technology to gather the required data according to the benchmarks (many of the measures already exist). We also need to share best practices with clients to educate them on the benefits of change, robust professional standards that will support those embarking on new ways of determining value and talent equipped to take advantage of this opportunity. This focus on value would not end at the planning phase or even at the asset’s hand-off. It would lead to procurement decisions for both consultants, contractors and facility managers, to be made through the lens of whole-life value. This change is happening for megaprojects that are publicly owned, with stakeholders looking at the life-cycle cost of the asset to put offset costs into perspective. The operations phase is the costliest stage of an asset’s life. The higher costs of green measures during construction are low in comparison to the savings they can deliver throughout the lifetime of an asset through energy use reduction, lower maintenance and renewal costs and improved productivity for occupants and users. The construction sector is engaged in building assets of immense social value, with trillions of dollars being spent each year. In the planning phase, in the building phase, and throughout an asset’s life-cycle, listening to and learning from project stakeholders, experienced professionals and the public is an important way to ensure an asset is a positive addition to the built environment.
Anil Sawhney is the director of the Infrastructure Sector for the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. He is involved in standards, guidance, practice statements, education, and training.
JohnDeere.com/Vegas2020
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Booth # B8401
CONEXPO
ON YOUR
MARKS
N
eeding little introduction, CONEXPO-CON/AGG is set to take over much of Las Vegas next month. North America’s largest construction trade show, representing every facet of the industry, including asphalt, aggregates, concrete, earthmoving, lifting, mining and utilities, is set for March 10 to 14. The 2020 iteration of the massive triennial event will set a new space record, attract tens of thousands of attendees and feature a range of events and education programs. Attendees will have up-close access to the leading manufacturers and suppliers,
latest product innovations, and knowledge resources to help their businesses thrive. A couple highlights for 2020 include the return of the “Tech Experience” with two locations and the expansion of the show campus to the new Festival Grounds. This year’s event has 10 different areas to explore, as well as more than 180 education sessions packed with timely and actionable information from industry experts. CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2020 is taking place March 10 to 14 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Hours are 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. weekdays and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday.
GETTING SET FOR CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2020 SESSION SNAPSHOTS • • • • • • •
Driving new innovation at complacent companies Drones on construction sites for all contractors Gain a competitive advantage through construction technology How to win the war for talent Safety training ninja Technology trends: Lessons Learned Top 10 reasons why construction businesses fail on-sitemag.com / 35
CONEXPO
WHAT TO
WATCH FOR
Equipment makers and tech providers won’t be pulling their punches. Here’s a glimpse of what to expect from some of the biggest names in the industry AQUAJET SYSTEMS Hydro demolition machine maker Aquajet Systems is showcasing its new Aqua Cutter 710V, among other new innovations, at CONEXPO-CON/AGG this March. The robot is the largest of its kind, offering overhead reach up to 23 feet for concrete removal tasks on projects such as bridges and renovations. The 5,070-pound (2,300-kilogram) 710V uses 14,500- to 40,000-psi water jets to remove as much as 35 cubic feet (1 cubic meter) of concrete per hour.
BROKK Armed with a new intelligent power management system that delivers twice the power of its predecessor, Brokk is bringing its new Brokk 70 remote-controlled demolition robot to this year’s show. The compact electric robot can work in confined spaces and is small enough to fit through interior doorways. With a base weight of 1,235 pounds (560 kilograms), it can also be taken into regular passenger elevators, making it ideal for top-down demolition projects in urban areas.
B2W SOFTWARE At CONEXPO, construction management software firm B2W Software will demonstrate its unified One Platform and the various elements for estimating, operations and business insight at a dozen demo stations. The company plans to highlight new platform developments, such as its new mobile app capable of working in online or offline modes. It will also showcase the addition of trucking management capabilities to its scheduling tool and other enhanced features designed to boost performance on complex, data-intensive jobs.
BOBCAT The new Bobcat R-Series loaders are a revolution in both form and function. Designed to tackle everyday work and the toughest challenges, these next generation loaders include several machine and feature changes focused on quality, reliability and durability. R-Series loaders bring more comfort to challenging jobs with their leading all-around visibility, comfortable controls, numerous options and roomy environment. Features include an optional clear-side enclosure, mesh-free windows, a new cab design and much more.
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DOOSAN INFRACORE New, innovative machines as well as a number of currently available excavators, wheel loaders and articulated trucks will be on display at Doosan Infracore’s booth at the trade show this March. Alongside popular machines such as the DX35-5 mini excavator and the DX170LC-5 crawler excavator, the company will showcase Concept-X, a new autonomous work site designed to meet the future needs of the increasingly tech-focused construction industry.
CATERPILLAR Through a mix of static displays and equipment and tech demo areas, Caterpillar will be showing off a wide range of new technologies at CONEXPO 2020. The 150 AWD motor grader, which features all-wheel drive assist and the new mastless 3D Cat Grade control system, will be among the many new machines to hit the dirt. The manufacturer is also hosting the finals of the Global Operator Challenge, where nine operators will compete in a tough string of scenarios.
The Advantage is
Experience DEERE At 225 horsepower, the 850L dozer has more horsepower than any dozer in its size class. Standard auto-idle and idle shutdown help to minimize fuel costs. Equipped with the popular Eco mode feature, fuel consumption is reduced without sacrificing performance. All configurations utilize an eight-roller design with 130-inches of track on ground. The roomier, quieter cab includes comfort-driven features and is equipped with ergonomic control joysticks for the transmission and hydraulic functions.
For 20 years, Vacuworx has set the standard for vacuum lifting in the field. But we offer more than just the best vacuum lifting systems on the market, available to buy or rent and ready to ship when you need them. We also deliver unparalleled service and technical support, backed by experience no one can copy. Find out how much faster, safer and smarter your crew can be using Vacuworx lifting systems and put the Vacuworx Advantage to work for you.
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CONEXPO
GOMACO Arriving at CONEXPO with the majority of its lineup in tow, Gomaco will be featuring its Xtreme line of concrete curb and gutter machines. The new pavers include advanced steering capabilities with rotary-sensored slew drives on each track, smart hydraulic cylinders combined with G+ control to ensure smooth travel and “Xtreme” radius capabilities when paving with 3D guidance or stringline.
HYUNDAI
EPIROC
At CONEXPO/ConAgg 2020, Hyundai Construction Equipment Americas will display new and enhanced models, including those in its Performance Series (Stage 5 emissions compliant). It will also showcase new services under the Hyundai Intelligence Care brand and working prototypes of two electric-powered compact excavators. The company’s indoor exhibit will include a working prototype of a Hyundai-electric-powered compact excavator, while its outdoor exhibit will feature a working prototype of the Cummins-electric-powered Hyundai R35E compact excavator.
Among a number of innovative new offerings, Epiroc is showing its automation-ready SmartROC D60 surface drill rig for first time in North America. The rig, used in quarrying, mining and construction has both the power and intelligence to drill high-quality blast holes with accuracy and precision. The automation-ready platform includes a new Auto Feed Fold feature, enabling the operator to fold the feed for tramming or position it for drilling.
HITACHI
HAVER & BOECKER The latest efficiency-boosting products from Haver & Boecker, including the company’s new Tyler F-Class Portable Plant, will be on display this March at CONEXPO. Showcased for the first time ever, the F-Class portable plant features mobile four-bearing technology to maximize production for aggregates and mining operations. It’s equipped with the company’s signature engineered screen media designed to improve customer productivity and profits.
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Hitachi will have a range of models on display at CONEXPO/CON-AGG, including the new ZX345USLC-6. The machine is the largest in Hitachi’s reduced-tail-swing excavator line. Whether it’s roadbuilding or working in congested quarters, the ZX345USLC-6 packs all the power into its reduced-tail-swing design, helping this model maximize efficiency, reliability and durability. At the forefront is Hitachi’s exclusive TRIAS II three-pump hydraulic system that provides multifunctioning performance and some of the fastest cycle times in the industry.
JLG JLG says it’s “Elevating Access” at CONEXPO-CON/ AGG 2020. At the company’s booth in the Festival Grounds, JLG will unveil the next generation of the access industry with best-in-class equipment designed to maximize productivity like never before, thanks to industry-leading equipment and technical innovations. From connected solutions to the latest in telehandler, scissor, boom and low-level access technology, visitors will experience the future of productivity, technology and safety.
CONEXPO
KPI-JCI
KOMATSU Komatsu says it’s focusing on creating connections at CONEXPO 2020. The equipment manufacturer’s 40,000 sq. ft. booth will demonstrate how Komatsu’s distributors and customers are increasingly connected through solutions that leverage digitalization to control costs and timelines. Along with debuting new patent-pending technology and displaying nearly 25 machines, the company will showcase its proactive dozing control system that makes its own calculated decisions on the D51i-24 and D61i-24 dozers.
Kolberg-Pioneer (KPI) will be rolling out its first hybrid FT4250CC horizontal shaft impactor plant at CONEXPO 2020. The new plant, capable of running off diesel or line power, is among several new products the Astec Industries group will be displaying at its joint booth. Johnson Crushers International (JCI) will showcase the latest addition to its Kodiak Plus cone crusher line, while Astec Mobile Screen will introduce its new Ranger line of compact, track-mounted units.
METSO Aggregates industry mainstay Metso is bringing a number of its latest innovations to CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2020. The company will feature its new MX3 Crusher and a new “game-changing” lightweight truck body designed to haul more with less. For general contractors, Metso is also introducing a new mobile crushing and screening range, known as Nordtrack, which includes track-mounted crushers and screens, as well as track-mounted and wheel-mounted stacker conveyors designed for recycling, demolition and small quarries.
MINNICH MANUFACTURING An upgraded version of Minnich Manufacturing’s A4SCW with a new remote control will be on display at CONEXPO this March. The new remote communication system for the on-slab self-propelled wireless drill unit has joystick controls to direct the unit as well as a dust collection on/off switch to enhance safety and productivity. A new magnetic sensor boosts safety by not allowing the drill to travel if it’s not fully retracted.
ROADTEC PETTIBONE With production now underway, Pettibone will be showing off its new Traverse T1246X telehandler at the show the March. The third machine in the company’s X-Series lineup will be the only telehandler on the market with an extendable, traversing boom that moves loads by traveling horizontally, the company says. The new T1246X offers a maximum lift height of 46 feet, 6 inches and up to 12,000 pounds of lift capacity.
40 / FEBRUARY 2020
The RP-250 is a heavy-duty 10-foot (3-metre) paver that combines the advantages of tracks with the ease of a rubbertired paver. This large footprint, 250 hp machine has increased traction and flotation for a smooth ride. The large tires and adjustable frame provide ideal weight distribution and tractive effort. Steering is driven by the rear wheels, giving operators precise control. The frame raise ability allows operators to control and adjust the frame position as needed.
Mack Granite Concrete Mixer ÂŽ
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CONEXPO
TAKEUCHI The TB235-2 compact hydraulic excavator provides Takeuchi with a 3.5 ton offering in this competitive market classification. With an operating weight of 7,474 pounds, a dig depth of 10 feet 7.7 inches, maximum reach of 17 feet 3 inches and breakout force of 9,127 pounds, the TB235 provides excellent working range and performance.
STELLAR INDUSTRIES American Eagle, a Stellar Industries brand, is releasing a pair of new products at CONEXPO. The company is adding the new 40P air compressor. The hybrid reciprocating compressor pairs aluminum and cast steel to control weight, while producing a maximum CFM output of 40CFM and up to 150PSI air pressure. American Eagle is also expanding its line of Lubemate lube skids with a new aluminum skid that offers a 30 per cent weight reduction over its steel counterpart.
VOLVO CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT The new 99-ton (198,400-pound) EC950F crawler excavator offers the perfect combination of power and efficiency to handle high production at a low cost per ton, Volvo Construction Equipment says. Equipped with a 603 hp engine, it delivers high torque at low rpm and can handle bucket capacity of up to 9.16 cubic yards. The EC950F comes with a lifetime frame and structure warranty and one year free of ActiveCare Direct in the U.S. and Canada.
WIRTGEN GROUP
WACKER NEUSON Equipment manufacturer Wacker Neuson will be bringing its full line of construction equipment to North America’s biggest construction trade show this March. At its booth in the Festival lot, the company will be showcasing its traditional line, as well as new additions in the excavator, skid steer, wheel loader and dumpers categories. The latest in battery-operated, zero-emissions equipment will also be taking centre stage.
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Nearly three dozen new machines, including 10 all-new pieces of equipment will be on display for the first time at the Wirtgen Group’s booth in Las Vegas this March. The company, which offers the Hamm, Kleemann, Vögele and Wirtgen brands, is keeping the details largely under wraps, adding just that its 30,000 sq. ft. booth in the Silver Lot will show off a range of groundbreaking solutions for road construction.
A CANADIAN CONNECTION AMONG THE LONG LIST OF SPECIAL EVENTS AT CONEXPO 2020, CATERPILLAR IS HOSTING THE FINALS OF ITS GLOBAL OPERATOR CHALLENGE. NINE COMPETITORS FROM AROUND THE WORLD WILL BE FACING OFF TO SEE WHO HAS THE TALENT, FINESSE AND BIG-STAGE COMPSURE TO BE NAMED THE WORLD’S BEST. CANADA’S JAUS NEIGUM FROM MEDICINE HAT, ALTA., IS AMONG THE FINALISTS.
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VACUUM EXCAVATORS
SUCKING IT UP Traditionalists coming around to opportunity in vacuum excavators BY NATE HENDLEY
44 / FEBRUARY 2020
PHOTO: DITCH WITCH
T
here are new machines, new technologies and, equally importantly, a new level of acceptance in construction circles when it comes to vacuum excavators. Truck- or trailer-mounted vacuum excavators blast high-pressure water or air through pipes into the ground to break up soil. When high-pressure water is used, the process is sometimes referred to as hydro excavation. Once soil has been loosened, a vacuum system suctions it into a debris tank. Traditionally, vacuum excavators were used by construction firms for potholing purposes – that is, removing soil in a non-destructive fashion from underground utilities, such as buried cables and pipes. Increasingly, contractors are using vacuum excavators for applications beyond potholing, such as slot-trenching and foundation excavation. Regardless of the task they are used for, vacuum excavators offer versatility, as well as enhanced productivity and safety – all key factors driving the growing acceptance of such machines. “For many contractors, previously their fleet was made up of dump trucks, hoes, excavators and dozers,” says Patrick McGee, director of sales for New York and Ontario with Joe Johnson Equipment, which sells Truvac vacuum excavators, among other
products. “Now they are adding vacuum excavators in their fleet. It’s become a necessity for them [to be] able to safely locate underground utilities.” The Truvac brand was founded by Vactor Manufacturing, which lays claim to having launched the first dedicated vacuum excavator in 1969. The brand has come a long way since then. Current Truvac vacuum excavator models include the Paradigm sub-compact, mid-sized Prodigy and the full-sized HXX line. Other manufacturers are developing
new products for the category as well. Ditch Witch launched a new trailer-mounted vacuum excavator in late 2019 while Vermeer Corp. will be releasing the cuttingedge XR2 this year. A replacement for the FX25, the Ditch Witch HX30G is a 31 horsepower gas model, with a 542 cubic feet per minute (CFM) blower and a water system that produces 4.2 gallons-per-minute (GPM) at 3,000 psi, says Chapman Hancock, Vacuum Excavation product manager at Ditch Witch. A jib boom is optional and the HX30G
can be fitted with a 500 or 800-gallon tank. “Many of the new features included on the HX30G follow our HX family of vacuum excavators that was introduced in 2018,” Hancock adds. The Ditch Witch HX family includes the HX30, HX50 and HX75, which come with, respectively, 512 CFM, 1,005 CFM and 1,300 CFM blowers. The HX family are also equipped with new purpose-built VT trailers that offer a lower profile, greater clearance and narrower width than previous models. The slimmed-down trailer design “allows
users to get in and out of height-restricted areas like right of ways with low hanging trees and navigate the rough terrain commonly encountered in right of ways,” Hancock says. For its part, Vermeer unveiled the XR2 hydro vacuum excavator at the Industrial Construction and Utility Equipment Exposition (ICUEE) held in Louisville, Ky. last fall. This machine features first-of-its-kind liquids/solids separation technology. “The Vermeer XR2 vacuum excavator addresses a lot of the concerns and
limitations that utility contractors have with traditional vacuum excavators,” says Adam Bates, product manager at Vermeer. “For example, in Canada specifically, road weight restrictions have become a huge concern in recent years. Separating liquids and solids allows crews to maintain approximately the same weight leaving the job as when they showed up. The solid material can be stacked and then hauled away separately. It helps keep crews on the job longer digging holes.” Vermeer’s industry-first separator is on-sitemag.com / 45
New
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a particularly significant development as high-pressure water (hydro) excavation tends to be more popular in Canada. “In a more northerly climate, it is still primarily water excavation,” McGee says. “The reason for that is, water works quite well in frozen ground conditions and rocky ground conditions whereas air is very much limited. Air does have certain applications, particularly where there’s a need not to remove the soil from site.” Vermeer’s XR2 also has a “unique” power takeoff (PTO) feature that lets it to easily draw power from the truck with the touch of a button, Bates says. “Crews no longer need to manually disengage and reengage the gearbox every time the vacuum excavator is repositioned.” Such features, plus the XR2’s 1,500gallon (5,678.1-liter) freshwater volume are designed to help contractors operate more efficiently in potholing, stitch boring, slot trenching and general construction applications, Bates adds. The VXT8 Mega Vac is another Vermeer release. The VXT8 has an eight-yard spoil-
“I’ve had the comment from the general manager and fleet manager of construction companies that [a vacuum excavator] has become the busiest piece of equipment in their fleet.” – Patrick McGee, Joe Johnson Equipment tank capacity, can carry a maximum of 800 gallons of freshwater and is also equipped with PTO capability. One of the reasons for the increasingly mainstream appeal of vacuum excavators is safety. Vacuum excavation is far less hazardous than traditional excavation methods when it comes to applications such as potholing. “With more and more utilities being buried, utility strikes are a major concern for construction companies... Crews can expose utilities using other digging methods, but there is a greater risk of striking the line they are trying to expose when using shovels, excavators or backhoes,” Bates says. If contractors initially purchase vacuum excavators for safety reasons, they soon
appreciate the machine for its productivity, McGee says. “I’ve had the comment from the general manager and fleet manager of construction companies that this has become the busiest piece of equipment in their fleet.” This is because vacs allow contractors to do some jobs that they couldn’t accomplish with hand-digging. “An example of that would be repairing a water service to a home,” McGee says. “With vacuum excavation you can do it with a hole that’s 20 inches across as opposed to, if you had it done by a hand-dig, it would be six feet across and remediation costs would have been much, much higher.” Vacuum excavators can also handle smaller excavations in confined areas, which
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VACUUM EXCAVATORS
are very problematic with traditional means. “If you can imagine a tight spot where you get three feet between two buildings, you’re certainly not walking a tracked excavator in there. You can easily excavate with a vac excavator in that sort of application,” McGee adds. The multi-functionality of vacuum excavators also underlines their growing popularity, Hancock notes. “If I had to describe vacuum excavation in one word, it would be versatile,” he says. “Our customers are always finding new ways to put these machines to work everyday. We’re seeing some usage growth in the landscape and arborist industries.” “Every time we think we’ve seen it all, a customer develops a new application based on a specific job they have,” McGee echoes. “They tend to be niche applications… say, general contractors doing foundation excavation. Things like that. It’s really only limited by the imagination of the managers of the company.” Still, the most popular use for Ditch Witch vacs remains potholing, Hancock says. “This can be for utility mapping or exposing utilities prior to the installation of a new utility,” he says. “The second most
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popular use would be for HDD (horizontal directional drilling) support. Hauling off HDD drilling mud and job clean up is very important to our HDD customers.” While the technology is still relatively new, vacuum excavators have made enormous technical strides in a short period of time. “Just in the last 10 years, we have seen blower technology increase and become more efficient,” Hancock says. “Digging nozzle technology has come a long way, as well. Early nozzles focused on shooting water out at the highest rate possible, but those days are over. Nozzles can now spray in various patterns, in constant motion and in differing psi. Vacuum excavators are more efficient than ever, both in digging effectiveness and water conservation efforts, allowing vacuum excavators to be more productive on the job.” The high-tech trend continues as customers clamour for features such as GPS, telematics, booms and remote controls for operators. “Booms are becoming very popular,” Hancock says, pointing out that Ditch Witch has two boom offerings. “One is our six-way hydraulic boom and the other is our articulating jib boom. The articulat-
ing jib boom was a way for us to provide our customers a less expensive way to reduce the strain of carrying the vac hose. Customers are also taking advantage of heaters for hydro excavation. Similar to using a hot water-power washer to clean clay and sticky soils off equipment, hydro excavators equipped with heaters are capable of increasing production by breaking down the soil and being more effective in harder soil conditions.” For his part, McGee praises Vactor’s patented DigRight water system, which gives hydro vav operators the ability to select water pressure at the push of a button. As featured on Truvac machines, the DigRight system allows for “precise control over the waterflow so as not to damage any utilities,” McGee says. Given such strides, McGee predicts that vacuum excavators will soon become a construction site staple. “It’s not going to replace the tracked excavator. It’s not going to replace the bulldozer. It’s a surgical tool that allows for maximum productivity for jobs that require precision… It will be interesting to watch over the next five years as it becomes part of virtually every construction operation,” he says.
JOB SITE DATA
KEEPING SCORE
How Toronto-based tech firm Bespoke Metrics is standardizing data and helping to de-risk construction BY DAVID KENNEDY
L
Technology for both on and off the job site is taking on an every-larger role in construction as companies work to streamline their operations.
PHOTO: ADOBE STOCK/LEIKA PRODUCTION
ike competitors in most industries, general contractors aren’t particularly good at sharing. Whether it’s facing off over a major contract, competing to attract the most promising talent, or striving to be the first to adopt a new technology, rivalries can be fierce. With that in mind, it’s no surprise that when Michael Ho, the CEO of Bespoke Metrics, set out to standardize how the Canadian construction industry manages risk and carries out counterparty assessments in 2016, it was an uphill battle. “The GCs for the most part are very fierce competitors, as is the broker, as are the insurance entities, as are the subcontractors,” Ho said. “The sharing of data, despite everyone using similar systems and collecting the same data, has not been strong in this industry. It just simply isn’t.” Working to change this insular approach, Bespoke Metrics has signed up a significant list of major general contractors over the past three years, including Buttcon Ltd., Eastern Construction, EllisDon Corp., Graham Group Ltd., Pomerleau Inc. and Stuart Olson Inc., among others. The Toronto-based tech firm has put together a suite of software solutions — known collectively as Compass — that streamline the pre-construction process by centralizing industry data. One key
on-sitemag.com / 49
JOB SITE DATA
A screenshot of the Compass dashboard showing some of the platform’s capabilities.
aspect of its platform, which is sold under a subscription-based model, is a prequalification tool GCs can use to vet subcontractors to ensure they’re capable of taking on various aspects of major projects. Instead of leaving each GC to their own devices when it comes to collecting data from subs, the tool stores all the information GCs need to carry out their assessments in a central hub and uses a series of models to help manage counterparty risk. “Not sharing information is just silly,” Ho said, adding that centralizing this type of data provides subcontractors muchneeded technical support and helps protect their privacy. “Compass is simply catching construction up with what other industries have been doing for years.” Bespoke Metrics has spent several years operating behind-the-scenes perfecting its software. Last month, it officially launched its fully integrated suite of preconstruction software, combining prequalification, performance evaluation and bidding into what it calls the Compass suite.
A ‘ROTTEN TOMATOES’ SCORE FOR RISK Carrying out financial risk assessments for subtrades is nothing new for contractors. To utilize subcontractor default insurance (SDI), for instance, GCs need to prequalify the companies they’re working with. The change is that up until now, most have been
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using internally-built systems or processes that don’t draw on wider industry data. “It was pretty ad hoc,” Dan Radu, supply chain manager with Graham, said of the company’s previous method for evaluating subcontractors. “It was really manual… It involved us doing a lot of the grunt work and actually going out and gather financials from the vendors. And not only do you have to gather them, you have to go through them, analyze them and score them. Then you would look at the scores and make your recommendations.” Graham has been using Bespoke Metrics’ software tools to assess the subtrades since February. “They’re going out and extracting all the information from the vendors,” Radu said. “They’re ensuring them that they’re submitted the right way. They apply their Q Scores on it, and it’s great because our risk people can just do proactive risk-type stuff. They can just look at what’s provided and make a decision as opposed to doing all the grunt work to get to that point.” To calculate the ‘Q Score’ — a measure of a subcontractor’s ability to meet its obligations on time and on budget — Bespoke Metrics uses a range of data points, including qualitative variables, financial information and health and safety records, among other inputs. It collects the information directly from subcontractors through a stan-
dard checklist it calls a Compass 1 Form. “The sub enters in their data and we verify their data,” Ho says. “It’s not an audit function, but we do look for accuracy. It’s very important because the next stage is dependent on the accuracy, completeness and the validity of that data.” With the data in-hand, the company uses a number of custom-built models to create a relative risk curve for each sub that weighs their ability to perform a certain job on time and on budget. “It’s kind of like lining up the kids in class by height,” Ho adds. “There’s a tallest kid in class and there’s a shortest kid.” Though Graham is still in the process of phasing in the new tool, Radu expects it will allow the company’s risk team to look at a far greater number of projects. “What it’s going to enable us to do is to do more financial assessments on vendors, whereas in the old way we just wouldn’t have had the capacity to do it,” he said. In turn, Radu anticipates lower exposure to risk. “You can get hurt just as bad on the financial risk side as you can on the health and safety side, as far as projects being shut down because one of your trades went bankrupt or something like that.” Along with simplifying the pre-qual process for generals, Bespoke says the 1 Form makes life easier for the subs, which can submit their data to one central hub as opposed to answering requests from all the GCs they’re currently working with. Subcontractors are also in control of their data, meaning their information is only shared if they give the go-ahead. Moving forward, Ho said Compass will be focussed on increasing functionality and benefits for the entire subcontractor community.
NOT ‘SECRET SAUCE’ Getting the industry to climb aboard has not been without its challenges. Right out of the gates, one of Ho’s major obstacles was overcoming the tendency of general contractors to shy away from technology their competitors are using. Proving Bespoke Metrics was dedicated to its thirdparty status was difficult, but slowly, the firm started to gain momentum. EllisDon was the first major GC to sign
on and test out the technology. According to Rosemarie Lipman, the chief innovation officer and senior vice-president of Digital and Data Engineering at EllisDon, the contractor had been taking a close look at their risk management strategy, including the information they collected from their subcontractors, when they were first approached by Ho. EllisDon decided using a standardized tool would benefit both the company and the overall construction industry. “It was really this idea that there is no secret sauce,” Lipman said. “We are all collecting the same information. It is all driven by the [insurance] carriers and why don’t we make it easier for subcontractors to provide us with that information? And so, from EllisDon’s perspective, we wanted to facilitate that collection of information but also make it an industry tool and standardize it.”
Along with embracing Bespoke Metrics’ Compass tool, EllisDon invested in the company in 2017. The terms of the deal meant EllisDon gained no operational control over Bespoke Metrics, leaving the company to serve the industry from an unbiased position. “We didn’t want it to be an EllisDon product… When we invested it was really to provide some seed money and get them up and running,” Lipman said. “We also contributed ten years of our prequalification data so they could optimize their model and then helped them with the concept. Since then, it’s really taken off and you have multiple national GCs providing feedback and input, and really, I think that’s why it’s such a robust product.”
BRANCHING OUT Having taken a significant bite out of the Canadian construction industry — the
company has about two dozen major GCs on board, as well as some 4,500 Canadian subcontractors in its system — Bespoke Metrics is beginning to think a bit bigger. It signed up its first U.S. client in September 2018 and has continued expanding its reach south of the border since. Currently, it’s operating throughout the West Coast and has established footholds in Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas. Compared to its growth in Canada, Ho said the company is expanding about twice as quickly in the U.S., largely thanks to having refined the product at home first. “The speed and the turnover and adoption has simply just been faster because it’s a product that’s go-to-market,” he said. Eventually the tech firm plans to go fully international and establish operations across North America, Western Europe and Australia.
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on-sitemag.com / 51 OnSite_Stellar_Feb20.indd 1
2020-01-16 1:42 PM
PHOTO: VOLVO CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT
PAVING
IGNORING THE ELEMENTS Innovative features extend paving season in colder markets, increase operator comfort and safety BY MEGAN HOEGLER
I
n Canada, the old saying goes, there are two seasons: winter and construction. While the cooler temperatures and frozen ground bring some projects to a halt, innovative new technology and upgrades to large-scale asphalt pavers are extending paving season in the Great White North. “Canada tends to have a considerably shorter paving season,” Henry Polk, product manager of pavers for Bomag says. “The mix cools much faster during transport when it’s cold outside, which results in cooler mix going through the paver and showing up as a cold spot on the mat.” To combat this, the company has released specialized paver models 652 and 662 with Remix technology. The technology
reblends the mix using counter rotating augers, remixing 100 per cent of the asphalt and keeping it from cooling down too much. It doesn’t heat the mix, but it does result in a consistent temperature across the width of the mat, which reduces the appearance of cold spots. In case any cold spots make it through, Bomag has integrated thermal imaging to detect the cold spot before it causes any serious problems. “More and more places are instituting a thermal image spec on highway jobs,” Polk says. “An infrared camera records the thermal image of the job, then inspectors review the images and look for any large temperature differentiations in the mat. on-sitemag.com / 53
PHOTO: VÖGELE
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It’s been proven that cold spots are the origin of most asphalt failures, so identifying and repairing them early reduces repair costs later.” Cold weather isn’t the only issue paver manufacturers are looking to tackle with a new generation of equipment. Germany-based Vögele, a part of the Wirtgen Group, has focused on operator comfort in their latest models, among other features. Their models include heated seats and operator adjustments for optimal comfort inside the cab. The company is working on improving performance as well. “We have seen increased interest in compaction screeds as opposed to classic vibratory screeds among Canadian contractors,” Jim Holland, vice-president for sales at Vögele says. These new tamper/vibratory screeds (TV) incorporate a tamper bar in addition to vibration for effective pre-compaction. The result is a higher mat density than a standard vibratory screed. Over at Volvo Construction Equipment, customers are often unsure whether to go with a tracked or wheeled paver. Bill Laing, product manager of road products for Volvo Construction, says it depends on the application. “Tracked pavers are good options in all paving applications, but they tend to be preferred over wheels on softer bases because of their traction and flotation,” Laing explains. “Wheeled pavers are preferred for mill and fill applications and where traction isn’t as much of a concern. They are also favoured in applications where the operator needs or wants to move the machine without putting it on a trailer. The wheeled paver is easier to move and travels faster, so it’s more flexible for transporting shorter distances.”
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According to Holland, the most innovative changes among asphalt pavers have been in their control and drive systems. Hydraulic control systems and CAN (Control Area Network) designs have made it possible for microcontrollers and devices to communicate with each other independent of a host computer. “These types of controls allow contractors to maintain
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consistency of the forces that holds the free-floating screed to-grade,” Holland says. Through precise management of the paver speed, material delivery, screed extend and retract and stopping and starting, we have been able to significantly improve the quality of pavement jobs.” Vögele’s latest pavers, the three-metre tracked and wheeled Super 2000-3i and Super 2003-3i pavers, as well as the 2.4-metre tracked and wheeled Super 1700-3i and the Super 1703-3i, were introduced four years ago. Its Dash-3 paver models feature new and improved technology upgrades. “We have developed a completely different mainframe,” Holland explains. “First, the profile of the machine is identical to the larger Super series pavers, which provide improved all-around visibility. The Tier 4 final engine utilizes a ureabased treatment system and the controls have also been updated to be more user-friendly.” The updated controls allow contractors to maintain consistency, a precise speed, material delivery, screed extend and retract, all while, improving pavement quality. This January, Volvo debuted two new pavers: the P5110B tracked paver and the P5170B wheeled paver. The mid-sized pavers were designed for both heavy and light highway tasks and built to be easy to maintain. Volvo’s engine speed technology was integrated into the design, resulting in a low rpm of 1200. These two new paver models will make their debut at CONEXPO in Las Vegas in March 2020. Volvo has also been focusing on improving mat quality through automated paver functions and integrated technologies that help the paver to function more efficiently. “Speed limiters, grade and slope control, auto vibration and material-flow sensors on the screed are all examples of technologies we use that help automate tasks that could cause mat quality problems,” Laing says. “And they make the paver more efficient for the operator. Efficiency is a major focus for all manufacturers, who are
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PHOTO: BOMAG
building with the customers’ needs and wants in mind. When a customer invests in a paver, Polk says it’s important they get the most for their money. This means building a multipurpose machine. “You need to build pavers that cover a wide range of applications,” Polk explains. “The customer wants to use the paver in multiple settings rather than owning several pavers each with limited applications.” Keeping with the times, upgraded paver designs incorporate environmental and health benefits for workers. The U.S.-based National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) classified asphalt fumes as hazardous chemicals in 1998 and recommended to limit exposure to just 15 minutes. These changes drove paver design changes during the 2000s. “They don’t have anything to do with actually making pavement, but they do provide an opportunity to include improvements that benefit the performance of the paver and the working environment, which improves pavement quality,” Holland says. Even with bells and whistles, the priority among customers is, and likely will remain, safety. Vögele points to its pavers’ enhanced operator safety features as major selling points for its products. The Vögele Dash 3 operator seat, for instance, positions the operator away from the augers, avoiding an annoy-
ance when at the controls, while the machine’s tapered frame keeps the augers within sight. The cab also features a canopy to protect the operator from direct sunlight. Whether it’s hovering uncomfortably close to freezing, or a hot, sticky summer day, the next generation of pavers are being designed to operate in any and all conditions. From keeping the operator as comfortable as possible while inside the cab to ensuring a smooth, cold spot-free mat, paving roads gets a little easier each year.
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2019-09-13 8:33 AM
SOFTWARE By Jacob Stoller
Making use of technology for safer job sites High tech safety devices and software can’t eliminate construction risks, but they can make them more visible
A
BLENDING SAFETY AND SECURITY
people who go on-site have the qualifications to be there in the first place,” says Matthew Ramage, Worldwide Marketing and New Business Segment director for Trimble Inc. For example, access control systems can be linked to an employee’s training credentials. “At any point, a worker’s safety training could go out of date,” Ramage says, “so they might be a risk to themselves and others. Maybe there’s a new earth mover and they don’t realize how fast the arm can move, or new equipment that has a function or speed that they are not aware of.” The technology also helps companies respond to emergencies. If a lone worker falls, medical assistance can be dispatched immediately. And if a site has to be evacuated, electronic systems can provide an instant reading of who is still on-site and might be at risk. Another security tool that can be leveraged for safety is the ever-present video camera. “Having security cameras won’t avoid a lot of the safety issues that occur on sites, but the video will definitely help in the investigations and understanding what happened,” says Mike Baxter, director of sales, Canada for Richmond, B.C.-based Radius Security. In addition to their traditional use in compliance and accident reporting, clips of accidents and near misses can be incorporated in training videos, or as input for improving processes. Baxter also notes Radius cameras regularly catch thrill-seeking crane climbers who pose danger to themselves and others. A new approach that PCL is experimenting with is the use of artificial intelligence to help identify risks from safety inspection photographs, reducing the administrative burden of categorizing thousands of photos. “The software identifies the hazard and categorizes it,” MacMahon says. “This isn’t to take away the thought process out of it – it’s more to try and make lean the process of safety inspection.” In general, there’s no substitute for the underlying thought processes that form the foundation of a successful safety program. While technology can’t ensure that people think, it can increase the overall level of awareness by making safety risks highly visible and difficult to ignore.
Automated access control is also being implemented on more and more job sites, and the technology can be expanded upon and leveraged to keep workers safe. “One of the ways companies ensure safety is by making sure
Jacob Stoller is principal of StollerStrategies. Send comments to editor@on-sitemag.com
lthough keeping workers safe is widely acknowledged as one of construction’s top challenges, digital safety technology that is now typical in manufacturing facilities has been relatively late to arrive on job sites. However, as the technology matures, it is becoming more adaptable to construction, leading to wider adoption. Job site hazards are similar in many respects to those experienced in factories, but construction sites face the added challenge of being unique and constantly evolving, making threats difficult to isolate and safe work practices difficult to monitor. Technology attacks this problem by making the threats more visible. By tracking both the location of hazards and the movement of individuals on the site, security software can connect the dots and initiate preventive or corrective measures. “Connectivity is in my mind the focus for the technology,” says Eugene MacMahon, Health, Safety, and Environmental manager, Edmonton District for PCL Construction. “You can’t look over every shoulder every minute of every day, but technology can help us with that.” One of the keys is replacing cellphones, which are restricted on many job sites, with technology that doesn’t distract workers and make their jobs even more dangerous. “The technology has to be there,” MacMahon says, “but the workforce shouldn’t even be aware that they are using it.” The other component is leveraging the data from the hundreds or even thousands of Internet of Things (IoT) sensors that are now becoming typical on many job sites. This makes it possible to identify not just proximity to a dangerous piece of equipment like a crane, but any condition that might pose risk of injury, such as exposure to extreme cold or working with a tool for too long. “All attributes of the work environment – temperature, vibration, elevation – can be captured and provide input to make the workplace a safer place,” MacMahon says. “It’s all very simply done – it’s just a matter of packaging it all together so that it can actually be used.”
58 / FEBRUARY 2020
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RISK By David Bowcott
Addressing risk allocation with collaboration
F
or those of you who aren’t familiar with the World Economic Forum (WEF) I highly recommend you get to know them. It is made up of a group of forward-thinking government and corporate members striving to continuously improve the state of the global economy. Even if you aren’t familiar with the organization, perhaps you have heard of the annual conference they host in Davos in the Swiss Alps? Either way, get to know them and the various workstreams they are focussing on as their convening power means they have the ears of many of the world’s key decision makers. In turn, the topics they discuss and the solutions they put forward often have a way of gaining global traction within the world’s economies. Last October in Paris, the WEF convened a workshop of 27 members from various sectors of the built environment ecosystem. I am grateful they invited my participation, as the workshop was a very large first step on what could be a long journey. This column is a brief synopsis of the challenges the group was asked to address and some of the high-level potential solutions put forward in hopes of tackling these issues. The outputs from this report will also be profiled in late January at Davos and given to attendees within the Davos audience. You can expect to hear more from construction stakeholders on the topic. The main issue the workshop looked to address was the concern that the world’s built environment is being designed, constructed and operated under procurement models that offer a less than ideal allocation of risk. Some of the key criticisms of the current procurement model include: it offers poor communication between separate phases of the asset’s life; it stifles innovation; it limits some stakeholders’ ability to provide input; and it focuses on low bid construction. The traditional state of procurement ignoring an asset’s impact on the environment and serving the needs of those making money from disputes, rather than those who design, construct and operate the assets, are among other criticisms. The following represent the major challenges, or risk categories, with the current procurement model: • Macroeconomic, business and commercial risk – Things like currency fluctuations in a global construction economy. • Technical Risk – For instance, underground risks (utilities, soil conditions) and project variations/change orders. • Political and Regulatory Risk – Delays in government approvals or permits, for example, and changes in law. • Environment and Climate Change Risk – Or asset resiliency. • Capacity and Dispute Resolution and the Management of Risk – Lack of capacity within the government (or owner commu-
60 / FEBRUARY 2020
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
nity) to navigate problems or find speedy resolutions. Technology Risk – For instance, the impact technology could have on the future needs of built world assets and the ability to better integrate technology. Procurement Model Risks – The downsides of public tenders based on price and the lack of collaboration and information sharing amongst stakeholders at each phase of the asset’s life. Now, for some of the solutions that came out of this workshop: Improved collaboration and information sharing throughout all phases of the asset’s life. The report highlights the recently released model in the U.K. known as Project 13 and Australia’s alliancing procurement model. Use of an outcomes-based procurement model that considers the impact of decisions made in design and construction on the total cost of the asset (once again Project 13). Improve procurement to better integrate technology and innovation. All should strive to educate themselves on the transformative potential of technology. Recognize some risks are currently allocated to stakeholders that have no control of those risks and this can lead to dispute, delay, cost overrun and project/asset failure. Adopting and standardizing Environment, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) metrics within the design, construction and operations sectors of the economy. Such solutions will promote asset resiliency and impact to all. The public sector should reduce its reliance on advisors and foster design, construction and operations knowledge in-house to improve risks related to dispute. Develop a “single source of truth” around project/asset data for all to access to improve outcomes.
The above are a few of the solutions put forward by the report, but for greater detail, please read the report in its entirety. A direct link is available in the online version of this column. Meanwhile, I highly recommend you stay tuned to this channel as the WEF has the ears of several key decisions makers. Future outputs and pilots related to this initiative could transform the economy’s asset base dramatically and lead to improved success for all stakeholders.
David Bowcott is Global Director – Growth, Innovation & Insight, Global Construction and Infrastructure Group at Aon Risk Solutions. Please send comments to editor@on-sitemag.com.
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CONTRACTORS & THE LAW By Grant Mayovsky and Siobhan Small
Spoliation and the risk of remediation
S
poliation is a defense raised in litigation when a plaintiff has intentionally destroyed evidence, depriving the defendant of support for its position. In general, destruction of evidence alone does not establish spoliation. The plaintiff must have intended to affect the litigation at hand. When spoliation has occurred, the court can presume the evidence would not have helped the plaintiff. The court also has discretion to order other remedies that will even the playing field between the parties, such as excluding certain expert reports or testimony. This concept is of particular concern in the construction industry during remediation efforts. If a defendant disputes responsibility for deficiencies or the parties are unwilling to cooperate with each other further, the plaintiff may hire another contractor to perform the repairs. Often the result is a lawsuit for the repair costs. This remediation can potentially lead to spoliation. The defendant would likely want to prove the work was satisfactory or that any claimed defects were not extensive. While the repairs may be necessary and urgent from the plaintiff’s perspective, redoing the work can destroy relevant evidence. The defendant would consequently argue that, as it was deprived of that evidence, the plaintiff should not be allowed to claim the cost of remediating that work. There is extensive American case law indicating that a spoliation defense will succeed if no site inspection is allowed. One example is Fines v. Ressler Enters., Inc., 820 N.W.2d 688 (N.D. 2012), in which the court dismissed an owner’s claim for defective siding installation because the owner removed the siding from her house without giving the contractor reasonable notice. Such dismissal is a common remedy in American construction spoliation cases. The standard way to avert this issue is to allow defendants a full and fair opportunity to inspect the defects in issue. The plaintiff should likewise preserve evidence for the defendant’s inspection. Parties can thus avoid the issue of uneven access to evidence altogether and spoliation does not become an issue. When the plaintiff has not allowed a site inspection in Canadian cases, plaintiffs have successfully rebutted the spoliation defense by preserving evidence in other ways, thereby avoiding the argument that the defendant was prejudiced. The plaintiff in North American Road Ltd. v. Hita-
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chi Construction Machinery Company, Ltd., 2005 ABQB 847 proceeded with remediation and failed to preserve a damaged fire suppression system the defendant argued was key to its defence. The court noted that co-defendants in the dispute had inspected the system immediately after the fire and that the defendant would have the opportunity to demand production of expert reports. Given these potential sources for evidence, the court could not determine spoliation at that time and deferred the ruling to the trial judge. As the dispute did not proceed to trial, the spoliation defence remained potentially viable. In Gilbert c. Raymond, 2011 QCCS 1299, the court held that the numerous photos taken by the plaintiff’s expert adequately replaced the physical evidence that had been removed from site. Because of this alternative, there was no spoliation or resultant prejudice. Another option to counter spoliation is to prove that there was no intention to harm the defendant’s case, as was established in McDougall v. Black & Decker Canada Inc., 2008 ABCA 353. In that case, the appellants lost their house to a fire and reconstructed before filing a claim. The respondents therefore could not investigate the fire scene or the drill that was a proposed cause and wanted the claim dismissed for spoliation. The court of appeal ruled that spoliation does not apply unless the destruction of evidence was a deliberate act done with the clear intention of gaining an advantage in litigation, and the prejudice is so obviously profound that it prevents the innocent party from mounting a defence. Since there was no evidence that the owner acted in bad faith, spoliation was not established. While there appears to be a high bar for establishing spoliation, the impact it can have on litigation is significant enough that site inspections are best practice. In order to avoid the defence entirely and to protect their claims, plaintiffs should give defendants written notice and a reasonable opportunity to inspect deficiencies prior to remediation. Plaintiffs should also preserve any physical evidence removed from a site and take ample photographs prior to and during remediation.
Grant Mayovsky and Siobhan Small practice construction law at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP. This article is provided for general information only and may not be relied upon as legal advice. Please send comments to editor@on-sitemag.com.
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