How is a programme of works delivered across many sites at once?

Some government work comes as a single building. A lot of it comes as a programme: the same kind of upgrade at many sites, often within a fixed period.

Running ten sites well is not the same as running one site ten times. The risk is that each site drifts into its own way of working, and the client ends up managing the differences.

One method, applied everywhere

The first step is to settle how the work will be done before the first site starts. The same staging approach, the same safety controls, the same quality checks and the same handover pack at every site.

The first site then tests the method. Whatever is learnt there is written into the method for the rest, so the fifth site is better than the first rather than different from it.

One programme for the whole job

Each site has its own dates, but the client needs to see them together. A single programme shows where every site is up to, which sites share crews or materials, and where a delay at one site would affect another.

That is also how resources are planned. Trades and supervisors are moved between sites in a planned order, not pulled from one site to rescue another.

Refresh 5A

In 2017 Monument delivered Sydney Trains Refresh 5A. Seven rail stations were refreshed in a single six-month programme, and every station stayed open to the public the whole time.

That job combined the hardest parts of programme work: many sites, short work windows near the track, and no closures. The rail requirements behind it are set out in what working on the Sydney Trains network requires.

Programmes for emergency services

Monument has also run programmes for operational agencies. In 2013 it delivered a NSW Ambulance Service programme and began a NSW Fire and Rescue station works programme.

On those sites the building keeps responding to emergencies during the work, which adds its own rules. They are covered in works at operational fire and ambulance stations.

One system holding the information

Across many sites, the information is the hardest thing to keep in order. Inspection records, photos, variations, safety documents and handover material all multiply with each site.

Monument runs projects under an Integrated Management System, using secure cloud-based software across every function. It stores project information from tender through to handover and the end of defects. The system is certified to ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001. How a single project runs through that system is described in how Monument manages a project from tender to handover.

One point of contact

The client deals with one contact for the whole programme. One report, one list of open items and one person who knows the state of every site.

Monument runs around 50 active projects across eight capability categories, and the single point of contact is what keeps a programme of many sites from feeling like many separate contracts.

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