The rail industry is under increasing pressure to find new ways of working in order to halve the time and reduce the cost of delivering major infrastructure construction projects.
Project management and quality assurance service provider IPMA believes it has the answers and the people to do so. As the industry is challenged to become faster, smarter and more efficient in the way that projects are delivered they believe they have the answer.
The company provides services such as – Project Management, Package Management, Quality Assurance, Testing & Commissioning encompassing total quality assurance from initial civils and architecture, to M&E installation, to final commissioning and handover – was founded by Keith McDaid, an award-winning Senior PM & Operations Consultant. Keith is very passionate about assurance and the key role it plays in the successful running of a project.
“To live up to our philosophy and beliefs, we base everything we do on our right first-time principle and a one team approach,” said Keith, who has spent many years working in supervisory and management roles within the rail infrastructure and large civil construction industries in Europe, Australia & Canada.
“We believe that construction project deliveries should not suffer unnecessary delays and avoid running over on budget.
“We believe in driving down the wastage of time and money by adopting best practices, employing the best people and using the best tools for the job – all with proper planning right from the start.”
Amongst its wealth of success stories is the transformation of Paddington station of the Elizabeth Line. The project was notoriously the problem station for Crossrail and it was severely delayed upon his arrival. Keith was brought in to resolve this and he began by building a discipline-specific team in order to turn the project around. IPMA fully reviewed the project status and completed a proposal to hand over to open on time and within budget.
He said: “IPMA was tasked with developing the handover system and processes that would affect all MEPH elements on the project, with the aim of opening the station within the specified timeline and budget.
“As first on site to develop the certification elements for the MEPH installation, the team could use its expertise to ensure processes were set up to get the project right first time.
“We created an interface between design, installation and assurance experts to ensure site issues and buildability issues were resolved in minimum time to keep the site installation teams on target.
“Communication was key to ensuring we had all priorities in place to be completed right first time. We implemented an 8am daily meeting with the installation teams so everyone was clear on what had to happen and when – this facilitated the teams to install, rework and finish on time.”
In a short space of time the project went from one of Crossrail’s biggest headaches to one of its prized stations and that was largely down to clear assurance and hand back processes being put in place and followed to the detail. After the success of this Keith was brought over to Bond Street and has since been utilised elsewhere along the line.
IPMA’s experienced and expert teams are dedicated to evolving with the needs of projects to ensure it is delivered in the most time-efficient and cost-effective way.
Keith said: “Our disciplined specialists have done it all before, so you are assured of the expertise needed for optimum delivery.
“Working with us means that projects benefit from many years of experience and a wealth of knowledge – resulting in the delivery of robust design proposals and shorter engineering query durations.
“This translates into greater efficiencies and more bang for your buck. We aren’t just committed to getting it right first time, but we are dedicated to promoting incident and injury free construction projects by ensuring the highest health and safety practices. Everybody is a winner!
“We are committed to sustainable practices which safeguard the future of our projects and the world we live in.”
Visit www.ipmagroup.com for more details.
Photo credit: Crossrail
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