Sunday, December 01, 2013

Errors on a terrible day - the importance of job-culture for site safety


This weekend's shocking news footage of the crane collapse at Sao Paulo's World Cup Stadium skipped past the names of the two construction workers killed and moved straight on to the problems it may cause to next summer's football fest.
 Sao Paolo 2013

The sight of that crane wrapped around the stadium sent a shiver down my spine and took me straight back to the worst day of my career in construction. Crane accidents are often'construction related' so it is tempting to think that the work ofdesigners is not linked. But are these deaths linked to projects that are behind programme against a deadline that cannot be missed? How does our work as designers influence job culture and how can we help reduce the risk of these errors happening, particularly when faced with tough programme deadlines?
In the late 1990s, before I joined Atkins, I was on site in Milwaukee, USA, where the 180m span retractable stadiumroof designed by my team was under construction. Dominating the construction site was 'Big Blue', a mobile crane that had turned up on 60 trucks, taken 40 days to build, and was now lifting 400 ton roof sections 400 feet into the air. Since I was not often on site I had wanted to see a lift happen, but we were told it was too windy. It wouldn't happen.

That afternoon we were in the site huts around half a mile from the stadium when there was the most terrible sound I have ever heard. It was the sound of 2,000 tonnes of steel falling in into the stadium. Hundreds of truss members buckling and being ripped apart. Perhaps it went on for 15 seconds but it felt like it lasted forever. Strangely the sound of a car on gravel still reminds me of it - for the first few years afterwards I would literally freeze when I heard that sound unexpectedly.
Miller Park 1999

Instantly we all knew that the sub-contractor had pressed ahead with the lift and the crane had dropped its load into the stadium, bringing down half the building's roof into the bowl. Once we stopped staring opened mouthed at each other we ran outside and Big Blue, the crane that had dominated the city skyline, was gone.
 
And it had brought down a smaller crane assisting the lift, and in its basket were Jerome Starr, Jeffrey Wischer and William DeGraves who fell 400 feet to their deaths.
 
The police cordoned off the site as a crime scene, but late that night I was called onto the pitch to provide some drawings for the District Attorney. Under the floodlights one side of the stadium, 'left-field', looked stunning, spanning 180m. Perfect.  Just as we had designed it. Turning around, the right-field was a twisted mass of metal  2,000 tonnes of scrap.
 
And here was the outline of a body drawn on the gravel. We've all seen these in police dramas - they are almost a cliché. But the powerful absence of the man who had lain there is what I will always remember. I can't begin to imagine what that absence meant and means for his family and friends.
 
As unfortunately seems inevitable a protracted court case followed. Eventually this concluded that poor decisions by a few key individuals on site were the primary cause. I recall from the court case that the winds were gusting above the crane's design speed. The anemometers measuring it were in the wind shadow of the stadium. The piece being picked was slightly heavier than calculated. More louvers had been fixed on it, increasing wind drag. On the day those were the errors that killed three men.
 
But what other things led to a culture on site where these errors could happen? It came out court that the client had created a muddled procurement route for the roof, muddying issues at bid and creating conflict throughout the design stages. The design team had agreed reluctantly to a very challenging delivery programme and then struggled to get complete information issued. The sub-contractor switched itsconstruction approach to a radical new way late in the day. Disputes occurred about whether the design requirements were being followed.
 
Stories typical of many projects and spread over several years, but do they contribute to a job-culture that can influence key construction decisions?
 
And meanwhile the 'drop dead' date of the first game of the season got ever closer as the programme started slipping behind, and evidently key individuals were introduced on site with the aim of whipping everyone to go faster.
 
The London 2012 Games had an exemplary health and safety record. Note also that there was never a panic in the press about it being delivered late. No doubt things dropped behind schedule sometimes, but realistic plans must have been put in place to pull that time back. Evidently a culture where corners were cut never developed.
 
So, as designers what can we do to reduce risks, particularly when projects face tough deadlines?
- All the way through the job we must engage with and support all the project-wide safety initiatives. We must be an active part of the safety-culture that the project develops.
- We need to agree to realistic delivery programmes and then deliver fully to them. If we hand over late or incomplete information we are putting those further down the line under extra time pressure, which increases the possibility of error.
- We need to have the courage to be the whistle-blower. A disregard on site for quality and design issues can be symptomatic of a culture that also shortcuts on safety. As individuals we sometimes need to step forward and point out the thing that everyone else doesn't want to see.
- Finally, be aware that looming deadlines and delays put pressure on the whole supply chain, which in turnincreases the chance of error. Be extra sensitive and do everything you can to relieve that pressure.
At the stadium in Milwaukee a statue commemorates Jerome Starr, Jeffrey Wischer and William DeGraves. Immortalised but gone. Sadly I don't know the names of those who died at São Paulo. The news focus remains on the immovable first game.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Awful acronyms and the Atkins BIM Standard

Time for celebration! The worldwide Atkins BIM and CAD communities now have a unified standard.

In the past we had the Corporate BIM Standard. Then we released our Corporate CAD Standard - yes, that feels like it was done backwards, but there were plenty of reasons at the time.

...and now they are unified and updated based on the latest industry thoughts in the snappily named "Corporate Standard for Managing Information on our CAD and BIM projects". Dale Bartlett in Oman was asking why we deliberately picked such a rubbish name - and again there were plenty of reasons.
  • Why Corporate?. Because we want to emphasise that this is pan-Atkins. In the past there have been lots of local standards, so this emphasises this is driven from the top and is the only standard we should be using in the absence of client requirements. In the UK this is a big step on the road towards Level 2 BIM before 2016, but it also allows us to work more effectively when we are collaborating across the Atkins globe.
  • Why not just the CAD and BIM Standard? Because then everyone who wasn't a modeller or draughtsman would assume it had nothing to do with them. There are duties for the whole team in this and we want everyone engaged (that collaborative working thing again), so we buried these acronyms at the end. All the Project Managers need to realise there are things in this they need to worry about. It is not just for the usual BIM suspects!
  • Why Managing Information? Because as this subject evolves it will grow to include everything we generate. Emails, standards, asset data...... There will be further iterations of this and information rather than models or drawings will be the bit doing the expanding.
  • Why not Information Management? Because IM is used by many as an acronym already and people would bring preconceptions with them if we used it. Hence Managing Information written in full.
So I agree that CSfMIooCBP is a pretty rubbish acronym. Everyone will probably just call it "The BIM standard" but perhaps we should try Dale's idea of printing some T-shirts for the team!

Thursday, November 07, 2013

Messages from another lonely BIM planet

For some time now many building design teams have been modelling their projects as '3D CAD' to generate their 2D drawings. It is sometimes tempting to think that the 'BIM thing' is just about everyone else starting to add data on to the models we consultants have created. So it was good to hear from from a steel fabricator, Simon Bingham of Caunton Engineering, another sector of the industry that has been modelling for their own purposes for some time now - and good to hear so much that resonated with my views.


The event was the Steel Construction Institute (SCI) Members Day at the Tower of London and three presentations had been grouped about the theme of Integration. The headliner was probably George Oates of Expedition who told us about the London 2012 Olympic Velodrome. But whilst such projects are great inspirations these are not the bread and butter of 90% of the built environment and not the projects we most need to influence if the Government's Construction Strategy is going to achieve its aims. As Simon wonderfully said, the majority of us "don't have the time to fanny about like that" - I am so glad it's not just me that says that kind of thing in presentations!

Some of his key points feel like interesting twist on themes I have been exploring recently:
  • In their previous lonely BIM world fabricators generated all their data from scratch. Now there is clearly the advantage of receiving this from earlier design stages by others. However, if this data is to be useful it must be clear and concise, accurate, timely, relevant, up to date and capable of being kept up to date. Being passed too much incorrect, unchecked data is a major frustration and risk. Simon gave the example of steel UBs modelled as concrete as the sort of trivial error that can cause problems. This re-emphasises to me the need for proper systems of verification of models by teams before sharing the data.
  • Currently most of their data transfer is via IFC, from Revit or other platforms used by others into their main workhorse, Tekla. Caunton have experienced what I picked up from the recent Autodesk IFC workshop - that data transfer is far from standardised and smooth. Simon highlighted the need for clients to specify the IFC structure for data to be transferred, emphasising to me the need for project-wide comprehensive BIM Execution Plans that stretch beyond just the design team.
  • Clients won't realise the benefits of collaborative working by driving each party's cost down to the minimum. You don't win matches by taking the eleven cheapest players and saying "it's the Final, there's the pitch, stick it in the net and I'll see you in ninety minutes". Clients need to pick the right team and then show leadership, setting direction and standards for BIM to work.
  • Despite the 'end game' for BIM being for clients to receive high quality data, allowing them to better manage that asset for its full operational life, Caunton are yet to see clients requesting they get it. Instead they are still being asked to pass on old fashioned 'as-builts' - perhaps on a disc and not paper as a nod to new technology.
  • Finally, we need to realise that fast decision times will equal less thinking time. Project Managers need to allow some for people to stare out of the window for an hour or so and make better quality decisions. (Today's blog entry was going to be my thoughts on this very subject, so it is a little weird that Simon voiced this.)
Too often the construction media links BIM to architecture featuring funky, blobby geometries. It was great to hear Simon highlighting the need for BIM to work for all the 'bread and butter' jobs. These will be the ones driving society's use of resources in the century to come and that is where it is most vital we realise the value of BIM.

Tuesday, November 05, 2013

I dream of white boards..........

Back in the day, I used to get sent over to Foster's office in advance of our presentations to set up. Their meeting rooms had floor to ceiling metal panels allowing me to 'pin' our drawings up with the magnets provided.

No white board has ever been big enough for me since. If it's not full wall size it just won't do. So not surprisingly I have been getting rather frustrated since what was available internally could best be described as 'titchy'.

Before

Having been moved into a new office whilst away on site, to celebrate my return I decided to indulge my whims. A large section of one wall was the backs of roller cupboards from the next room, over 2m wide and 2m high. The tacky bits of tape all over them showed that 'pin up' had been attempted in the past, but not with any style. What I needed was basically white, dry-wipable, magnetic wall paper! 

A bit of web searching led me to Abel Magnets Ltd of Sheffield. They specialise in all sorts of sheet magnetic products. With their advice I bought a roll of 0.5mm White Dry White Flex O Metal (great name!). 

This is about 600mm wide and you can hang it on a firm flat surface in the same way you do wall paper, using industrial strength spray mount bought from Abel. A 2m long piece would be quite heavy to accurately hang on your own, but my wife came into the office at the weekend and in 40 minutes we had finished a neat job.

After
A few detailed points:
  1. Health and Safety: The freshly cut edge of Flex O Metal can deliver a pretty mean paper cut! You have been warned.
  2. The spray mount came out quite stringy and initially left small undulations under the surface. These seem to be smoothing out with time.
  3. The magnets I bought from Abel do hold paper sheets on the wall, but you have to be careful with them - I'll look for some larger ones that may stick better one day.
  4. The cleaning spray from Abel doesn't seem great - any stubborn marks do come off wonderfully with Sticky Stuff Remover from the supermarket.
Total cost for the white board of my dreams was around £120. I'm very, very happy and lots of people have asked how I did it. And now they know!

Monday, August 19, 2013

What do I need to know about the RIBA 2013 Plan of Work?

I've come to the conclusion that shared terminology and understanding are at the centre of this BIM thing. In fact, even if we were not grappling with new modelling technologies, we would still be facing a vital need to understand what we all 'mean' in order to achieve 'collaborative working' - which our industry has been groping unsuccessfully towards for years.
 
 
Up until now in the UK we have had a misalignment of the various 'Plans of Work' published by RIBA, the CIC, the ACE and the rail industry, to name a few. A variety of lettered, numbered and named stages have overlapped and gapped, leaving plenty of space for confusion and dispute. It is great news indeed that these UK bodies have grabbed the need for updated PoWs due to BIM and used this as an opportunity to finally try and align what we are all talking about.
 
After a false start last year RIBA were first out of the blocks with the new system. Gone are stages described with letters! Here are our brand new, pan-industry agreed, numbers stages from 0 to 7. That is the obvious change, but what does a structural engineer like me need to know about what lies under the surface?
 
As their downloadable overview says "The RIBA Plan of Work 2013 organises the process of briefing, designing, constructing, maintaining, operating and using building projects into a number of key stages. It details the tasks and outputs required at each stage which may vary or overlap to suit specific project requirements."
 
The PoW is not a contractual document itself but directs users to various tools and core documents including documents relating to professional services contracts, project protocols and to the commonly used Building Contracts. Evidently a revisit of your Schedules of Services is likely to be one of the key things this new PoW needs you to do.
 
From my reading of it, the main things to understand about the RIBA PoW 2013 are:
  • What the stages are, and how does the old 'lettered' version of the PoW map onto the new version?What do the new 'configurable' parts of the PoW mean for Procurement, Programme and Town Planning, and what does the online tool do?
  • How is this supporting the BIM thing?
  • How is this supporting sustainability?
What are the stages?
For a start there are two brand new stages - 0 and 7 - although this structural engineer perhaps doesn't need to worry about them too much! Stage 0 is for strategic appraisal that defines a project before the detailed brief is created - particularly relevant for sustainability. Some Stage 0 activities are taken from the old Stage A whilst Stage 1 merges the remainder with Stage B, to complete the briefing. Stages 0 and 1 are called the 'Preparation' phase by RIBA.
 
At the other end of the job there is Stage 7 for Post-occupancy Evaluation and a review of Project Performance alongside other possible 'in use' activities. Government and other owners clearly want to understand more than before about the building they have just been sold by the project team, and I can imagine definition of these activities evolving greatly in the next decade.
However, the meat in the sandwich for structural engineers (and others) lies in Stages 2 to 6 (not a metaphor often used by this vegetarian, with 2, 3 and 4 being 'Design':
  • Stage 2, Concept Design, maps exactly to Stage C. That's easy.
  • Stage 3, Developed Design, maps broadly to the former Stage D, Design Development (a subtle change in terms), but also now includes the requirement that the design must be coordinated and aligned with the Cost Information. This may not increase design work required, but extra time will be needed to review information and implement changes.
  • Stage 4, Technical Design, the remaining work of the core design team members, apart from any Design Queries that arise from construction work during Stage 5 - and if you have done our job right there should not be many! This Stage will incorporate work by specialist subcontractors and suppliers employed by the contractor.
I much prefer this 'three steps to design heaven' description compared to the old four step one. It is a much closer match to how I have always seen things working:
  • During 'Concept Design' you work out the basic idea.
  • During 'Scheme Design' you make all the decisions needed to define the finished building.
  • During 'Detailed Design' you turn the handle to produce all the information need to construct it.
I never did understand the old RIBA split between Technical Design and Production Information, and no one could ever explain the difference to me apart from "Stage F is when we do the reinforcement drawings". I also fully approve of more complete scheme designs, so extending Stage 3 beyond the end of the old Stage D is a move in the right direction. All design decisions should have been made by the end of Stage 3, and the biggest threat to cost certainty are teams that continue to design into Stage 4.
To complete the picture with the Construction Phase:
  • Stage 5 maps to the former Stage K (Construction to Practical Completion) but also includes Stage J (Mobilisation).
  • Stage 6 maps broadly to the former Stage L (Post-practical Completion).
The Ps

The RIBA recognised that Procurement, Programme and (town) Planning activities vary widely from project to project. To overcome this variability, the RIBA Plan of Work 2013 allows users to generate their own bespoke Plan of Work at www.ribaplanofwork.com selecting a specific task bar for each of these three tasks from a pull-down list (go on, give it a try - I have).

As a structural engineer the Town Planning activities don't impact me much, so I won't discuss them here.

The basic RIBA Plan of Work 2013 assumes Programme with a sequential series of stages progressing from commencement to completion and beyond. However, a client's procurement strategy, may dictate that a number of stages have to occur simultaneously or overlap. As structural engineers we know this well - we have one job going through the office at the moment where the piles are going in the ground before Concept Design is complete.

The Programme task bar allows a bespoke Plan of Work to illustrate and highlight these stage overlaps. This task bar enshrines in the PoW the Project Programme that has been a core requirement of collaborative contracts for some time, ensuring that each party agrees timescales and is fully aware of the risks that the programme generates in relation to their specific Schedule of Services. This programme should dovetail with the Design Programme prepared by the lead designer, and the more detailed Construction Programme prepared by the contractor.
All this should have been happening before, but the Programme task bar helps make sure the PoW accurately reflects what is needed.
Finally the Procurement task bar allows a number of forms of procurement, to be incorporated based on a pull-down list. Once the procurement route is selected, the practice or project specific Plan of Work that is generated will contain a task bar that includes the specific procurement and tendering activities at each stage. These can cover, traditional contracts, one- or two- stage design and build contract, management or contractor-led contracts or the wonderfully named ‘To be determined’ option.
Conclusion

There will be more updates to this document in the future but the RIBA PoW 2013 is a big step forwards and an important part of industry convergence. Alongside PAS and BS 1192, this is central to making BIM really work for us all. The body language of some architects talking about this new PoW is very uncomfortable - they appear to think they are losing power. To some extent they are probably quite right.

Saturday, July 20, 2013

Parkinson's Law, BIM and blobs

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."
In order for BIM to deliver the much advertised revolution in efficiency we need to overcome this fact. As Radio 4 reminded me a few weeks ago, Cyril Northcote Parkinson stated his 'Law' as part of a humorous essay for the Economist in 1955. However, it struck a chord and still holds true for many aspects of life today.
Parkinson referred to contemporary British bureaucratic examples. As the Empire shrank the Colonial Office expanded, reaching its zenith when it was morphed into Foreign Office due to lack of colonies to run. After the First World War the British fleet shrank dramatically, yet the number of Admirals rose in similar dramatic style.
Admirals v ships

Unfortunately this rule continues to be applicable in many other fields - for instance sustainability. In the 70s we all started showering, saving all those baths full of water. However we 'improved' the shower into the power shower and moved to daily washing (or more for teenage daughters!) so as widely reported in 2011 we have now clawed back all the gains we thought we'd made and more! Similarly, modern cars are much more fuel efficient than in previous years, yet whilst I was living abroad I saw on my visits the size of the average UK car grow incrementally, with many more 4x4s and people movers now shuttling said teenage daughters around (not my one this time).
And now we have all these wonderful labour saving devices to replace the drawing board. I worked on the Broadgate at Stockley Park projects back in 1986, two of the first to implement 2D CAD for buildings in the UK. Somehow we all felt we should be being more accurate and some users would proudly show how how they had drawn all the threads on the bolts when they zoomed in - followed by complaints about how often their GDS terminal crashed.
And the poster child for 3D CAD was Frank Ghery, and in particular his Guggenheim in Bilbao. Amazing things can be done with new technology and a high performance team, but a generation of contractors and clients have since had to deal with cost overruns and leaks resulting from less talented 'blob architecture' on his coat-tails - and a generation of cynics about this new-fangled BIM thing were born.


Bilbao roofs

To avoid the BIM revolution failing due to Parkinson's Law we need to keep our eye on the ball, and make sure we don't get lost in the expanding possibilities of the technology. Be clear what we are delivering now, and use BIM to deliver it better. Too often our industry's deliverables been ill-defined, leading to disappointment and rework. My holiday reading at the moment is the RIBA Plan of Work - I need to be precise about what the old version was, and what the 2013 vintage now requires. My attempt to define 'the way our drawings should look' is another attempt to prevent the many possibilities of BIM undermining the actual delivery of its efficiencies. Define what you want to do before moving forwards.
The vast majority of the world's buildings are boring, conventional and delivered by low performance teams*. If we can define and deliver what BIM means for these projects we will answer the questions now being asked of our industry by governments around the world, and realise the cost and energy savings we all need. 
The future is not blob shaped. Mostly it is rectangular and low rise. And hopefully über-efficient.
(* - a low performance team is any team you consider is worse than your own.)

Wednesday, July 03, 2013

IFC and World Peace - or not

"There are two types of people. Those who think that IFC does nothing and those who think it solves world peace."

So said Angel Velez, Senior Principal Engineer at Autodesk. Since I have increasingly found myself using 'IFC' as a magic word to solve all data sharing issues - without actually knowing what is behind the acronym - Autodesk's recent strategic briefing on "Revit Interoperability via IFC" (Industry Foundation Classes) was a good chance for me to get somewhere up a learning curve and convince myself I knew something.


Angel has for the past 8 years been responsible for interoperability on the Revit Platform, and he saw this session as a chance to communicate what has been done to date and where Autodesk saw IFC going. He gave an outline of IFC in Revit today, followed by a look at the current capabilities of the export/import and open-source functionality. He then led a workshop-style discussion on the strategic direction for IFC in Revit, talking specifically about Autodesk's roadmap for future development, using the session to get feedback from the UK's user community.

To paraphrase Wikipedia, “The IFC data model describes building and construction industry data to facilitate interoperability in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry.” It is a neutral and open specification that is not controlled by a single vendor or group of vendors, but instead run by BuildingSMART - a pan-industry alliance. Clearly it is already one of the key ways that data can be exchanged between BIM platforms and our confidence in how well this exchange works is central to successful future collaboration.

It is worth noting that everyone at the session agreed that assumed intent behind IFC was that imported data will be used as a reference only, not for editing. Mostly the format is used as a basis for coordination and this will become increasingly important as the amount of data being passed between parties and platforms increases.

Autodesk's roadmap for implementing IFC

At the moment many people gripe about IFC export and input being unreliable and slow, resulting in missing information and difficult 'round tripping'. Code has got out of date as development effort has focused on other aspects of Revit – or at least that has been perceived by some outside Autodesk. At the moment its import code basically dates from 2005, but the intention is not to fix this code, but instead to rewrite to give a new foundation, hand in hand with open source code. There is an increased emphasis on IFC's importance despite being an old file format, especially since the UK and Scandinavia are committed to future use of IFC and Autodesk will be adopting IFC4 when it comes out.

One interesting aside was Angel's vision of IFC as a future way to achieve backwards compatibility! Revit cannot save backwards to earlier versions but you could go via IFC. However it is not great at the moment. Angel would like this to be improved as he knows this is potentially the only way to go for people with that need.

Export and import code will be developed separately and the quality of IFC in Revit will be "improving in stages from 2013 to 2016' with export leading."

Certification by BuildingSMART

There was a very interesting conversation around how you certify the performance of the import and export functions. I hadn't thought about this before and it turns out defining how to do this is quite tricky! Import and export each have their own certification process and for Revit export this is being completed before import as it is better defined and easier to achieve.

Before certification Autodesk works closely with the other companies involved with BuildingSMART to establish precisely defined test cases. A large amount of automated testing is then followed by manual testing. Certification is partly against a basic standard and partly against interoperability with other platforms, but this last aspect can't guarantee transfer into every program out there.

BuildingSMART is actively learning current lessons so that the certification process can be refined for IFC4. To use Angel’s fantastic phrase, it ‘used to be a bit hand wavy' and import may continue to be. Testing and certification occurs during one intense face to face session by BuildingSMART members taking several days, sandwiched between two web conferences.

IFC export is now certified for architecture and structure in Revit 2013 and MEP is about to be. Once that is done the plan is to work towards certifying import in Revit 2014, with the intention of doing a minimum amount to get certifications. The plan is then to completely rewrite IFC import for Revit 2015.

Given that even with the best will in the world there remain a degree of vagueness in the certification process, I now start to understand the requests for ‘native file formats’ from high assurance sectors such as the nuclear industry. If we need to be completely confident that all data transfer is complete, correct and safe how can we define successful performance between various platforms? I anticipate that certification will satisfy most of the construction industry but some corners will remain hard to persuade.  

Open source code

Another developing aspect of IFC that I was unaware of was open source code. As more of us start adding bespoke properties, property sets and data to our models that are peculiar to our businesses, projects or markets, how can we pass them over to the next program in the chain? Do you need to tweak your IFC output for improved interoperability with other ‘non-certified’ systems? The way to achieve this customer flexibility is to write your own import and export code.

IFC export has been open sourced from Revit 2012 and the plan is to do the same for import from Revit 2015. In support of this the IFC model specification is open and available and IFC is an official International Standard ISO 16739:2013.

The best place to get the open source code is from SourceForge which always has the most up to date version and also a discussion group which Angel leads. It is also posted on the Revit Exchange App Store. The Store gives you a reminder when a new release comes out, but there is perhaps a 1 to 2 week lag in posting behind SourceForge.  The code has now been downloaded 15,000 times, but interesting that no one at this briefing had done so. Angel thinks this is evidently an underused aspect of IFC.

Updates of the source code are decoupled from Revit’s release cycle, and code can be revised after certification if issues need fixing without triggering recertification. BuildingSMART allow Autodesk are allowed to do anything with the code so long as it is ‘reasonable’ – which in a normal world is ‘reasonable’ but, as mentioned above, would make a high assurance industry freak!

Final thoughts

Thanks to Angel and Autodesk for this session. I hadn’t had a chance to previously think hard about what lay behind these buttons. IFC is clearly a key exchange format in the years to come, and for our major projects users need to do more than just press and hope. As we know, data transfer needs to be planned, checked and understood within our overall BIM processes. This session helped me on that journey.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

‘I wanna be elected !’ – Alice Cooper 1972

I’m standing for election to the ICE’s Council. This body meets four times a year to discuss the strategic direction and set the policy of the Institution. These discussions cover education, training, qualification and issues concerning ICE's role as a 'reservoir' of knowledge in the field of civil engineering.

With 22 of us running for six seats it is no foregone conclusion so if you are a Member or Fellow your support would be appreciated! You should have received emails explaining the process and you can vote until midday on 9 July. Don’t delay!


My decision to run was sparked by wanting to contribute in more of a structured way to the ICE now that I am back in the UK, in particular after having enjoyed involvement with the Institution in Hong Kong. My time in the US, India and Hong Kong has made it clear to me that the ICE should work hard to maintain and develop its global reputation. I also am aware that there are some big issues to do with demographics, new versus old skill sets and the impact, both good and bad, or new technology. There are some big subjects to grapple with in the years to come.

My election statement can be found at this link, but to save you the click, here it is below!

Alongside me Ian Smith and Stephen Orr of Atkins are also standing. We all found out we were running only when the candidates were published.

‘...We must capture the experience of our members, pass this on to our graduates and students, and ensure it is incorporated into new technologies and future thinking.’

My key aim as a member of Council would be to encourage development of the full range of skills and roles needed by our industry for the challenges we now face. We must capture the experience of our members, pass this on to our graduates and students, and ensure it is incorporated into new technologies and future thinking. I would support the ICE's development as the benchmark for professionalism in civil engineering worldwide.

I have 28 years' experience leading design teams in the UK, US, India and China, delivering buildings in the rail, aviation, commercial, sports and nuclear sectors. Alongside my role as a Design Director for Atkins I lead their worldwide network of structural engineers and I would bring my international experience and perspective to the Council.

I was chartered in 1993 and became a Fellow in Hong Kong in 2008. In 2011 I drafted the Hong Kong Association's response to the government's climate change proposals and was a contributing author to the ICE's 'Manual of Structural Design: Buildings'. I recently joined Southampton University's Industrial Advisory Board and speak at industry events such as the 'Budding Brunels' apprenticeship launch and BIM conferences.

Saturday, June 01, 2013

CE Marking for steel structures and concrete products

I had to do a bit of research on CE Marking for steel frames (and what it means for concrete) for one of our major projects so I thought I’d share the output. It’s not just for electronic goods now!

Summary
The EU’s Construction Products Regulation (CPR) requires:
  • All steelwork products to have CE marking from 1st July 2013.
  • All fabricated steelwork delivered to site to have CE marking from 1st July 2014.
This note summarises the key issues for engineers working designing projects in the EU.
  • Prequalification statements and specifications will need to be updated to reflect this requirement.
  • Clients and main contractors need to be aware of their obligations when appointing a steelwork contractor, especially if from outside the EU.
  • Engineers need to specify the Execution Class for the steel structure, components and details
If a pre-existing contract is continuing to deliver steelwork over this transition period the client will need to put in place measures to ensure that the CPR’s requirements are met.

For concrete structures and components the obligations placed on designers are less onerous due to lack of harmonised standards across the EU. These obligations are discussed.


Introduction
In response to the obligations of the EU’s Construction Products Regulation (CPR), the construction industry is adopting mandatory CE marking of construction products across the EU and European Economic Area. This requirement is aimed at creating a wider market for all such materials within the European Union countries.

CE stands for Communaute Europeenne. Products or materials bearing this mark are presumed fit for their intended use when incorporated into a building or other structure, and are free to circulate within the entire community with no further testing and certification work required.

As the CARES website notes: “CE marking of construction products is only possible where ‘Harmonised’ technical specifications exist such as European Product Standards and European Technical Approval Guidelines (ETAGs). The term ‘harmonised’ means ‘agreed’ and in this sense agreed by the European Commission that the particular technical specification is suitable to support CE marking.”

A full list of the harmonised standards under the Construction Products Regulation (CPR) can be found on the NANDO information system website:

Implications for steelwork
For structural steelwork the key standards have been harmonised. Thus:
·         From 1st July 2013 all products must have CE Marking to demonstrate compliance where harmonised standards exist. For steelwork this includes:
o    open sections (BS EN 10025-1),
o    hollow sections (BS EN 10210-1 and BS EN 10219-1),
o    plates (BS EN 10025-1) and
o    structural bolts (BS EN 15048-1 and BS EN 14399-1.
·         From 1st July 2014 BS EN 1090-1 becomes mandatory and thus it becomes a legal requirement for all fabricated steelwork delivered to site from that date to be CE Marked.

According to the BCSA/Tata Steel document “CE Marking” the 1 July 2013 requirement “should not cause any disruption in the supply of materials as manufacturers, such as Tata Steel..... have been CE Marking their products for a number of years on anticipation of the CPR requirement.”

It should be noted that the BCSA has made CE Marking compliance a condition of membership of the Association from 1 July 2014, so selection of a BCSA Member company will guarantee compliance.

Prequalification statements for new steelwork contracts
From correspondence with the BCSA they recommend that the following prequalification conditions are required to be complied with if steelwork is to be delivered to site after 1st July 2014:

Statement for specialist sub-contractors: On 1st July 2013 it will be a legal requirement to CE Mark construction products that are covered by either a harmonised standard (CE Marking standard) or a European Technical Assessment (an alternative CE marking procedure for proprietary products). From 1st July 2013 manufacturers and suppliers of CE Marked products will be required to provide construction products with the appropriate CE Mark, the Declaration of Performance (DoP) and any other supporting information (including Safety instructions).  The DoP may be supplied in paper or electronic format.

Pre-qualification statement for steelwork contractors: The CE Marking standard for fabricated steelwork doesn't come in to force until 1st July 2014. From 1st July 2013 onwards steelwork contractors will need to provide evidence that they have the necessary CE Marking systems in place or that they are working towards CE Marking and will have it in place by 1st July 2014.

New steelwork specifications:
Contracts for fabricated structural steel to be delivered to site on or after 1 July 2014 should include the following specifications, which incorporate the obligations of BS EN 1090-1 and BS EN 1090-2 on the steelwork contractor:
·         For buildings: National Structural Steelwork Specification (NSSS) for Building Construction 5th Edition CE Marking Version
·         For bridges: Model Project Specification for Building Construction (SCI Guide P382) revised January 2012

The client and/or main contractor’s responsibility
For steelwork delivered to site after 1 July 2014 the client or main contractor is responsible for appointing a steelwork contractor with a Execution Class equal to or greater than that required by the project.  Given the time taken to achieve accreditation it is recommended that well in advance of this deadline clients and main contractors only award projects to steel work contractors who have already achieved or a close to achieving suitable CE Marking accreditation.

If a non-EU steelwork contractor is used on a project the CPR puts liability onto the client or main contractor. The party engaging the steelwork contractor would be classed as an importer under the CPR and must comply with the ‘Obligations of Importers’ given in its Article 13.

If a pre-existing contract is continuing to deliver steelwork over this transition period the client will need to put in place measures to ensure that the CPR’s requirements are met. The engineer should flag this responsibility to clients who may not be aware of this.

The engineer’s responsibility
Designers need to be aware of the purpose, and the limitations of CE marking in order to be able to fully safeguard the interests of their clients and to protect their own potential liability. CE markings were originally designed for national market surveillance and enforcement authorities, rather than specifiers and consumers. CE marking was not intended as a quality standard and current EN and BS standards remain the correct references for specification.

Some harmonised standards make demands of the specifier. For steel structures for example, from July 2014 the engineer is responsible for specifying the Execution Class for the steel structure, the components and the details. In effect this will define the level of quality control in the fabrication process and it may even define who may legally undertake the work.

In some cases this Execution Class will be the same whilst in others they may be different. Execution Class must be assessed based on A3 of BS EN 1090-2. Whilst each building needs to be considered on its own merits EXC2 will be appropriate for the majority of steel constructed in the UK. This requirement does not apply to concrete products.

CE marking and the Building Regulations
As the Concrete Centre notes an updated Materials and Workmanship section of the Building Regulations (Part 7) also comes into effect on 1st July 2013. It continues to list CE marking as just one way in which the suitability of a material can be assessed for use for a specific purpose. It notes that it is important that the declared performance of a material with CE marking is checked as being suitable for the proposed use.

For many standardised products, CE marking may become the default definition of suitability in the eyes of Building Control Officers. For many other products, particularly bespoke solutions, other means of compliance will continue to be used. These include British Standards and other national and international technical specification; independent certification schemes; tests and calculations (3rd party accredited) and/or past experience.

Note that there remains no requirement for proof of CE marking to be routinely supplied for Building Control approval.

What products don’t require CE marking?
These include:
·         traditionally made products or in a manner appropriate to heritage construction
·         those manufactured on the construction site
·         bespoke products (i.e. those manufactured specifically for an identified construction project.)

The interpretation of the legislation around this last exemption is currently a matter for conjecture and is likely to be resolved over time.  One interpretation is that a product that requires design input to be used or requires specific manufacture (e.g. cut to length) does not need to bear CE markings. One that has a standard design and is ready to use does, for example a fence post or a concrete block. However, this does seem to conflict with the approach being taken from July 2014 by steel fabricators.

Which concrete products require CE marking?
Not all concrete products require CE marking. For example, concrete (as a material) is not covered by the CPR; the European Standard for concrete EN206, is not harmonised and so therefore CE marking does not apply to ready-mixed concrete.

As noted by the Concrete Centre, the summary of concrete related product groups that are included in the CPR and should eventually have harmonised standards and therefore require will eventually CE marking are as follows: “precast concrete products; cladding; roof tiles; cement, building limes and other hydraulic binders ; reinforcing and prestressing steel (and ancillaries); masonry and related products, masonry mortars and ancillaries; aggregates; road construction products; products related to concrete mortar and grout; screeds; fixings; structural metallic products and ancillaries; structural timber products and ancillaries.”

For reinforcement, as the CARES website notes: “Unfortunately due to severe delays in the standards writing process, the European Standards for those products with which CARES is mostly concerned are not yet harmonised; EN10080 for reinforcing steel and EN10138 for prestressing wire, strand and bar. Until these standards are issued as harmonised standards then CE Marking cannot be applied to these products.”
A list of the standards that have been harmonised related to concrete can be viewed here. For quality ready mixed concrete various 3rd party accredited quality assurance schemes exist such as QSRMC and BSI and CARES for reinforcement. Where there is ambiguity specifiers should seek guidance from manufacturers and their trade associations.

Conclusion
For structural steelwork our designers need to be aware of the requirements being set within the EU market for work carried out after 1st July 2013 and 1st July 2014. Our specifications and the choice of fabricator needs to reflect these requirements. It is important to note that our engineers need to define the Execution Class for all steelwork that will be delivered to site after 1st July 2014.

For concrete products the requirements are more varied due to lack of industry harmonisation. Some products and materials are now covered by harmonised standards and specifications will need to be updated reflect this requirement from 1st July 2013. Beyond that time we will need to monitor the implementation of CE marking for the various product types as their standards become harmonised.