JOINED-UP WORKING
Bringing people together and keeping them working as a team is hard work, explains Taylor Woodrow’s Rail Sector Director FRED GARNER to PAUL STEPHEN, but the benefits are too great to ignore
Collaboration will give rise to solutions that no individual working alone could ever have imagined. Fred Garner, Rail Sector Director, Taylor Woodrow
The essence of collaboration is people working together towards a shared goal.
Without it, the delivery of the complex new pieces of infrastructure that benefit society just wouldn’t be possible because of the innovation, shared problemsolving and imaginative thinking that collaboration brings.
Taylor Woodrow is very well aware of this, having helped design and build some of the UK’s largest construction projects in the rail, highways and energy sectors.
Working in partnership has been a core value throughout the company’s history, with the integrated delivery team approach vigorously promoted ever since Taylor Woodrow’s foundation in 1921.
“It’s about being open and honest and working as one team where there is a constant exchange of knowledge between suppliers, main contractors and clients,” explains Taylor Woodrow’s Rail Sector Director Fred Garner.
“The real benefit occurs when there is a problem, as collaboration will give rise to solutions that no individual working alone could ever have imagined.”
Exemplifying these benefits are the three Taylor Woodrow projects that have won National Rail Awards in recent years, while a fourth was victorious in 2017.
This external recognition not only demonstrates that the company is an industry leader in this area, but that great outcomes are achieved through collaborative working.
The first project is the redevelopment of
King’s Cross, which won Project of the Year in 2012 for the re-engineering of a classic piece of Grade 1-listed railway heritage into a transport hub fit for the 21st century.
Taylor Woodrow worked with multiple stakeholders to deliver a major upgrade to this iconic station, which included planning 13 fully functioning interim station layouts for the Underground station’s ticket hall throughout its reconstruction.
Minimising disruption was a major challenge from the outset, as was respecting the historical fabric of the station, but collaborative planning enabled passenger flows to be maintained throughout the work. Meanwhile, the team worked closely with heritage specialists to meticulously plan and execute the preservation of the station’s original Victorian façade, while updating the building to comply with modern safety standards.
The team learned a lot from working with Network Rail at King’s Cross which, in the early days, benefited from being part of the Thameslink Collaborative Delivery Framework. That provided professional support and a number of tools to help the teams build supportive co-operative relationships.
Garner adds: “Teams must always be aware of how their project fits into the bigger picture. Working collaboratively enables smaller milestones to be met that build towards major ones which, for the King’s Cross project, was the successful completion to meet the deadline of the 2012 London Olympic Games.”
In 2016, another Taylor Woodrow project won a prestigious National Rail Award, when its work to redevelop Nottingham station and build a modern interchange with the tram network helped it to win Large Station of the Year.
An integral element of this £ 60 million project was Taylor Woodrow’s collaboration with operator East Midlands Trains in order to limit disruption to the seven million passengers that use it each year, while enhancing the heritage features of the existing station.
A second project that won a National Rail Award in 2016 was the redevelopment of Old Oak Common, which was recognised for its sustainability credentials. Taylor Woodrow’s design for the new depot, which will accommodate the Elizabeth Line’s fleet of 70 trains, was praised for exceeding the amount of renewable energy generated on site by more than 50% of the target level, and securing a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of more than 65% above target.
To achieve this award-winning solution the company relied heavily on its supply chain partners to design and install the innovative technology that is projected to provide a 1500% return on investment.
Garner adds: “This kind of thinking takes collaboration to a new level, as the solution that the combined team delivered can be easily transferred to other projects, and is therefore capable of bringing significant cost benefits to the entire rail industry.”
Last but not least, the redevelopment of Tottenham Court Road Tube station was adjudged Major Project of the Year at this year’s National Rail Awards ceremony. In a joint venture with BAM Nuttall, Taylor Woodrow has completed a station upgrade that will accommodate up to 200,000 passengers a day as a key interchange with Elizabeth Line services from December 2018, and perhaps Crossrail 2 in the future.
The new ticket hall is six times larger than the original and includes step-free access from street to platform level via eight new escalators and six new lifts.
Taylor Woodrow heavily collaborated with its partners on an upgrade where disruption was inevitable, and so solutions to minimise that while delivering value for money for the customer were needed. For example, it became the first team ever to install a shotcrete cavern over a live operational railway, while cutting out the crown of the Central Line tunnel to install permanent overbridge beams, during just two 52-hour possessions.
Garner concludes: “Collaboration isn’t just about a BS11000 process, and it doesn’t happen by accident. It involves extensive planning for how to bring people together, and then working extremely hard to help them stay together and achieve a common goal.
“We have successfully demonstrated in each of these examples that collaboration is not just focusing on working to a set of official standards, but that we have really taken it back to basics.
“Fairness, inclusion and respect are intrinsic to the team’s culture, and it’s about recognising each other’s differences and what they bring to the team. Different people have different viewpoints, which leads to new ways of thinking and, ultimately, better decisions being made.”