The Denver Business Journal
July 9, 2001
Business Journal Staff Reporter: Cathy Proctor
Oversight In Place for T-REX, Goal To Make Sure Project's Done Right
After the T-REX project is finally completed in five years, state officials don't want to start fixing things -- they'd prefer it be done right the first time.
To ensure that end, the combined oversight team representing the Colorado Department of Transportation and the Regional Transportation District is putting a series of new and old quality measures into action.
"In the end, people don't remember the budget or the schedule; they remember the quality of the project. That's what's important," said Kevin Diviness, quality oversight manager for the T-REX team. The T-REX project is expected to break ground this fall and take five years to finish. The $1.7 billion project will widen Interstate 25, between Broadway and Lincoln Avenue, and I-225, between I-25 and Parker Road. The project will also add light-rail lines and 13 stations along the same areas of I-25. The project specifications demanded that the underlying materials, such as concrete and drainage systems, stand up to 30 years of wear and tear on the road, said Del Walker, manager of the northern segment for the T-REX team. The asphalt on the top of the concrete roadbed is expected to last about seven years, he said.
Southeast Corridor Constructors, a joint venture headed by Kiewit Construction Co. of Omaha, Neb., and Parsons Transportation Group, landed the contract in May.
The design-build project, which puts the contractor in charge of finishing the design as well as schedules and construction, also gives the contractor extraordinary responsibility to see the job is done right.
"We placed some high expectations on the contractor," Walker said. "We've left it to the contractor to provide us with the quality that we've asked for, and we have an auditing system to monitor the contractor."
As on most projects, the T-REX contractor is responsible for the quality control day-to-day testing of materials and work going into the project. However, on this project the contractor is also responsible for quality assurance, the overall system and procedures to ensure the day-to-day operations are correct, Diviness said.
Typically, CDOT or RTD would be responsible for the quality assurance piece, Walker said.
"It's in their interest to produce a quality project," Diviness said. "If they're relying on us [CDOT and RTD] to catch these things, it's too late. If they have to tear something down and redo it, it gets very expensive."
The contractor's plan to ensure quality was part of the proposal submitted and reviewed by the T-REX team, Diviness said.
But the state and RTD aren't washing their hands of the quality issue.
The T-REX team will hire an independent company to conduct tests of materials and work, such as soil compaction, and CDOT and RTD can do their own tests at any time, Diviness said.
Test results from the independent company as well as those from the contractor will be uploaded to an online database, he said.
"That's really new, and it allows us to look at the project in a whole new way," Diviness said. "We can cut and slice and dice the information, check that problems have been addressed and identify trends."
The independent company, representing CDOT and RTD, would repeat between 5 percent and 10 percent of the number of tests conducted by the contractor and statistically compare results, Diviness said. The team is in negotiations with ATSER L.P., or Advanced Technology Science Engineering Research, a Houston-based company that did verification work on the I-15 project in Salt Lake City, he said.
On the I-15 project, ATSER developed a computer program that could statistically compare its own test results with those of thnewse contractor, said Doug Sinclair, vice president for systems marketing with ATSER.
The program cut the comparison time from three days to one or two days, meaning that mistakes or problems were caught earlier, he said.
"When you start dealing with a project of this magnitude, you try to reduce as many impacts on the schedule as possible," Sinclair said. "When you talk in terms of three days, you can move millions of tons of dirt."
If ATSER lands the contract on the T-REX project, Sinclair believes the comparison time could be cut to less than 24 hours. "Very close to real time," he said.
All members of the T-REX team are also being trained as auditors to monitor the contractor's activities and make sure the work and goals -- from construction to public relations -- are being accomplished as the contractor promised in its proposal, Diviness said.
"We're all being trained as auditors," he said. "We've trained the subject experts to do the auditing, rather than training the auditors in all the subject areas."
The T-REX team also has retained the proverbial "big stick" to ensure quality.
If any of the major project milestones aren't finished and in operation by agreed-upon dates, as much as $100 million in liquidated damages could be demanded, spokeswoman Amy Ford said.
CDOT and RTD also retain a one-year warranty on the work, meaning the contractor will fix things that go wrong during that first year, said Walker, T-REX's northern segment manager.
"On a normal CDOT project, we really don't have warranties, he said.
As a last resort, CDOT and RTD could always turn to the courts to get money for work that wasn't done correctly, he said.
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