Eleven outstanding projects honoured for leading the way in road industry excellence.
The winners of the 2010 Global Road Achievement Awards (GRAA) Competition were recognised at the 10th Annual25 January, 2011. Eleven projects from six different countries around the world were each honoured for leading the way in excellence in a respective category of the road industry.
Mr Victor Mendez, Administrator, US
The IRF GRAA programme is a worldwide competition to identify and honour excellence, innovation, and exceptional achievement in 12 vital road and transport sector categories. The programme elicits information on successful projects from leading industry organisations, draws attention to the winning projects and provides examples of best practices and latest technologies.
"Since 2000, IRF has used the Annual Awards Luncheon to recognise companies, organisations, industry professionals and students for their tremendous work and leadership in the road industry", said Brian Harris, Chairman of IRF-Washington.
"As nations around the world face similar issues and problems in establishing, maintaining and improving safe road networks, it becomes immensely important for industry professionals to share and learn from the best practices of others"
The winners of the 2010 GRAA Competition in their respective categories were:
Advocacy:
Laboratorio Nacional de Materiales y Modelos Estructurales (LanammeUCR) for its project, Contributions of LanammeUCR to Road Infrastructure Improvements in Costa Rica.
Construction Methodology:
Design:
Environmental Mitigation:
Maintenance Management:
TheProgramme Management:
Research:
Safety:
Technology, Equipment and Manufacturing:
Traffic Management and Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS):
Quality Management:
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2010 GRAA Winner Profiles
Our monthly summary of winning projects begins with the Quality Management Category won by
The Quality Management Oversight - New I-64 Project (St. Louis) was a US$535 million initiative to replace St. Louis's oldest highway, which dated back to the 1930s when cars travelled at 35mph (56km/hour). The highway was originally designed as a parkway meandering east to west through the heart of the city. Now, more than 150,000 vehicles use the highway each day at speeds in excess of 60mph (96km/hour).
Delcan's role on this challenging project was to work with the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) to implement a series of innovative quality management oversight services called Qmost (Quality Management Oversight Services for Transportation). The services implemented utilised internet-based tools and were specifically designed to allow a smaller but more efficient oversight team to focus on the project's high-risk elements. At the core of this approach was an innovative risk profiling process that dynamically adjusted to keep the oversight focus on work progress, performance and high-risk elements. The approach both lowered specific costs and avoided potential costs.
A second innovative process was established that focused the team on early project closeout. A Project Closeout Dashboard was developed which provided a real-time status of all elements necessary to closeout the project.
This innovative approach to Quality Management involved a five-phased approach that included:
• Processes and tools developed to support real time, continuous and non-intrusive oversight of contractor's responsibilities.
• Oversight directly linked to contractual requirements.
• Audits focused on areas of highest risk.
• Audits encompassing design packages, work products, processes and management.
• Compliances and non-compliances identified, tracked and reported.
• Non-compliances remaining visible until resolved.
• Continual improvement given a priority throughout the project.
In addition to establishing an effective communication and partnering tool between MoDOT and the contractor, the innovative Quality Management Oversight approach contributed to the realisation of a series of significant accomplishments, including the fulfillment of all quality objectives; zero claims; the completion of both project phases ahead of schedule and $11 million under budget as well as the receipt of more than a dozen prestigious industry awards.
"In my view, no other road- related awards programme possesses the global reach and impact of the IRF's", says Brian Stearman, President of Delcan Corporation's US Infrastructure Operations. "By recognising and celebrating the best practices around the world, the IRF is making a profound and lasting contribution to live up to its mission statement of "Better Roads, Better World."
