Xacom were instrumental in helping us develop our programmes on a number of schemes to meet NEC3 and our clients’ requirements for submission acceptance. It’s been a challenging time due to the COVID19 restrictions, yet Xacom has delivered an exceptional service in a remote working landscape. We look forward to working with Xacom again in the future.

Darren Bearwish – Programme Director

Amey is a leading infrastructure services and engineering company and quite literally at the heart of modern Britain, helping the economy to grow by designing, maintaining and transforming the nation’s strategic assets.

The Transport Infrastructure division aims to make journeys better and exploring easier – by helping to make roads safer, railways smoother and streets and green spaces clean.

Working through locally based teams, they support communities by helping to create better, safer and more pleasant places through the provision of integrated highway design, well- designed streets, well-maintained grounds, modern public lighting and efficient winter maintenance solutions.

Executive Summary

Xacom Project Controls was recommended by another division of the business to help improve planning on a number of motorway schemes throughout the country, as it became apparent that the Transport Infrastructure division had a number of compliance issues which needed to be addressed.

Commenting on the intervention, Michael Higgins, Founder of Xacom said ‘Naturally we were delighted to be appointed to work for such as prestigious and forward- thinking company and play our part in helping the organisation make the necessary improvements. We formed an excellent working relationship with the team at Amey and through close collaboration and finely tuned support we were able to create an excellent outcome’.

Challenges

  • NEC3 criteria not met for Clause 31 and Clause 32
  • Highways England schedule quality metrics not met including elements of the DCMA 14 point check
  • Highways England schedule coding and structure not compliant
  • Schedule in MS Project and not held in Primavera P6
  • Schedule not resource and cost loaded enabling Earned Value Analysis

Intervention

Through close consultancy and developing a fundamental understanding of the various projects Xacom were able to pinpoint the issue which essentially centred on a number of schemes not meeting both NEC3 and client requirements.

A detailed action plan was developed and the Xacom team worked closely with divisional personnel and were instrumental in developing programmes that met the NEC3 and client requirements for submission acceptance.

Outcome

Accepted Clause 31 and Clause 32 programmes that were in Primavera P6, fully resourced and cost loaded generating Earned Value data for analysis and reporting.