Category 3: Projects with a value of between $20 million and $100 million
Winner: Goodman Contractors- Mackays to Peka Peka
The 18 kilometre Mackays to Peka Peka section of the Kapiti Expressway is the first section to be completed having opened earlier this year. It was constructed under an alliance model with NZTA, Fletcher Construction, Higgins and Beca. Goodman Contractors was engaged as a sub-alliance partner for the purpose of providing the earthworks and drainage.
Goodman was involved with the project from the early pre-consenting phase and worked with the designers, construction and compliance teams to develop conceptual design, construction methodologies, programming and costings. It also provided expert advice to gain consents and assisted with the final design.
Goodman did all enabling works including site clearance and disposal, and the pre-construction trial excavations. Due to areas being associated with Maori and early European settlements a lot of this work involved working closely with iwi and archaeologists.
The earthworks along the ‘greenfields’ development exceeded four million cubic metres and included extensive peat removal and replacement, sand excavation and excavation of 14,000 cubic metres of solid rhyolite. The contractor was mindful of minimising the impact on the environment and independent site audits were extremely favourable.
Goodman Contractors’ ‘value engineered’ alternatives for a range of earthmoving and construction opportunities and invested in GPS machine control systems which resulted in significant savings both in cost and time associated with survey set-out and quantification of volumes.
The Goodman team also drove significant innovation in construction methodology specifically in mining additional material to balance the mass haul shortfall and together with their local knowledge of the ground conditions were able to achieve considerable cost savings.
The client in its letter of recommendation supporting this application described Goodman Contracting as “the most significant subcontractor in both scale and value, … “the shining star” … and … “driven by their ability to resource up and take on additional scope and variations, while still delivering to an agreed cost, programme and compliance standards. They were an integral part in the overall success of the project.”
