Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 22, 1995 TAG: 9501230015
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Deserved or not, our mother state has a reputation of conservatism and an eye aimed at the past rather than the future. Innovation is something people associate with Western states, particularly those kooky Californians, who - blocked by the Pacific - have sought brave new worlds in their minds rather than on a road west.
The Virginia Department of Transportation has not until recently been widely perceived as challenging the state's conservative ideal - given the long-standing "Pay as You Go" policy of road building.
So, working with the same stereotypes about what used to be called the HIghway Department as I'm sure are shared by the vast majority of my fellow Virginians, I was intrigued when a news release arrived, announcing that VDOT was trying out a new way of doing its construction projects. It's something called "partnering" and incorporates the total-quality-management or team-management principles that are reshaping corporate America.
Partnering, according to VDOT, brings everyone involved in a road project - contractors, subcontractors, department inspectors and superintendents, city or county officials and utility representatives - together before the project begins to discuss concerns and seek ways to avoid unforeseen problems. It encourages face-to-face communication to clarify goals and deadlines.
The concept was developed in the past five years by the Army Corps of Engineers in Washington state and first adopted by highway departments there and in Arizona. Frank Gee, VDOT's construction engineer, heard about it at a national meeting of state highway officials and thought Virginia ought to give it a try.
One of the first projects where the state tried partnering was reconstruction of the Fifth Street bridge in downtown Roanoke, which was begun in August 1993 and was completed a year later.
"We think it worked pretty well," said Stan Lanford, president of Lanford Bros. Construction Co. of Roanoke, the prime contractor on the bridge project. Like everything else where people are involved, it was not perfect, he said.
Partnering, Lanford said, formalized a way of doing things that a lot of people involved in construction had tried to follow for many years. The idea, he said, is to end the adversarial relationship between the state and contractors that sometimes plagued projects in the past.
"This is an attempt to get rid of some of those problems where you ended up letting the lawyers settle it," he said.
Those involved in partnering sign a charter for the project, committing to finish the contract to everyone's satisfaction. Part of the pledge Lanford took was to try to solve problems at the lowest level of the bureaucracy and at the job site, if possible.
Jeff Echols, VDOT's resident engineer for the Roanoke Valley, said the partnering process helped keep the lines of communication open during the bridge's construction and "there certainly were some benefits."
Others affected by the project, Norfolk Southern Railway and local utility companies, were included in the conference between the transportation department and the contractors before the bridge work began. Roughly 70 people sat in on these pre-construction sessions.
"We worked extremely well with Norfolk Southern," Lanford said. "They seemed to respond very quickly as opposed to some earlier jobs I'd worked on with the railroad," he said. He attributed NS's positive attitude toward partnering to the railroad's own experiences in using total-quality-management techniques to improve customer service.
NS, Lanford said, was anxious to get the bridge raised to accommodate its double-stack trains.
Appalachian Power Co., which was included in the partnering discussions, was similarly responsive, Lanford said, showing up quickly to shore up threatened power poles, allowing construction to proceed without undue delay.
During one of the pre-construction meetings, engineers with Lanford Brothers suggested that the way VDOT engineers in Richmond had designed the pilings for the bridge could cause damage to nearby railroad tracks. VDOT agreed to a design with a shallower base for the pilings. The state noted later that that kind of sharing of information illustrated the intangible value of partnering.
"The Fifth Street Bridge project stands as a model of what partnership can accomplish," said Jack Hodge, VDOT's chief engineer. "The project finished on schedule, within budget and to everyone's satisfaction."
Echols noted that partnering also is being used on the current construction of the new pedestrian bridge between Hotel Roanoke and the City Market.
by CNB