Shimmick, serving as a subcontractor to the joint venture team, is in the final phase of its $70 million structural concrete package for Phase II of the Silver Lake project to construct the Headworks West Reservoir and extend the River Supply Conduit 1A.
Safety on the Silver Lake project involved everyone looking out for the person next to them.
“We emphasized that everybody was involved in making the job safe,” said Project Manager Austin Moore. “We wanted everyone to feel like they had ownership of making the job safe.”
The team quickly applied lessons learned and made quality a part of the plan. This involved integrating quality and hold points into work planning. By the time the concrete was placed, everything was double-checked to ensure it met the specifications.
The project’s challenges were nothing the Shimmick team couldn’t handle. The team used ice to cool the concrete and a specialty hard rock aggregate from Canada during the batching process to minimize cracking. In addition to the concrete mix, the team placed the concrete in an advancing pyramid to reduce cracking while maximizing the production rates.
To make this project a success, it took everyone taking risks to get better. By performing the concrete batching themselves, the team placed 90,000 cubic yards of concrete with strict temperature requirements.
“A big part of why our project was so successful was because of how well the team worked as a unit,” said Moore. “Our team came together well, and there was a lot of resource sharing in the field that helped streamline things.”
This resulted in a project completed per the schedule with significant schedule and cost savings.