Refurbishment and repair of 3.3km of the M6 motorway between junctions 5 and 7. Strengthening and repair of structural steel box beams. Full carriageway reconstruction, concrete repairs to structures and replacement of all street furniture.

The contract for the works was sent out to four tenderers and Interserve Civils won on a quality/price bid. This followed immediately after the successful completion of a similar contract on the M5 motorway for the Highways Agency. The contract was designed and supervised on behalf of the Highways Agency by Atkins in Birmingham.

The successful bid was in part due to the quality submission, which demonstrated Interserve's commitment to teamwork and partnering and offered innovation and value management to deliver a successful project at the best possible value.

The programming, logistics and traffic management for the project were extremely complex. One of the Highways Agency's strategic aims is to minimise disruption to the travelling public. With 170,000 vehicles passing through the site every day, three lanes of traffic had to be maintained in each direction throughout the peak periods. This meant that no lane closures would be permitted between the hours of 5am and 10pm.

The strengthening of the box beams required some initial survey work once all coatings had been removed. As with most kinds of maintenance work, once areas were uncovered, the scale of the strengthening and repair work generally increased.

The project team worked together to find methods that would minimise the delay to the completion date. The steelwork team developed procedures to allow them to weld inside the boxes with fewer lane closures; they innovated alternative strengthening techniques and managed to do twice the amount of work in only a partially increased amount of time. The concrete repairs to the structures increased and many were completed within the original tender duration.

Suppliers and sub-contractors signed up to the contract partnering charter and many were let on a target cost basis as with the main contract. Supply chain management briefings were held and sub-contractors were fully integrated within the team.

Result:

The project is due to be substantially completed, on programme, for Christmas 2002. Three lanes of traffic have been maintained throughout the peak periods and the disruption to the public has been minimised - to the satisfaction of the Highways Agency.

Benefits:

• Target cost allowed pricing of additional works to be agreed quickly, as only actual costs would be paid.
• Partnering between all parties encouraged innovation and value engineering.
• Safety fences were up-rated to meet current standards, giving greater safety for all road users.
• Improved running surface provided, giving reduced levels of noise, better visibility and improved road safety.
• Project completed within allotted time.
• Target cost arrangement encouraged alternative traffic management and use of alternative materials and methods.

Lessons Learned:

Traffic management solutions that benefit the public and site operations.

Achievable outputs for concrete repairs and surfacing techniques and methods for strengthening box beams under live load conditions.

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