AUGUST 2020
2020
INFRASTRUCTURE REPORT BRIDGES
SPANNING THE BORDER
CONCRETE
SENSING A CHANGE
RISK
CO-MINGLING DATA
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VOLUME 65, NO.5/ AUGUST 2020
2020 INFRASTRUCTURE REPORT 18 Carrying on Infrastructure market shakes off COVID-19, poised to put stimulus funds to work
26 Spanning the border Pandemic may be a game-changer, but Gordie Howe looks to score longest span
18
IN THIS ISSUE 5 Comment ‘More work to be done’ in the fight against job site discrimination
7 News
The major developments
14 Construction stats The key figures
COLUMNS 43 Software Managing risk at an anxious time
44 Risk The power of co-mingling data to manage risk
46 Contractors and the law I hope they notice me
26
38 45 Index of Advertisers
CONCRETE ON-SITE 33
38
A new lease on life
Sensing a change
More bridges entering old age mean more repair and upgrade projects
Concrete sensor technology gaining acceptance as contractors look to the future
COVER PHOTO: WINDSOR DETROIT BRIDGE AUTHORITY
on-sitemag.com / 3
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COMMENT
‘More work to be done’ in fight against job site racism, discrimination
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Getting general contractors, owners and subtrades to vehemently agree on an issue is often a challenge. On one troubling problem that’s cropped up in Toronto this summer, however, the industry is undivided and is not mincing words. The most recent incident happened July 28 at one of the more than two dozen job sites connected to the city’s new Crosstown LRT. In the evening, police were called to Eglinton Avenue and Dufferin Street after workers found a noose. It wasn’t an isolated occurrence. In fact, it’s the fourth such instance reported on a Toronto construction site in the past two months. Nor is the issue limited to one area or company – nooses have been found on projects run by different contractors in the city’s downtown, as well as in both the east and west ends. To see nooses appear on job sites around Toronto is both appalling and bizarre. Far more closely associated with the United States, and particularly the American South, the hate symbol has been used as an intimidation tool for more than a century. Whether or not the recent acts have been spurred by increased racial tension here at home and south of the border, the obvious reality is, there was intolerance and discrimination on Canadian job sites prior to the overt displays seen since the beginning of June. Encouragingly, the industry response has been quick and severe. Geoff Smith, the president and CEO of EllisDon, was among the most forceful. “I am appalled and outraged at the hateful and racist actions that took place at one of our construction sites,” he said in a statement, following the uncovering of two nooses at a hospital project in East York in June. “This will not be tolerated, not now, not
ever. We will work with Toronto Police Services, with every resource we can muster, to identify the guilty individual or individuals and ensure they are prosecuted to the fullest extent, and never allowed to participate in our industry again.” Police hate crime investigations remain ongoing for each of the four incidents, but at the time of writing, no arrests have been made. One worker had been forced to resign from Carpenters Local 27 in response to the most recent incident. A day after the noose was found, the Carpenters’ District Council of Ontario (CDCO) said the local “requested and received the unequivocal resignation from an individual who had recently joined the union.” At the company, association and government level, the denunciations have come quickly, but there is also recognition that more needs to be done. Carpenters Local 27 and the CDCO, for instance, have adopted the Charter of Inclusive Workplaces & Communities, and are actively encouraging members to be vocal in denouncing racism. EllisDon has considerably bolstered internal anti-racism initiatives, as well as hired an independent investigator to look into the incidents and report on further ways to address racism on-site. Geoff Smith has also signed the wider BlackNorth CEO pledge, which aims to prompt organizational change at Canadian companies and end anti-Black systemic racism. “We have worked extremely hard to ensure a culture and environment that allows people to work free of discrimination and intolerance,” Smith said. “Obviously there is more work to be done; and I know I speak for the entire industry when I say that we do not intend to rest until this kind of behaviour is eradicated entirely.” David Kennedy / Editor dkennedy@on-sitemag.com on-sitemag.com / 5
CONTRIBUTORS
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SAUL CHERNOS / Freelance Writer On progress at the site of the new bridge linking Ontario and Michigan: “When shovels broke ground on the Gordie Howe International Bridge project at the Windsor-Detroit border crossing in October 2018, the notion of a game-changing pandemic was largely the domain of science fiction.”
PUBLISHER | Peter Leonard (416) 510-6847 pLeonard@on-sitemag.com EDITOR | David Kennedy (416) 510-6821 dkennedy@on-sitemag.com MEDIA DESIGNER | Lisa Zambri lzambri@annexbusinessmedia.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER | David Skene (416) 510-6884 dskene@on-sitemag.com ACCOUNT COORDINATOR | Kim Rossiter (416) 510-6794 krossiter@on-sitemag.com
JACOB STOLLER / Principal, StollerStrategies On managing risk at an anxious time: “The COVID-19 pandemic is a reminder that disruptive events will occur that nobody can anticipate. Risk management, accordingly, is about keeping track of lessons from the past.”
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On co-mingling data to more effectively manage risk: “There truly is great power in harnessing a multitude of data to reduce risk while improving productivity, profitability, sustainability and safety. In fact, it is becoming a primary imperative across all sectors to gather, organize and utilize data to make better decisions.”
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TRISH MORRISON AND THERON DAVIS / Borden Ladner Gervais LLP On the enforceability of notice provisions in Alberta: “The determination of the validity of a notice requirement will be fact specific. When reviewing a notice requirement in a contract, the question simply boils down to whether the Limitations Act… would allow the plaintiff to sue past the date specified in the contract.”
Content copyright ©2020 by Annex Publishing & Printing Inc may not be reprinted without permission. On-Site receives unsolicited materials (including letters to the editor, press releases, promotional items and images) from time to time. On-Site, its affiliates and assignees may use, reproduce, publish, re-publish, distribute, store and archive such unsolicited submissions in whole or in part in any form or medium whatsoever, without compensation of any sort. DISCLAIMER This publication is for informational purposes only The content and “expert” advice presented are not intended as a substitute for informed professional engineering advice. You should not act on information contained in this publication without seeking specific advice from qualified engineering professionals.
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6 / AUGUST 2020
INDUSTRY NEWS
©BY EDB3_16 / ADOBE STOCK
INDUSTRY>NEWS B.C. picks P3 team for $2.8B Broadway subway project, construction to start later this year on 5.7-kilometre extension The British Columbia Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure has selected a preferred proponent for a major subway expansion in Vancouver. The province said July 17 it has picked the Acciona-Ghella Joint Venture team to design, build and partially finance the $2.83 billion construction project that will extend the Millennium SkyTrain line by 5.7 kilometres. The penultimate step in procurement clears the way for final contract negotiations between the P3 team and the province. Carlos Planelles, the managing director for Acciona North America, said the subway project will become the Madridbased infrastructure firm’s sixth active project on Canada’s West Coast. “We are proud to share the trust of the province of B.C. and are looking forward to
another strong collaboration with Ghella,” Planelles said in a release, adding that the Rome-headquartered company has valuable experience in underground work. Unlike other segments of the SkyTrain line, which make use of elevated guideways, the extension will be built mostly below Broadway. Tunnelling and underground station construction, therefore, are two key elements of the latest expansion. Five kilometres of the Millennium Line extension will run underground between Great Northern Way to Arbutus Street. The final 700 metres of the project will be elevated, linking up with the existing line at VCC-Clark Station. All six of the new stations will be built underground, including a transfer to the Canada Line at Cambie Street. Barring any last-minute issues with
contract negotiations, the Acciona-Ghella team will have topped two other consortia vying for the project. The province issued a request for proposals for the work more than a year ago and has been working through the competitive bidding process since. Last fall, one of the teams originally shortlisted for the work was forced to pull out when SNC-Lavalin Inc. restructured and ceased bidding on fixed-price construction contracts. Construction on the subway line is scheduled to start later this year. Its first trains are expected to begin running passengers beneath West Broadway Street in 2025. Like other major projects recently tendered in the province, the subway project will be delivered using B.C.’s Community Benefits Agreement. on-sitemag.com / 7
INDUSTRY NEWS To form its building panels, Nexii uses an approximately half-inch layer of its proprietary material on each side of a conventional insulating core. PHOTO: NEXII
Green building products start-up Nexii expanding across Canada, into U.S. with three factory deals A Canadian cleantech company that’s developed a novel lightweight composite material used in structural wall panels is expanding east from its base in British Columbia with three new licensed manufacturing agreements in Canada and the U.S. Nexii Building Solutions Inc. said July 16 it has reached deals with manufacturers in Alberta, Ontario and Pennsylvania that will see new plants built in each region that will produce millions of square feet of pre-fabricated building panels each year. The investments in the three facilities are expected to total $75 million Stephen Sidwell, Nexii’s CEO, said strong demand for the company’s products has led it to accelerate the roll-out of further production plants. It currently has one operational facility in Moose Jaw, Sask., as well as a larger site under construction in Squamish, B.C. “For North America to rebuild sustainably and achieve a green economic recovery, every industry needs to innovate and invest in new technologies,” Sidwell
8 / AUGUST 2020
said in a release. “Buildings and construction together is the top contributor to global climate pollution, and Nexii has the potential to curb the environmental impacts created by our buildings.” Nexii’s pre-fab components are built around a proprietary material it calls Nexiite. The company is keeping the make-up of the lightweight composite a trade secret, but previously shared a few added details about the material and its building method with On-Site. Because the panels do not contain any Portland cement and are highly energy efficient once in place, the company bills itself as a clean alternative to conventional building materials. Unlike Nexii’s first two plants, which are corporately-owned, the three new sites will be run by independent manufacturers and produce panels through licensing agreements. Newvi Building Solutions is one of the companies to sign on to produce the pre-fab building components. Nexii said the company plans to invest $15 million in an
Alberta production plant capable of producing four million sq. ft. of panels each year. In Ontario, Symphony Advanced Building Technologies Inc. has committed to spend $30 million on a Toronto area plant that will manufacture more than eight million sq. ft. of building panels a year. Finally, John Wolfington plans to build a new facility in Hazleton, Penn. that will serve the northeast U.S. market. All three of the plants are expected to start producing panels next year and will cumulatively create 450 full-time jobs. The manufacturing agreements cap a busy couple of months for Nexii. In June, the company added several high-profile business executives to its team, including Michael Burke, the chairman and CEO of engineering firm Aecom. Burke and several others joined the Vancouver-based start-up’s board of directors. At the same time, Ronald Sugar, the chairman of Uber Technologies Inc. and Apple Inc. board member, signed on to serve on Nexii’s advisory board.
N.L. issues RFQ to replace 160-year-old penitentiary in St. John’s The government of Newfoundland and Labrador has begun the procurement process for a new penitentiary on the northeast end of St. John’s. The province issued a request for qualifications (RFQ) for the designbuild-finance-maintain contract July 17. Construction teams looking to bid on the project will have until October to express their interest and outline their capabilities. Andrew Parsons, the province’s minister of Justice and Public Safety, said the new facility will “transform” corrections in Newfoundland and Labrador. “Corrections has evolved over the years and the reality is HMP makes it difficult to facilitate programming inmates of the 21st century deserve,” he said in a release. “We remain committed to a new facility that will increase safety for inmates and staff.” HMP, or Her Majesty’s Penitentiary, in St. John’s has facilities dating back as far as 1859 and has come under increased scrutiny in recent years. The province committed to building a new lockup to replace the aging facility last year. At about 21,000-square-metres (225,000 sq. ft.) the new penitentiary will have double the capacity of HMP. The Department of Transportation and Works said it will make use of technology to increase safety, while allowing for more access to mental health and addiction services and other programming. The estimated cost to build the new prison is about $200 million. The province anticipates shortlisting bid teams and issuing a request for proposals (RFP) early next year. Construction is likely to start in 2022 and run through 2025.
Pomerleau wins contract to build new passive house student residence at U of T Scarborough campus The University of Toronto has tapped Pomerleau for a major new construction project at its Scarborough campus. The contractor said June 23 it has been awarded the design-bridge-build contract for a nine-storey, 746-bed residence hall at the university on the eastern edge of Toronto. Built to passive house standards, the new student housing project at 3300 Ellesmere Rd. will cover approximately 265,000 sq. ft. The low-energy design includes high-efficiency insulation and windows and a range of building systems geared toward slashing energy use compared to traditional structures. Work will get underway shortly, with delivery scheduled for the start of the fall semester 2023. “Our focus on building innovative and sustainable buildings has never been stronger, and we are excited to work with the U of T Scarborough to create a safe, healthy and inspirational living environment for its students,” said Patrick Stiles, vice-president and regional manager at Pomerleau, in a release. “The future of construction is here, and we are very excited to be
undertaking this flagship project for many generations to come in the GTA.” The new residence includes both single and double bedrooms, a cafeteria, kitchen and a range of mixed-use spaces. A rooftop garden and terrace are also planned. Handel Architects served as U of T Scarborough’s primary design architect for the new building, with support from Toronto-based Core Architects. IBI Group, MCW, RDH and EXP will also take part on behalf of Pomerleau as part of the design-bridgebuild process. The financial terms of the contract were not disclosed. Along with a focus on ensuring the new building is highly energy efficient once completed, the Saint-Georges, Que.-headquartered contractor said it is also employing a range of emerging technologies, such as building information modeling (BIM) to pare down on waste during the construction process. The contractor plans to unleash Spot, a dog-like robot built by Boston Dynamics, on-site to keep track of site progress and monitor health and safety. Construction is scheduled to get underway on the east end of Toronto later this summer.
A rendering of the new residence at 3300 Ellesmere Road at the eastern edge of Toronto. PHOTO: HANDEL ARCHITECTS
on-sitemag.com / 9
INDUSTRY NEWS The new campus in Markham, Ont. is scheduled to open in fall 2023. PHOTO: DIAMOND SCHMITT ARCHITECTS
Construction to start on new $275.5M York University campus in Markham, Ont. Construction crews will get to work in the coming days on a major new university campus just north of Toronto. York University, along with several tiers of government, announced July 24 it was moving into construction on a $275.5 million, 400,000 sq. ft. (37,160 square metre) facility in Markham, Ont. The Markham Centre Campus will become the first university in fast-growing York Region, as well as the first to use the Ontario government’s updated Major Capacity Expansion Policy Framework, which aims to get the province off the hook for capital funding for college and university building projects. The project comes two years after York’s original plan for a Markham campus, as well as two other schools’ expansion plans, was shelved by the Progressive Conservative government, which cited the province’s considerable deficit. “Instead of the province writing multi-million-dollar cheques, we have developed a system that encourages the development of new campuses with a much smaller cost to the taxpayer,” Ontario Premier, Doug Ford, said in a release. “The new Markham Centre
10 / AUGUST 2020
Campus is a model of responsible expansion, which will offer local students access to a world-class education and prepare them for the jobs of the future.” The new site will expand the university’s footprint beyond its main campus at the northwest end of Toronto. York University, York region, as well as the City of Markham will foot the bill for construction of the new 10-storey campus. The province said it will provide funding to support operations once the facility is complete, but is not contributing to the initial capital costs of the campus. Diamond Schmitt Architects designed the new building, which consists of a five-storey podium with a five-storey tower above it. Among other features, the firm said the tower will include bronze-anodized aluminum cladding and fritted birdfriendly glazing. It is designed to house 4,200 students. Stuart Olson Inc. is taking on construction of the building, located at, roughly, Highway 407 and Kennedy Road. Construction is set to get underway this summer and the campus is scheduled to open in time for the fall school semester of 2023.
“Instead of the province writing multi-million-dollar cheques, we have developed a system that encourages the development of new campuses with a much smaller cost to the taxpayer.” – Ontario Premier, Doug Ford
OPG’s Calabogie facility on the Madawaska River is more than 100 years old. PHOTO: ONTARIO POWER GENERATION
M. Sullivan & Son, SNC-Lavalin win $100M contract to redevelop Calabogie hydro station outside Ottawa Nearly two years after a tornado tore the roof off Calabogie Generating Station in eastern Ontario, construction has started of a major project to redevelop the century-old hydro plant. Ontario Power Generation announced June 22 it has awarded a more than $100 million cost-reimbursable contract to a joint venture between SNC-Lavalin Inc. and Arnprior, Ont.-based M. Sullivan & Son Ltd. The project covers the demolition of the existing powerhouse, built in 1917, and construction of a new, larger facility about 50 metres upstream. At 10 megawatts, the upgraded generating station will have double the capacity of the previous five MW facility. “We’re excited to rebuild one of our oldest generating stations, especially during these unprecedented times,� Mike Martelli, OPG president of Renewable Generation, said in a release. “Many options were considered over the years, including retrofitting the existing century-old powerhouse, but a complete redevelopment was determined to be the best option.� The crown-owned power company had settled on starting from scratch on the new generating station even before the powerhouse was severely damaged by the tornado in in September 2018. In accordance with its shift away from on-the-ground construction last summer, SNC-Lavalin will take on the design, engineering and procurement for the project. It will also lead the construction management portion of the job, with support from Sullivan & Son. The joint venture team is scheduled to complete the project by 2022.
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INDUSTRY NEWS
Walmart Canada spending $1.1B to build new distribution centres in Toronto, Vancouver areas Walmart Canada plans to spend billions to shore up its supply chain and modernize more than 150 stores across the country. The U.S.-based retail giant said July 20 it plans to invest $3.5 billion over the next five years on new construction, renovations, as well as a range of technology to simplify both in- and out-of-store shopping. The capital plan includes $1.1 billion for the construction of two new fulfillment centres — one in Vaughan, Ont. and one in Surrey, B.C. The funding will also pay for the installation of new automated equipment and associated renovations at an existing warehouse facility in Windsor, Ont. “The retail business is as dynamic as ever and this investment ensures we’re developing a supply chain that is the envy of the world,” said John Bayliss, senior vice-president for Logistics and Supply
12 / AUGUST 2020
Chain at Walmart Canada, in a release. “The better the supply chain, the quicker our customers can get the products they want. This investment will transform our supply chain and create hundreds of Canadian construction jobs along the way.” Work is already underway on the facility in the Vancouver area, with the 300,000 sq. ft. site at 19500 26th Ave. in Surrey scheduled to open in 2022. The retailer is working with Germany-based Witron on automated sorting equipment for the facility. In the Toronto area, Walmart is planning a 550,000 sq. ft. distribution centre at 11110 Jane Street. The facility, which is expected to open in 2024, will integrate automated robotics from Netherlands-headquartered Vanderlande. Walmart said the next-generation warehouse management systems at both sites will help the company keep its physical
stores stocked and meet future e-commerce needs. Along with the added distribution capabilities, Walmart plans to renovate 150 of its more than 400 Canadian locations over the next three years. The work will focus on “accelerating digitization” within the shops, Walmart said, pointing to the expanded use of shelf scanners, robotics and cameras, as well as overhauled checkout areas that include larger self checkouts. The Walmart plan is one of two announced by major retailers this July. Sobeys and Safeway owner Empire Co. also said it plans to spend $2.1 billion to expand stores and build two new fulfillment centres over the next three years. Walmart said the warehouse facilities will support physical stores and online shopping. PHOTO: WALMART CANADA
Alberta awards contract for final $277M segment of Calgary Ring Road In late June, the Alberta government handed down the final construction contract for the Calgary Ring Road, awarding the $277 million project to the Calgary Safelink Partners, made up of Carmacks Enterprises Ltd., Graham Infrastructure and Vinci Infrastructure Canada Ltd. The last link in 101-kilometre Highway 201, or Stoney Trail, covers five kilometres of six- and eight-lane highway between Old Banff Coach Road and Highway 8 on the west end of the city. “The ring road is a critical project that has been years in the making and Calgarians have been waiting decades for it to be completed, Ric McIver, the province’s Minister of Transportation, said in a release. “When construction wraps up, the ring road will provide more than 100 kilometres of free-flow travel, making it faster and easier for Calgarians and job creators to get around Alberta’s largest city.”
Earlier construction on the southwest portion of the Calgary Ring Road. This segment is expected to open in 2021. PHOTO: KGL CONSTRUCTORS
The Safelink consortium will take on the design-build contract for what’s known as the “south” portion of the West Calgary Ring Road. Along with the five kilometres of highway work, the final component of the new highway includes the construction of seven bridges and four interchanges. Construction on the two other projects that make up the western segment of the
beltway are already underway. Work is also nearing completion on the $1.4 billion Southwest Calgary Ring Road after more than three years of construction. Shovel are scheduled to hit the dirt this summer on the final leg of highway. Crews will be aiming to complete the work and have the entire ring road open traffic by 2024.
Bird Construction to buy Stuart Olson in $96.5M deal Two major Canadian contractors are joining forces. Amid the tough operating environment brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and the prolonged slowdown in the Canadian oil and gas industry, Calgary-based Stuart Olson Inc. has agreed to a $96.5 million takeover offer from Bird Construction Inc. “The combination of our two businesses will create a company with substantially increased breadth and scale, diversified across services, end-markets and geographies,” Terrance McKibbon, president and CEO of Bird, said in a release. With a workforce of approximately 5,000 and a backlog of about $3 billion, Mississauga, Ont.-based Bird said the combined company will create a platform for growth. It added the business will be well positioned to benefit from infrastruc-
ture stimulus spending as Canada works to recover from the pandemic. The cash and stock deal totals $96.5 million. Bird will pay $30 million cash and $66.5 million in common shares – most of which will go to satisfying Stuart Olson’s lenders. Under the agreement, the company’s lenders and debenture holders will receive $70 million and $22.5 million, respectively, leaving approximately $4 million to be distributed among shareholders.
David LeMay, the president and CEO of Stuart Olson, said the decision follows a period of “extensive” review and consideration. With considerable revenues from its Industrial Group tied to Canada’s oil and gas sector, Stuart Olson, known as the Churchill Corporation until 2014, has faced increased pressure as energy firms curtailed spending in recent years. The deal was set in motion in early April, when, given increased financial and operational pressures, the company retained financial advisors to assist with a strategic sales process. Both company boards have unanimously signed off on the agreement, but it’s still subject to shareholder and other approvals. Bird and Stuart Olson expect to finalize the agreement in the fourth quarter of 2020. on-sitemag.com / 13
CONSTRUCTION STATS
Workers Employed in Construction by Month 2019
A selection of data reflecting trends in the Canadian construction industry
January
1,444.9
February
1,438.3
March 1,435.9 April
1,465.1
May
1,456.5
June
1,449.1
July 1,474.1 August 1,472.0
WORKERS CONTINUED TO RETURN TO CONSTRUCTION SITES IN JUNE, BUT LABOUR MARKET STILL WELL OFF HIGHS The construction labour market continued to rebound in June, following up healthy gains in May after historic April losses. Statistics Canada released its latest Labour Force Survey July 10, showing 83,200 more workers in construction in June compared to a month earlier. The 6.7 per cent increase in employment comes on the heels of a 6.3 per cent gain in May. Staffing levels in construction climbed to 1.33 million on the month, but the industry’s labour market remains down about 11 per cent from its peak of nearly 1.5 million this January. In April, at the height of the pandemic, more than 300,000 workers were laid off, largely due to government-mandated site shutdowns in Quebec and Ontario.
September 1,481.8 October 1,460.5 November 1,465.3 December 1,482.3
2020
January 1,497.6 1,489.7
February
March 1,487.5 1,173.9
April May
1,247.6
June
1,330.8
In thousands of workers, seasonally adjusted SOURCE: STATISTICS CANADA
BUILDING CONSTRUCTION COSTS CLIMB THROUGH FIRST QUARTER The first three months of 2020 saw building construction costs inch up 0.6 per cent for the residential segment and 0.5 per cent on the non-residential side, adding to a long string of increases. The latest available data from Statistics Canada includes information from just the first couple weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the agency said supply chain disruptions had already begun to slow the receipt of construction materials on sites. The evolving fallout from the pandemic is expected to affect construction costs into the second quarter and beyond. During the first quarter, Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto saw the highest increases in building costs.
PER CENT INCREASE IN NON-RESIDENTIAL BUILDING COSTS
Quarter Increase
2018
Q1 0.9
Q2
1.4
Q3
1.6
Q4
1.1
2019
Q1 0.8
Q2
0.6
Q3
0.5
Q4
0.4
2020
14 / AUGUST 2020
Q1 0.5
RESIDENTIAL
COMMERCIAL
+57%
+99%
INDUSTRIAL
+35%
INSTITUTIONAL
+33%
INVESTMENT IN BUILDING CONSTRUCTION ROARS BACK IN MAY AFTER APRIL PLUNGE After being cut nearly in half between March and April, spending on Canadian building projects posted a healthy rebound in May. Investment in building construction rose 60 per cent during the month to $13.4 billion, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada. The huge jump from the $8.4 billion in spending in April brings the market closer to its February highs, though it remains 16.5 per cent lower. Unsurprisingly, the federal agency chalked up the gains to the easing of COVID-19 restrictions, most notably in Ontario and Quebec. The residential segment of the market rose 57 per cent in May, while the three components of the non-residential side were up 99.0, 35.1 and 32.9 per cent, respectively, for the commercial, industrial and institutional markets.
2020 INFRASTRUCTURE REPORT
THROUGH PANDEMIC, WORK CARRIES ON Page 18
PHOTO: BLACK_MTS / ADOBE STOCK
STIMULUS ON THE HORIZON Page 22 PROGRESS AT THE BORDER Page 26
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INFRASTRUCTURE REPORT
WELCOME LETTER
T
he volume of infrastructure work to be done in Canada represents exciting opportunity for contractors. Among the challenges is the persistent gap between what must be built and the funding to do it. B2W Software is pleased to sponsor this year’s Infrastructure Report because we believe a cohesive software strategy is an important part of the conversation about how to bridge that gap. Effective systems for estimating, resource scheduling, field tracking and equipment maintenance are important. The bigger opportunity to manage infrastructure projects more efficiently, however, lies in how those systems – and the people using them – work together and share data in real-time to drive collaboration across these interdependent workflows. A unified software platform can also enhance data-driven decision making across estimating and operations. Getting information is not the problem: it comes at contractors from a dizzying array of sources. What a software platform brings is structure and easy, automated reporting, enabling contractors to aggregate data, analyze it and make it actionable in the office and in the field. Employee expectations are changing too. Experienced veterans, as well as the next generation of employees, use technology in their everyday lives and are less willing to switch back to paper and spreadsheets when they come to work. Contractors that provide an advanced and inspiring technology platform gain an important competitive advantage in recruiting and retaining talent. Infrastructure construction presents opportunity and challenge for Canada’s contractors. We look forward to continuing to help you break new ground by utilizing our ONE Platform to win more work and complete it more profitably. Sincerely,
Paul McKeon Founder and CEO, B2W Software
on-sitemag.com / 17
18 / AUGUST 2020
INFRASTRUCTURE REPORT
CARRYING ON B Canadian infrastructure market shakes off COVID-19, poised to put stimulus funds to work BY DAVID KENNEDY
Crews working on a road widening project on Vancouver Island. PHOTO: B.C. MINISTRY OF TRANSPORTATION
etween deserted highways, abandoned schools and empty rail cars, much of Canada’s infrastructure has never been as underutilized as it was in April and May. Health care facilities and telecommunications networks, on the other hand, have rarely been so strained. Through it all, as the economy ground to a halt and questions swirled over whether Canadians would ever be coaxed back onto subways or into classrooms, construction kept inching forward on new transit projects, new schools and new public works that presumed the country would emerge from the pandemic into something resembling normal. “Contractors found a way to keep reasonable productivities going,” says Gary Webster, the national leader of KPMG Canada’s Infrastructure team, as well as the firm’s global head of Capital Projects Leadership. “COVID didn’t have as big an impact on the construction industry as we originally worried about,” he added. “A lot of things carried on.” Bill Ferreira, executive director of BuildForce Canada, credits the industry’s focus on safety and its ability to adjust to new circumstances for the large number of sites able to remain active. “I think what we’re seen over the last three months is just how well this industry can adapt in a very short time frame,” he says. on-sitemag.com / 19
INFRASTRUCTURE REPORT
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It is an attribute that is particularly important on the infrastructure side of the business. “The reality is, [for] civil work, you have to be very adaptable,” Ferreira says. “You’re always dealing with potential delays related to weather, soil conditions. This is just one additional layer. There are added expenses obviously as related to providing PPE to workers, but by and large, social
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distancing is a little easier to do when you’re in an outdoor environment.” But unlike retail and hospitality, and other industries that took hard, short-term hits from COVID-19, the pandemic’s effect on Canadian infrastructure is likely to play out over a matter of years. Paul Gill, the National Valuations leader and a partner at accounting and consulting firm BDO Canada, expects a large amount
of capital to move into infrastructure in the months ahead, but cautions that when, and if, Canada returns to the status quo will determine what areas of the sector will see the biggest benefits. “Are there going to be changes in funding? Or going to be changes in priorities when it comes to infrastructure?” he asks, adding that for now, governments are generally continuing to push forward with plans already on the books. “The long-term view is that things are going to get back to normal,” Gill says. “As long as that thesis still holds and the world’s not going to fall apart… by the middle of next year, things will start to really get back to normal.” But with a highly fluid situation persisting in all industries, uncertainty remains unavoidable.
CHECKING IN ON THE IICP Front and centre in previous years, COVID19 has relegated the federal government’s $187.8 billion Investing in Canada Infrastructure Plan (IICP) to the back-burner in
2020. Despite being out of the limelight, spending has continued, and prior to the pandemic, Ottawa was regaining some of the ground lost to delays early in the spending plan. The latest assessment from the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO), released this June, found investments under the plan remained delayed, but the lag had lessened since its previous check. The PBO estimates a total of $51.1 billion spent on approximately 53,000 federally-backed infrastructure projects coast to coast since the start of the IICP. The figures, which factor in reporting from fiscal 2019-20, indicate the federal government is about $2 billion short of its planned investment level for the first third of the 12-year initiative. In terms of job creation, the PBO said the infrastructure plan has generated about 91,400 full-time equivalent positions over the past four years. It added that without the delays in spending, about 4,400 more
“The long-term view is that things are going to get back to normal.” – Paul Gill, BDO construction workers would have found a place on job sites. It is still too early to measure the effects the pandemic may have on the tens of thousands of projects under the 12-year spending plan, but most ongoing work was deemed essential and allowed to continue through the spring shutdowns. Though COVID has sown some doubt about certain categories of infrastructure – transit that relies on packaging as many people as possible into a rail car, for instance – for the time being, governments are expected to continue pushing ahead on
their existing agendas. “I think everyone is looking at COVID19 as a blip,” Ferreira says. “I don’t think at this point anyway that it is going to fundamentally change design forever.” To date, Ferreira added, there has been no indication governments across the country intend to overhaul their infrastructure priorities as a result of the pandemic. In fact, after a brief pause in new funding announcements in April and May, the federal government has begun returning to the field to kick-start new projects. Ottawa has also created a separate COVID-19 stream under the IICP that focuses on getting pandemic-related infrastructure built more quickly. In May, Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna said the government is setting aside up to 10 per cent of the $33.5 billion provincial-linked IICP stream to address infrastructure challenges laid bare by COVID-19. Amending previous provincial agreements
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struck with Infrastructure Canada, the stream will see the feds pick up a larger share of project costs. The federal government has remained non-committal on other added spending or changes to the IICP, so far, but Ferreira anticipates a stimulus plan will emerge this fall.
ADDITIONAL HELP With little movement from Ottawa, half of Canada’s provinces have taken unilateral action. Alberta, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan have already announced stimulus spending as a result of the virus. With the pandemic near its worst in mid-May, Quebec also added $2.9 billion to its 2020-2021 capital plan. Other regions have been more reluctant to increase funding at a time government revenues are under considerable pressure. Ontario, for instance, has committed to sticking to its pre-pandemic pipeline for major P3 projects, but thrown cold water on the idea of adding to it. “We can be assured with this big
22 / AUGUST 2020
pipeline that we have announced and are reconfirming that we have a very big stimulus package happening right here in the province of Ontario that we are determined to continue with,” Laurie Scott, the province’s minister of Infrastructure, said during an online event hosted by the Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships (CCPPP) this June. While work on megaprojects in Ontario and elsewhere will continue, Webster anticipates much of the short-term stimulus funding will go toward repair and maintenance work. “A lot of the investment is being targeted at the areas of state of good repair projects and those sorts of things, which are the right projects to get people working quickly,” he says, adding that the regulatory process makes it tough to get major new projects off the ground quickly. The pandemic may also help boost the Canadian government’s long-term push to shift private capital into infrastructure work. With some of the lustre off the real estate market, at least for the short-term, Gill sees infrastructure as an attractive, safe
IN RESPONSE TO COVID-19 Added provincial infrastructure funding: Alberta
$10 billion
Quebec
$2.9 billion
Saskatchewan
$2 billion
Manitoba
$500 million
Nova Scotia
$230 million
Updated federal funding (previously on the books): IICP COVID stream
$3.3 billion
Accelerated Gas Tax
$2.2 billion
alternative for deep-pocketed investors. “There’s a lot of financial investors, like pension funds, sovereign wealth funds… insurance companies that are
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INFRASTRUCTURE REPORT
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looking to park their money,” he says. “Historically, they’ve had to go international because there wasn’t really this appetite to build new infrastructure projects in Canada.” But with Ottawa and individual provinces looking to finance new infrastructure to put people back to work, as well as address the country’s worsening infrastructure deficit, Gill says encouraging private capital into infrastructure would be a win for both parties. The Infrastructure Bank was created partly for this very purpose. So far, the crown corporation has announced 10 projects it is working on in some capacity. About half of these projects have funding attached, but the bank remains well below its goal of deploying $35 billion into new infrastructure work.
“A lot of the investment is being targeted at the areas of state of good repair projects... which are the right projects to get people working. – Gary Webster, KPMG A NEW REALITY About six months after Canada reported its first COVID-19 case, provincial governments appear to have largely contained the virus, but the return to normal still looks distant. Contractors have adapted, bolstering health and safety protocols to keep staff safe, as well as turned to technology to
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24 / AUGUST 2020
modernize long-established ways of working. The continued embrace of cloud technology to better connect job sites to head offices, improve documentation and eliminate contact points during material deliveries, are just a few examples. Webster sees the pandemic as an opportunity for infrastructure planners to bring similar improvements into the procurement and project delivery process. “Government could use this to help transform the industry,” he says, pointing specifically to the opportunity for better collaboration between owners and contractors and what is increasingly seen as a risk-sharing mismatch on P3 projects. The uncertainty on what projects will be required in the future also extends beyond transit. Ontario recently cancelled a major courthouse project, for instance, saying it will instead look to “new and innovative ways of delivering justice remotely and online.” The same dilemma applies to areas such as virtual healthcare and education. “A lot of the [infrastructure] was planned quite a few years ago, based on traditional ways of doing things,” Webster says. “I’m just not sure what the new economy’s going to dictate and drive as people realize that some of those plans are going to have to change,” he says. “I think government is going to have to be a little more flexible in some of those programs.”
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SPANNING the BORDER
COVID-19 may be a game-changer, but Gordie Howe looks to score longest span BY SAUL CHERNOS
W
hen shovels broke ground on the Gordie Howe International Bridge project at the Windsor-Detroit border crossing in October 2018, the notion of a game-changing pandemic was largely the domain of science fiction. Now, it’s an everyday reality, with COVID-19 forcing organizations and enterprises the world over to meet a new, demanding environment. While transportation-related construction has been prioritized due to the importance attached to infrastructure and maintaining supply chains, managers of even the most critical projects have struggled to meet ever-evolving demands and challenges – and the Gordie Howe is a case in point. Border crossings between the United States and Canada have been shut to travel deemed non-essential since mid-March, yet, construction of this newest link has carried on despite unprecedented physical distancing strictures, shortages of materials, travel restrictions and the acknowledged likelihood that age-old societal norms will be significantly transformed for years to come. In June, when project
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leaders wanted to trumpet a grant program that’s been integral to community relations efforts, proponents shelved the usual news conference and celebration in favour of a virtual assembly, with participants showing up in offices and living rooms, albeit with an artfully designed bridge backdrop. “We’re unable to host a tour of the construction sites but we’ll be providing some B-roll which shows the tremendous work currently underway on all four components of the project,” Windsor Detroit Bridge Authority CEO Bryce Phillips announced when he welcomed journalists to the online event. “We look forward to hosting you on-site and in person in what I hope will be the near future, but with these unprecedented times everyone has had to adapt, and that includes our team. The health and well-being of our staff, contractors, stakeholders and the public is paramount.” In response to the virus, project leaders shuttered community liaison offices in both countries and enacted a no-visitors policy at its Windsor headquarters. “We provided the necessary equipment for our
Tower foundation work at the site of the new bridge, which will span 853-metres.
PHOTOS: WINDSOR DETROIT BRIDGE AUTHORITY
staff to work remotely so we could continue our oversight…and remain in contact with each other and with the public and stakeholders,” Phillips explained. Wearing masks, screening daily for symptoms, and working two metres apart – six feet in the U.S. – crews proceeded with the tasks that were underway when COVID-19 was declared a pandemic in mid-March. Aaron Epstein, CEO of Bridging North America, the construction consortium leading the project, outlined accomplishments to date. With final designs undergoing specialist review, the preparation that constitutes Phase 1 is well underway.
By mid-June, crews had demolished and were already replacing three bridge crossings along the Interstate 75 approach to the bridge on the Michigan side. The reconstruction was needed to adjust for a redesigned road profile and includes excavation, erection of abutment walls and pile driving to build solid foundations for roadwork that will eventually follow. At the Canadian port of entry, crews had installed more than two-thirds of 150,000 prefabricated vertical ‘wick’ drains and roughly 650,000 tonnes of engineered fill as surcharge. Workers at the U.S. entry have 57,600 of 157,000 wick
A recent concrete pour at the bridge project. Progress has been slowed by the pandemic, but the timeline remains intact.
on-sitemag.com / 27
drains in place, along with fill. Early work on the bridge itself is also coming together. Two dozen ten-metre-diameter drill shafts for the bridge footings have already been completed, and by mid-June the construction team, made up of ACS Infrastructure, Fluor and Aecon, were working on tower footings and foundations for the main bridge. “We’re expecting to see some of those tower foundations continue throughout the summer, and you’ll be able to see some of that above the ground later this year,” Epstein said. While COVID is an undeniable impediment, Phillips and Epstein told the virtually assembly the projected end-of2024 completion date remains unaffected. Epstein confirmed some productivity impacts stemming from scheduling work crews, getting them on-site, and training
28 / AUGUST 2020
them on government safety protocols and evolving industry standards. “It’s a complex project, and one of the things we do is figure out challenges, whether they’re engineering challenges or project management challenges,” he said. “The pandemic is ongoing, so at this point in time the best information we have and the best scheduling we have is that we’re still on or close to schedule.” In fact, Phillips noted, the project has consistently passed Ontario labour ministry health and safety spot checks. “A lot of stuff is being learned by a lot of people… and they’re doing a very good job ensuring construction continues safely,” he said. The project also faces many of the technical hurdles that come with building what’s billed as the planet’s fifth longest cable-stayed bridge and one that stands to
have the longest main span of any cablestayed bridge in North America. “The challenge is always the geotechnical work, the stuff below the ground, because ground conditions always give you something unique,” Terry Poole, construction manager with Bridging North America, tells On-Site. “Each drill shaft acts a little bit differently, and luckily we’ve had some really good specialty contractors helping us.” Poole described ground conditions as typical to southern Ontario – a layer of clay over top of bedrock. And, with the bridge crossing the Detroit River, the soil is saturated – a condition exacerbated by historically high water levels upstream in Lake St. Clair. Weather in general is a year-round challenge, and specified winter plans have crews tarping fresh concrete work and pumping in heated air to
INFRASTRUCTURE REPORT
“The challenge is always the geotechnical work, the stuff below the ground, because ground conditions always give you something unique... Each drill shaft acts a little bit differently.” – Terry Poole, Bridging North America
A rendering of the Gordie Howe bridge that will connect Windsor, Ont. with Detroit on the opposite side of the river.
facilitate nighttime curing. The immediate proximity to water also demands precise engineering to manage heavy equipment and complex operations. For instance, engineers needed to redesign the tie-back system and move its elevation up a notch to keep it above water levels. “The planning aspect that goes into the whole effort has been challenging and Terry’s team has done a great job in doing that in order to bring the cranes in that we need to do the work,” Epstein says. “They’ve had to figure out how to make sure we have enough stability to support all the construction equipment so close to the river.” Of course, the main challenge involves designing and erecting an 853-metre span that has no footings in the water. This avoids impeding river traffic and potentially
affecting fish and other aquatic species, yet requires deft engineering and the right tools for the job. While barge-mounted cranes are often integral to major bridgeworks, crews have two 50-tonne-capacity tower cranes on dry land to help place footings, towers and other components. The 820-foot-tall Comansa cranes will be slightly higher than the 722-foot towers. Two 330 ton crawler cranes on each side of the river will help in the backspan area for the bridge approaches, and smaller hydraulic cranes will also chip in as needed. Yet, while the hoisting power is considerable, crews will still need to ensure machines don’t handle more than their rated and engineered capacities and will cease operation when winds become too strong. “Everything will have a pre-pick plan on paper and we’ll go through everything,” Poole explains. The lengthy span itself had to be designed to withstand the strongest potential gusts. The project team undertook wind tunnel tests, using models to replicate wind conditions in a specially purposed room. “We put it in a couple of times as the design progressed,” Poole explains. “We’d see the reactions, then go back and tweak more things so the engineering dovetails
with how the builders are going to build it and what equipment we need. There’s lots of moving pieces, lots of meetings, and lots of drawing, iterations and reviews.” While the physical challenges are considerable, political and financial underpinnings have also required careful handling. Gordie Howe played for the Detroit Red Wings, but for his namesake bridge, Canada is footing the entire CAD$5.7 billion fixed price contract up-front by means of a P3 arrangement that includes all construction and a 30-year operations period. And, while the bridge will be jointly owned, Canada is looking to eventually recover costs. Mark Butler, director of communications with the Windsor Detroit Bridge Authority, said the Crossing Agreement Canada and Michigan signed in 2012 stipulates no cost or financial liability to Michigan or its taxpayers as a result of the state’s participation with this project either during the construction or once the crossing is operational. “As such, Michigan will not receive any of the toll revenue from the operation of the crossing until all costs related to the project have been recouped,” Butler said, adding that the U.S. government is responsible for fitting up and staffing border operations. There may also be the element of pay-back time. The Bluewater Bridge, not far north, between Port Huron, Mich. and Sarnia, Ont., was financed entirely by the U.S. “I’m not saying it’s our turn, but we were in a position where we were able to finance it,” Butler said. “We were happy to do that, recognizing that it’s going to be good for the Canadian economy, indeed for both countries.” In fact, the Gordie Howe has enjoyed cross-partisan support from both countries, and multiple jurisdictions conducted complex environmental and other permitting processes. “It’s been said to be one of the most complicated and complex joint environmental assessments in Canadian history,” Butler said. “We had to get all those permits in place before we could get the Presidential Permit and start moving.”
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ADVERTORIAL
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Whether working in residential, commercial, institutional, or infrastructure construction, the risks vary in size and complexity, and they can evolve throughout a project. According to a recent whitepaper by Northbridge Insurance, internal claims data shows the top loss causes for property in 2019 were water, fire, and theft. The average severity of water damage was $129,000, while average fire damage was $169,000 and average theft was $23,000. But these are only averages; the highest claim for water damage in 2019, for example, was over $1.5 million.
Water damage Water issues can arise from various sources, such as weather-related events, drainage problems, or the improper installation of piping. Creating a water damage risk management plan and using water management devices can help protect a site.
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AUGUST 2020
SENSING A CHANGE
PHOTO: GIATEC
THE RISE OF WIRELESS SENSORS
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A New
LEASE ON LIFE More bridges entering old age mean more repair and upgrade projects BY DAVID KENNEDY
I
t’s no secret that Canada’s population is aging. Fewer kids mean fewer young people, while extended life spans add to the number of seniors. Undeniably, it’s a bit more complicated than that, but the basic arithmetic is clear-cut. And it’s a similar story for a key category of the country’s infrastructure. About three-quarters of Canadian bridges were built before 2000. For several classes of bridge – arterial, collector and local – nearly half were built before 1970, according to the latest Canada Infrastruc-
ture Report Card, which draws on information compiled by Statistics Canada. Considering the estimated service life of the average Canadian bridge is around 50 years, many are well into old age. Bridges don’t exactly turn grey, but with structures aging far faster than they’re replaced, wear and tear, as well as new load or safety requirements mean the market for repair and upgrade work is taking off. In 2019, 12 per cent of Canadian bridges were in poor or very poor shape. Another 26 per cent of bridges were in fair condition. It’s worth noting the asset category also includes tunnels, but with just 351 tunnels and some 47,000 bridges coast to coast, bridges make up the vast majority of the tally. When comparing the figures to the previous report card, the extent of the work needed is manifest. The comparable study issued just three years earlier in 2016 rated only four per cent of Canadian bridges poor or very poor, with another 22 per cent marked as in fair condition. To keep infrastructure in working order, repairs and upgrades will only become more important in the years ahead. Daryl Heppner, the general manager
The Groat Road Bridge project required crews to dismantle essentially all of the original bridge’s superstructure. PHOTO: GRAHAM CONSTRUCTION/CITY OF EDMONTON
on-sitemag.com / 33
CONCRETE REPAIR
A novel gantry crane method was used to repair the 330-metre bridge.
at B.C.-based Polycrete says he is seeing more and more bridges being worked on – whether that be deck repairs or retrofits that bring older structures up to new benchmarks. “Quite often, it’s the age of the structure,” he says. “So water gets into a crack and fluorides from the salts that they throw in the winter get down into the cracks and then attack the reinforcing steel, which causes corrosion of the reinforcing steel and ultimately causes what most people would consider a pot hole but it’s actually a structural delamination.” This common issue on bridge decks often requires crews to sawcut and jack hammer out the concrete around the corroded bars, sandblast the rebar and fill the gap with high-strength concrete. Coatings are then often applied to protect the repair. For less serious cracking, epoxy injection is a less invasive fix. Replacing the bearing pads that sit on piers is another common type of repair, Heppner says, though Polycrete’s main focus is on upgrade projects that rely on carbon fibre reinforcement. “Not all bridges were designed for the loads that they’re carrying nowadays, so we do what we call carbon fibre strengthening to bring up the load capacity of these bridges,” he says. Jeewan Khabra, the Structural Strengthening division manager at Polycrete, has worked on a range of repair work coast to coast, as well as structural and seismic bridge enhancement projects. Currently, his focus is on employing fibre
34 / AUGUST 2020
“Not all bridges were designed for the loads that they’re carrying nowadays, so we do what we call carbon fibre strengthening.” – Daryl Heppner, Polycrete reinforced polymer (FRP) composites. “The use of those lightweight to highstrength tension members supplement the steel that the client or the engineer of record wishes was in that structural element,” he says, adding that employing the composite systems enables his team to change the structural capacity of certain elements of a bridge without touching the rest of the structure. For instance, instead of adding steel or concrete to a beam or pier to increase its capacity, which often has a cascade effect that mandates upgrades to adjoining components to transfer the additional load, the FRP approach can be more precise. “It gives you the same structural capacity as the conventional means of adding that steel and concrete, but because it’s lightweight, all I have to do is attack that column or attack that little section of the beam and you’re up to code,” Khabra says. While costs of the composites haven’t necessarily changed in recent years, Khabra
says the savings on time, logistics and other related factors such as lane closures can be substantial, making the approach appealing to governments and other owners. Along with increases to bridge load ratings, seismic upgrade projects are also increasingly common on Canada’s West Coast, as B.C. addresses the threat earthquakes pose to its infrastructure. Balraj Mann, the chairman of Polycrete’s parent firm BM Group, is also bullish on the repair market. “All over the world as the infrastructure ages, there’s more repairs required for regular maintenance,” he says. While deck repairs and upgrades relying on FRPs are commonplace, in some cases, far more extensive repairs are required. One such case is an ongoing project in Edmonton to rehabilitate the Groat Road Bridge, which crosses the North Saskatchewan River west of downtown. The four-lane span was built in 1955, and the latest rehabilitation work is expected to extend its lifespan 50 years. Unlike the average repair, essentially the entire superstructure of the Groat Road Bridge is being torn down and replaced. Deck joint issues, problems with the aging bridge’s rocking pier design and its failure to meet Alberta’s design shear requirements for heavy truck loads, were among the list of deficiencies that prompted the project, according to the City of Edmonton. The original concrete piers will remain, with crews patching and sealing damaged areas, as well as strengthening the bases of several of the support structures.
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CONCRETE REPAIR “We did the majority of the cutting in the dead of winter. It makes things incredibly difficult. We cut with water, so everything’s got to be cooled with water. Water freezes at below zero. It was extremely challenging in that way.” – Dave Moodie, CanWest Simply rebuilding the bridge up or downriver was also not an option because of the sensitive environmental and historical surroundings, the city said. To make the work even more challenging, two lanes of traffic needed to remain open during construction to avoid “significant” detours for the roughly 40,000 vehicles that cross the bridge each workday. Graham Group Ltd. was awarded the $48 million contract to take on the project in 2018 and has spent more than two years on the complex fusion of demolition and reconstruction. Among other steps, the company has employed a new-to-Canada process that utilizes a pair of gantry cranes running on a steel runway that extends across the whole 330-metre bridge. Dave Moodie, the general manager of CanWest Concrete Cutting and Coring Inc., which worked on the demolition component of the project as a subcontractor, said the project called for a piece-by-piece dismantling of nearly the entire bridge. “Slab decks were cut out in between each girder throughout the entire length of the bridge, and then we would wiresaw the girders out,” he says. Run through a series of pulleys, the use of multiple wiresaws on the bridge was another novel aspect to the project, Moodie says. Among other hurdles, he pointed to the frigid Edmonton winters – with tempera-
tures dropping to as low as -40 C – as major obstacles. “We did the majority of the cutting in the dead of winter,” he says. “It makes things incredibly difficult. We cut with water, so everything’s got to be cooled with water. Water freezes at below zero. It was extremely challenging in that way.” Crews finalized work on the western
portion of the bridge last fall and shifted to the east side of the structure, starting with demolition, this January. Despite the cold and other uphill climbs, crews are on-track to complete the Groat Bridge project this fall. With Canadian infrastructure continuing to get on in age, there will be many similar projects to follow.
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CONCRETE REPAIR
Sensing a change Concrete sensor technology gaining acceptance as contractors look to the future BY DAVID KENNEDY
Kryton’s Maturix sensors use low-cost thermocouple wires as the sacrificial component. PHOTO: KRYTON INTERNATIONAL
38 / AUGUST 2020
B
reaking concrete cylinders to test the compressive strength of concrete is standard practice for a reason. It’s relatively simple, cheap and when done right, accurately reflects strength. At the same time, break tests have changed little for decades and this lack of innovation is catching up with
the commonplace method. Propelled by lower cost electronic components and improved connectivity, a new wave of wireless sensors, capable of delivering the same metrics as break tests – but doing so in real-time – is carving out an increasing share of the market. Not needing a technician to collect field-test cylinders and lug them to the lab is just one small part of the value proposition, says Aali Alizadeh, co-founder, president and CTO of Ottawa-based Giatec Scientific Inc. The company first introduced its SmartRock sensor five years ago and the tiny wireless devices are now encased in concrete on more than 6,000 job sites worldwide. “Things have not changed in a long time and the new generation of engineers are demanding technology,” Alizadeh says, adding that once concrete crews try out the sensors, there’s no going back. “‘Why have I been breaking cylinders throughout my career?’” he says, is a question he has heard over and over. With the ability to measure both concrete temperature and strength in real-time, Kris Till, technical sales manager for Kryton International Inc., sees sensors coupled with cloud technology as the next evolution for the concrete industry. “In a lot of infrastructure and pretty
much all big mass concrete pours, there is a need to understand, record and log temperature data,” he says. “We’re finding for a lot of contractors involved in these projects, this is a really easy way for them to be able to log the data better.” “The strength development piece is really critical [too] because it can add so much benefit and so much time savings to the project,” he says. Like other sensor technologies, Kryton’s Maturix sensors use what’s known as the maturity method to calculate strength. The process plugs a range of data points gathered by the sensor, such as time and temperature, into an equation and calculates maturity via the cloud. Though it’s a relatively new offering for the Vancouver-based company, best known for admixtures, Till says the market response to Maturix has been enthusiastic. Kryton acquired a 30 per cent share in Denmark’s Sensohive Technologies ApS last fall in a deal that granted it exclusive North American distribution rights. It’s not the only company moving into the space. Power tool and fastener maker Hilti has also recently stepped into the sensor market. This March, it purchased substantially all the assets of Boston start-up Concrete Sensors, adding the entire
Hilti Concrete Sensors typically record an up to 10-x return on investment.
PHOTO: HILTI
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CONCRETE REPAIR
PHOTO: GIATEC
The latest version of Giatec’s SmartRock sensor boosted the wireless signal strength and made on-site activation simpler.
Concrete Sensors team to its Anchors division. Scott Rutledge, Hilti’s business unit manager for Anchors, says the purchase fits well with the company’s goal of providing contractors new tools to improve job site performance. “Concrete cylinders, while industry accepted and fantastic for determining what the concrete strength is on the day the cylinders are broken, are generally inadequate for helping the general contractor move faster,” he says. “And in the end, moving faster means less days on the job.”
THE CHANGING WORK SITE For Brendan Dowdall, who co-founded Concrete Sensors in 2015 and now serves as its director under the Hilti banner, the push toward the technology came when working as a general contractor. Unable to keep track of the metrics he wanted at his disposal when pouring concrete, he set out to find a better way to collect them. The solution starts with the sensor itself. Before the pouring process, the wireless device, which the company calls NovoConcrete, is fastened to the rebar. Crews then carry out their pour as normal, fully embedding the sensor in concrete. Hilti Concrete Sensors makes two different versions – one that transmits temperature, strength and relative humidity
data to a phone or tablet via Bluetooth, and another designed for longer range that sends the metrics to a hub station, which in turn, transmits them to the cloud. Neither requires wires. “Wires can sometimes be clipped, or accidentally stepped on and you can have higher failure rates,” Dowdall says. “By going completely wireless, you can increase that reliability and save headaches.” Though this also means sacrificing the sensor, he says lower hardware costs over the past 10 to 15 years make entombing the sensor a small price to pay for the data provided. The real-time information often lets contractors move on to the next stage of work instead of waiting for lab confirmation their concrete has reached the required strength. Along with pulling the data into a cloudbased analytics platform, Hilti Concrete Sensors also tests contractors’ mixes in its lab to better ensure its providing accurate strength data. All jobs are different, Dowdall notes, but says the company’s technology typically records up to a 10-x return on investment. Time and labour make up the bulk of the savings, but the efficiency gains can also translate to more work. “If [contractors] can go into a project during bid or estimating and instead of saying that the concrete’s going to take
MAKE YOUR CONCRETE WORK FOR YOU Log Temperature. Know Strength. Save Money. Award winning and reusable Maturix Smart Cocrete Sensors™ are a cost effective way to simplify thermal monitoring, expedite stripping, reduce risk on tensioning, and understand differences between field cured cylinders and the actual concrete structure.
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CONCRETE REPAIR
Typically, wireless sensors record a range of data points, plug them into an equation, and calculate maturity via the cloud. PHOTO: KRYTON INTERNATIONAL
six weeks, now it’s only going to take four weeks, that gives them a strategic advantage,” he says. With Maturix, Kryton has taken a slightly different approach. The system puts similar information into the hands of contractors, but uses low-cost thermocouple wires as the sacrificial component. One end of the wire is secured in concrete during the pour, while the other is connected to reusable sensors/transmitters that automatically send data to the cloud. Running on Sigfox’s 0G network, well known for its use in the IIoT space, the sensors can keep on- and off-site staff dialled into progress, ensuring quality and letting managers move up work when concrete has reached strength. Till says the use of thermocouples lets contractors set multiple sensors in different areas of a pour without worrying about the cost. “The limitation of the technology to date has really been the fact that a lot of the devices on the market are single-use devices,” he says. “So you’re taking a fairly expensive sensor and you’re burying it in concrete and it’s gone. So, it was limited as to how much you can use it.” Along with the schedule-related benefits, Till says nearly everyone using the
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sensors for the first time is able to quickly identify new ways to work smarter. One contractor, for instance, quickly realized he was overpaying for his concrete. “He was buying a mix design that was high early strength when he didn’t need it,” Till says. “He was getting strength well before his schedule allowed.” Now in their third generation, Giatec’s SmartRock sensors also continually send concrete data to the cloud, but do so while entirely embedded in concrete. Alizadeh acknowledges costs can be higher compared to reusable systems, but he says the peace of mind of knowing the data is secure offsets the added investment. “The value in time and ease of use is so high, especially for contractors who are on a tighter schedule, it doesn’t really matter,” he says. For the latest version of the sensor, released earlier this year, Giatec boosted the wireless signal strength by about five times, made on-site activation simpler and enhanced its cloud dashboard to give contractors more details on about performance at each stage of projects. And though it’s fixated on concrete, Giatec is also looking at projects as a whole. “The concrete data is a small piece of
“Concrete data is a small piece of the puzzle... It’s a no-brainer for us we need to bring this concrete data as part of those [project management] platforms so they can see in one single dashboard all their data and make more informed decisions.” – Aali Alizadeh, Giatec the puzzle,” Alizadeh says. “On a construction project, there’s so much going on. The project managers, the superintendents, their daily activities involve collecting all kinds of data.” “They have project management software, like Procore, to record and capture and communicate that. It’s a no-brainer for us we need to bring this concrete data as part of those platforms so they can see in one single dashboard all their data and make more informed decisions as quickly as possible.” Among other platforms, the company integrated with Procore in 2018, and it released its application programming interface (API) to allow other software tools to integrate more easily with its sensors last year. As contractors look increasingly to technology to cut down on labour and trim costs, Alizadeh sees concrete sensors becoming a standard tool on job sites. Likewise, Till says the demonstrable benefits of sensors are beginning to tip the scales. He doesn’t anticipate crush tests disappearing overnight, but says the growing industry awareness of sensors – and the maturity method – are shifting the industry toward accepting a new way of keeping tabs on strength.
By Jacob Stoller
SOFTWARE
Managing risk at an anxious time The COVID-19 pandemic is a reminder that disruptive events will occur that nobody can anticipate. Risk management, accordingly, is about keeping track of lessons from the past
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hile teaching a risk management course in January, Anne Leroux, managing partner at Toronto-based software and consulting firm ESCTT Inc., asked participants to speculate on how various events might impact their business. One issue that came up was the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China. “We didn’t predict that you’d have to be two metres apart and that everybody would be wearing masks,” Leroux says, “but at least it was understood that we’re going to be watching this thing closely, and perhaps be writing it into our contracts.” Even at the best of times, construction is exposed to a wider range of risks than most other industries. “When it comes to risk, a lot of environments are more predictable than construction,” Leroux says. “In manufacturing, your production lines are pretty straightforward, whereas in construction, your environment is totally different each time.” Variability amplifies the ever-present risk that a general contractor won’t make money on a project. “The risk that the general contractor is facing is that we are in a low margin business with increasing demands from owners, and from our partners and our trade community,” says Todd Mandel, vice-president, Legal Infrastructure, at Toronto-based Bird Construction Inc. Customer expectations have risen in the past five years, Mandel notes. “We’re seeing that these days everybody wants everything, and this is compounded by the fact that as a general contractor, we heavily rely on many of the other stakeholders, whether that’s subcontractors, consultants, or owners, for our own success.” With the notable exception of safety, where most contractors have well-established practices, risks to the business are new territory for many. “The areas that are kind of open ended are things like change orders, technical problems, delays, scheduling conflicts, and cost over runs,” Leroux says. The best knowledge of these risks can often be found on job sites. Hypothetical thinking, however, is not typically something construction workers have much bandwidth for. “People on construction sites work in a physical world where they get measured by what they build, and they’re always under extreme time pressure,” Leroux says. “So, the what ifs and the maybes are not the kind of thing that they have time and space to normally think about.” Given construction’s many interdependencies, gathering and sharing risk-related information calls for a thorough ongoing
approach. Software can streamline the tasks involved and provide framework to ensure consistency.
DEVELOPING A PROCESS ECTT provides a software tool, RiskMP, which, Leroux notes, was developed in response to client requests for an improvement over Excel spreadsheets. The app makes it easier for contractors to consolidate risk-related information so that it can be shared with stakeholders. “It creates an easily accessible database of risks – a repository of experience – for future projects,” Leroux says. Bird Construction manages risks using the Procore project management platform. “What we deliver to the market is a platform that serves as the centralized repository for the project,” says Jas Saraw, vice-president, Canada, at Procore, “but it’s also something that you can plug on other applications into in order to drive greater insights and accountability.” For example, the platform can integrate with drone applications, electronic signature capture and ERP systems. But collecting information across different functions requires significant stakeholder involvement. “You need to ensure that the stakeholders are engaged, and contributing to the project record on the platform,” Saraw adds. At the same time, a well-documented job means fewer disruptions for stakeholders and higher customer satisfaction at the end of the project, so everybody benefits. “Having a cohesive record of the project, along with proper change management, is a great way to manage from a contractor perspective,” Mandel says. “But it also aligns the owner’s expectations with the results they see at the end of the project, and gives them something that’s well maintained and documented for their future use. So it really can be a win-win.” For a large, national company like Bird with multiple divisions, collecting data in a cohesive way is a significant undertaking. “One of the biggest challenges that I see is being able to provide enough data to perform analytics with a high degree of confidence so that you can predict issues and conflicts before they materialize,” Mandel says. “That might put me out of a job as a risk manager, but I’m okay with that because that allows me to shift my focus from being reactive to looking at the data and bringing up problems that might occur in the future.” Jacob Stoller is principal of StollerStrategies. Send comments to editor@on-sitemag.com on-sitemag.com / 43
RISK
By David Bowcott
The power of co-mingling data to more effectively manage risk
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hroughout the economy, data is becoming the lifeblood of more effectively managing risk. We’ve all heard of predictive analytics, algorithms, artificial intelligence, big data and machine learning. These are the major buzzwords tied to data science, an emerging sector of the economy that is growing at a rapid pace – and being fueled by technology’s ability to gather more and more data. There truly is great power in harnessing a multitude of data to reduce risk while improving productivity, profitability, sustainability and safety. In fact, it is becoming a primary imperative across all sectors to gather, organize and utilize data to make better decisions. The construction sector is more challenged than others when it comes to organizing its data to better manage risk. Nearly every new project is a new design, at a new location, involving new stakeholders (design, subcontractors, prime contractor staff) and deals with an entirely new set of outdoor conditions. Unfortunately, the construction sector doesn’t have the data capture stability of the manufacturing sector – yet – whereby manufacturers make the same item over and over, in the same location, with the same stakeholders (supervision, workers, suppliers) and often under the exact same indoor conditions. As a result, construction cannot yet harness the power of data as effectively as the manufacturing sector. To advance and stabilize its data capture ability, construction must rely upon the power of co-mingling multiple sources of internal and external data. The following are some examples of data sources the construction sector should be tapping into and knitting together to fuel better decision making: 1. Project data – the various internal and external data on the project itself (nature of project, geotechnical data, environmental data, etc). 2. Design data – All data captured within the design process in both paper and digital formats. 3. Pre-construction data – Data captured in between the design and construction phases, including procurement process data and subcontractor/supplier data. 4. Construction data – Data primarily captured utilizing project management technology and point solution technology (RFI data, defect data, safety data, etc.). 5. Internet of Things (IoT) data – Tied to project management technology, this is the data provided in real-time from the project site (or throughout the supply chain) utilizing sensor technology that monitors everything from worker movement to temperature to vibration to computer vision sources.
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6. 7.
Accounting data – Related to the financials of the job site. Post-construction data – Data beyond construction provides tremendous insight on the quality of the design and workmanship. In some cases, the contractor has responsibility for the operations phase of the asset and can easily document post-construction data. Otherwise you could rely upon the owner to supply such data and/or will see issues in post-construction via warranty claims. 8. Weather data – Weather plays a significant role within the construction sector and its addition to the co-mingled data set is necessary. 9. Insurance data – The data from claims made to the insurance sector. Effectively a register of major events that went wrong on the project related to property, liability, worker injury, defective design, defective workmanship, subcontractor failure and environmental issues. 10. Other project data – Capturing data from other projects allows for the ability to benchmark the above data sets. 11. Data of peers – Data alliances are forming within the construction sector all over the world. Through such alliances construction stakeholders not only compare data from project to project, but can compare data from their firm to the data of their peers. In addition, some advisory partners have data sets which could allow for such comparison. The above are but a few key data sets that your firm should consider harnessing and co-mingling to fuel better decisions, though there are a range of other data sources that could be utilized to formulate a highly effective decision-making platform. Of those above, several stand out as deserving particular attention. Insurance data is one example, as it provides a functional inventory of what is going wrong on your projects. At the same time, construction data provides insight on project issues directly from staff at all levels of your organization, while IoT data is able to keep an unbiased record of your job site environment. Though still an emerging trend, data from fellow construction companies can help benchmark how your firm stacks up against peers around the world. By developing a co-mingled data platform you will ensure your firm is ideally prepared to handle the risks ahead and be in a much better position to run future jobs productively and profitably.
David Bowcott is Global Director – Growth, Innovation & Insight, Global Construction and Infrastructure Group at Aon Risk Solutions. Please send comments to editor@on-sitemag.com.
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2020-08-05 11:44 AM
CONTRACTORS & THE LAW
By Trish Morrison and Theron Davis
I hope they notice me: Enforceability of notice provisions in Alberta
I
years from the date of Substantial Performance. In that case, two years had passed since the issuance of the Certificate of Substantial Completion, the final certificate for payment had been issued and no notice had been given, but the owner later discovered circumstances for which it wished to claim. Though the defendants sought to escape liability on the basis that the owner’s claim was contractually barred, Justice Goss ultimately determined the effect of the clause, in the circumstances of that case, was to provide for the reduction of the statutory limitation period and was, as a result, invalid. The determination of the validity of a notice requirement will be fact specific. When reviewing a notice requirement in a contract, the question simply boils down to whether the Limitations Act (Alberta) would allow the plaintiff to sue past the date specified in the contract. If so, the contractual provision is likely invalid. “When assessing the validity of notice requirements a key However, it is important to keep in mind that not all contractual limitation distinguishing feature is whether the clause purports to limit periods will offend section 7 (2) of the the time for bringing all claims or only a specific claim.” Limitations Act. For example, in NOV Enerflow ULC v. Enerflow Industries Inc., 2015 ABQB 759 the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench held that imposing expiry In Alberta, if a claimant fails to give timely dates on representations and warranties in a Purchase and Sale notice, but later wishes to advance a claim, section Agreement did not violate the Limitations Act, if the expiry 7(2) of the Limitations Act may provide some relief, as that dates applied only to specific representations and warranties section prohibits agreements which purport to shorten a limitaand not all claims that may arise. In that case, the Court found tion period. For responding parties this statutory relief may the expiry date did not preclude bringing a claim entirely, as create uncertainty to terms that they thought were otherwise compared to the waiver and release of all claims in the CCDC clear, unambiguous, and readily understandable. provision. As an example, certain standard form CCDC contracts Consequently, when assessing the validity of notice requireinclude a term to the effect that five days prior to the expiry of ments a key distinguishing feature is whether the clause the lien period for the place of the work, the claimant waives purports to limit the time for bringing all claims or only a and releases the responding party from all claims except those specific claim. Further, whether a claim is being waived, as claims where, among other things, a notice in writing has opposed to expiring, may also change the outcome. Regardalready been issued. However, in Alberta, if the circumstances less, parties should review their notice obligations carefully that gave rise to the claim arose less than two years before the and remain vigilant as the project progresses. Relying on notice contractual claim deadline, the contractual notice provisions requirements alone may not insulate a party from later claims which purport to bar the claim may not be enforceable. and it is always preferable to keep open communication as In Wood Buffalo Housing & Development Corp. v. Flett, issues arise. 2014 ABQB 537, Justice Goss of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench reviewed a term similar to that regularly contained within Patricia (Trish) Morrison and Theron Davis practice Construction CCDC contracts. The clause in that case included language that Law at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP. This article is provided for the owner expressly waived and released the contractor from general information only and may not be relied upon as legal all claims except where a written claim was made prior to the advice. Please send comments to editor@on-sitemag.com date of the final certificate for payment or within a period of two
t is a common feature of many construction contracts that a party wishing to advance a claim must provide notice of its intention to do so within a specified period of time or before a particular milestone in the progress of a project. However, depending on when the circumstances giving rise to the claim arose, and the consequence of failing to provide notice, the Alberta Limitations Act may render the notice requirement invalid. Meeting the deadline to satisfy a notice requirement is not always straightforward. In the heat of the moment, it can be difficult to recognize if a claim has arisen, what the total magnitude of a claim may be, or if giving notice of a claim, with the risk of damaging the working relationship, is even worth it. All of these considerations can be especially murky when the parties are focused on completing the project.
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