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Civillo Case Studies Melbourne Projects

How John Holland Group is using Civillo to eliminate level crossings

With the help of mobile spatial technology and some considerable foresight from the Melbourne surveying team, certain divisions of John Holland Group (JHG) are now collaborating more efficiently than ever before.

Since the implementation of Civillo which brings the latest in civil construction project planning innovation, JHG are expertly attacking the removal of dozens of Melbourne’s most dangerous and crowded suburban level rail crossings.

Almost a decade ago, Civillo was born from the need to have all of a project’s up-to-date data loaded together inside the one single software resource. Advancements have now seen Civillo evolve into the ideal cloud-based solution for all workforces, even those that are physically separated with team members needing to work from home.

Civillo incorporates CAD and GIS files of different formats with other useful geo-referenced layers such as aerial imagery and map information. This creates a useful and comprehensive overview of a project’s spatial layout.

"Civillo has made my job easier because it's so versatile; you can utilise it within the civil engineering area, the resources area and also the HR area."

Stephen Meadows, John Holland Group - Survey Manager

Civillo allows all staff and stakeholders to access the same up-to-date datasets, thus JHG has experienced significant enhancements in workflow efficiency.

John Holland Group Survey Manager, Stephen Meadows explained that “Civillo has made my job easier because it’s so versatile; you can utilise it within the civil engineering area, the resources area and also the HR area.”

The key to efficiency is communication. Civillo ensures all spatial data is consolidated, current and consistent.

Map of current works taken from Level Crossing Removal Authority website (https://levelcrossings.vic.gov.au/)

Mr Meadows appreciates the time-saving power of having all of his staff on the same page. “The advantage of Civillo having all the features, all the design, all the as-builts in one area is that that you can access it and then easily send it out for people to utilise on (or off) site”, he explained.

Whether on a PC, laptop, tablet, or smart phone Civillo is within easy reach of all JHG employees at any time of the day or night. Time wasted chasing the latest plans, design files or survey measurements is entirely eliminated.

JHG bring together all of their spatial data in one place for all staff inside Civillo.

Collaboration is powerful when it is undertaken effectively, and delivering to deadlines on large-scale civil projects is constantly a priority for John Holland Group. With Civillo on board, JHG are optimised, particularly in relation to their recent works removing Melbourne’s congested level crossings.

With progress now underway on the Upfield line in Melbourne’s inner northern suburbs between Bell Street and Moreland Road, JHG continues to deliver and execute these complicated projects with clarity and accountability. Civillo continues to be a valuable partner in managing the vital spatial information.

(Main photo by Dean Bennett on Unsplash)

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Civillo Case Studies Melbourne Projects

How Winslow Group is Increasing Efficiency with Civillo

The Winslow Group is one of Victoria’s leading civil construction contractors, managing the design and implementation of civil engineering projects for government organisations, corporate property developers and private landowners. For over twelve months now their process efficiency has been enhanced by using Civillo.

With expertise in road and bridge construction, roadway infrastructure projects, industrial, residential and commercial subdivision, bulk earthworks and land remediation, the Winslow Group manages a diverse range of civil projects.

In order for Winslow to maintain their valuable reputation of delivering jobs to specification, to budget and on time, efficiency and effective collaboration between both team members and different third-party businesses operating within the Group is essential.

Increasing Efficiency Through Improved Access to Information

Winslow management initially identified that Civillo could improve the speed with which survey data was made accessible to the other areas of their business.

Before using Civillo the Winslow engineers, project managers, site foremen and general labourers were required to request the information from the survey professionals before key decisions could be made and actions undertaken at the job site.

This resulted in the surveyors having to deal with a high volume of requests, and in some cases having to travel out to site and set out the information in order for decisions to be made. Obviously this was identified as a significant drain on time and resources.

“The reason we wanted to start using Civillo was to get that information into the hands of our project managers, foremen and engineers, so they could make decisions without involving the survey group.”

“That way the surveying resources would be utilised in the capacity intended – for more complex scenarios and decision making,” explains Hugh Peck, Survey Manager at Survey Management Solutions (Winslow’s survey division).

In particular, creating asset protection plans (APPs) took up considerable time and resources for the survey department. It is essential that every worker on the project is familiar with the APPs before any work is undertaken, thus creating and distributing APPs is critical to the smooth progress of any Winslow job.

City Roadmap
Civillo was the ideal sotware solution for cloud-based and real-time collaboration.

Before adopting Civillo, a range of different individual systems were used to generate these plans. In some instances the project managers would even print out construction plans and manually highlight the presumed location of services. At other times, the survey group was required to go onto site and map the locations in AutoCAD. “Then, the APP was generated in AutoCAD which can be cumbersome and takes a lot longer to generate a plan,” Mr Peck explains.

Now, using Civillo the up-to-date survey data is immediately accessible to all Winslow users, vastly speeding up processes and ensuring the survey professionals’ valuable time is protected.

Increasing Efficiency Through Improved Collaboration Workflows

As a result of using the software in this capacity, Winslow has also found Civillo to be an invaluable collaboration tool for businesses within the group.

The Winslow Group is made up of a construction entity and other supporting entities that include the survey group and traffic management, which supply services such as soil cutting, traffic planning, and non-destructive digging. The seamless collaboration between each of these businesses and teams is vital to the group’s efficiency and profitability, and to the successful completion of projects.

On a recent cradle-to-grave project at Palmers Road in Melbourne’s west, Winslow was tasked with locating existing services and undertaking a clash analysis and therefore utilised Civillo to plan the works and show where different tasks were needed.

“...we’ve had the team on their iPads... sharing screens with Civillo and talking to it directly, instead of having to... have a site meeting."

Mr Hugh Peck

For example, the functionality inside Civillo was able to guide where trucks needed to drive in order to excavate and expose the existing services. Then, the survey group came through and mapped the location of these services, which were then incorporated back into Civillo to show when the work was completed. From there, the modelling and clash analysis was able to be done.

“It is helpful as a collaboration tool to plan across the different businesses – where the traffic control needs to be set up, where the support of the soil cutting part of the business is needed to do soil cutting on asphalt to expose services under road or footpaths, and planning the number of resources we need in planning shifts,” Mr Peck explained.

Furthermore, during the current COVID-19 pandemic, “we’ve had the team on their iPads and doing video conferencing meetings, sharing screens with Civillo and talking to it directly, instead of having to bounce back and forth or have a site meeting where people are wandering around not knowing where things are,” he elaborated.

Next Steps

As part of Civillo’s policy of constant improvement and user-led development, feedback and suggestions from Winslow are now driving new additions to the software and user interface. This collaborative and iterative way of working ensures that Civillo remains at the forefront of the field and continues to drive innovation in the Australian construction sector.

Conclusion

Since using Civillo, Winslow has seen a marked improvement in efficiency across the group. With Civillo improving the effectiveness of several key processes including the creation of asset protection plans (APPs). In doing so the Winslow Group has been able to free up considerable time and resources for their survey department, therefore the Civillo software has now been implemented more widely across the entire company.

As a result of using Civillo different business sectors, third party service providers and internal teams are now all collaborating more easily, which in turn is improving overall efficiency and productivity, thus saving significant money.