Ideagen Plant Assessor and Hunt8r Alliance

The job involved building a 3rd rail line along 43 kilometres of ARTC’s heavily trafficked Hunter Coal Rail Network.

The project was part of a broader streamlining of the entire Hunter Valley Coal Chain, and the Hunt8r name resulted from its principle objective, being to increase the average train frequency from every 17 minutes to every 8 minutes.

Hunt8r Alliance partners included John Holland, GHD and ARTC.

Stage I – All Hands on Deck

Stage I of the project commenced in 2009, with the start delayed significantly by complications with the Environmental Planning and Assessment process. Unfortunately for the Alliance, despite starting construction 9 months later than expected, deadlines for completion were not adjusted.

This saw a massive plant mobilisation required to get bulk earthworks and other associated works underway as quickly as possible.

Hunt8r Alliance Safety Manager, Jason Hudson, was faced with a significant dilemma – how to ensure all of the plant to be mobilised met the strict safety standards expected by the Alliance partners.

“I had seen the Plant Assessor system some months previously, and thought it was pretty slick. So I called them and asked what they could do to help”

“Plant Assessor immediately came and saw me and ran me through the options – they could teach my team how to use Plant Assessor so we could do it ourselves, or they could send their inspection team in to do it for us.” 

“In light of the significant time pressures we faced on the job, we chose to get their inspection team to conduct the initial round of inspections. In addition to that, they were able to tailor the inspections for this project to include some specific issues that we wanted to check on each assessment.”

Within one day of receiving instructions, Plant Assessor had inspectors on site, and was able to complete more than 120 detailed inspections covering a complex 11km long site very quickly.

Following the initial week of inspections, Plant Managers on each section of the project were trained to use Plant Assessor. Between these Plant Managers and Plant Assessor inspectors, a further 280 items of plant were inspected in the following 6 months of Stage I.

“The Plant Assessor process is regimented and thorough, whilst being simple and easy to follow. Anyone can use it as long as they understand the plant well and have reasonable comprehension skills,” he said.

Stage II – 1000+ Plant Inspections

Stage II of the project saw Hunt8r Alliance move to a full “Do It Yourself” inspection regime.

The 34km long job site was split up into 3 sections each of which had a Plant Manager responsible for ensuring that all plant coming on to the job met the Alliance’s minimum plant safety standards.

These Plant Managers were responsible for ensuring Plant Assessor inspections were undertaken on all plant. Between the three areas, the Alliance successfully inspected well over 1,000 items of plant during the second stage of the project.

During these stages Plant Assessor also chipped in for various charities by hosting site BBQs to help with fund raising activities for good causes, including Movember.

Stages I & II were brought in on time and on budget. The Plant Assessor team are proud to have assisted the project team in some small way in achieving that goal.