Name: Richard McInally
Employer: Bovis Lend Lease
Project: Silverburn Shopping Centre, Glasgow
Contract: SBC 2004
Richard McInally married construction, design and commercial intelligence with an irrepressible hard-edged drive to overcome every problem thrown at him by this massive scheme. He fulfilled all the client’s aspirations and left the project team with smiles on their faces.
Originally appointed to manage phase 2 of the mall, Richard was soon drafted in to take control of phase 1 as well, where four months after site start the smiles had given way to frowns. At that point the contract was six weeks behind programme.
Even worse, very late client changes were starting to jeopardise the project team’s ability to deliver. There were over 600 separate employer’s variations, just one of which involved £2m worth of works.
There is rarely a silver bullet for a project running late. With numerous separate handovers making it impossible to manipulate the critical elements, in effect, everything was critical. So Richard put his faith in the industry’s tried and trusted method for achieving success: he inspired the whole construction team to pull together and recover the position through sheer hard work.
Richard put his wit, warmth and will to work in a determined campaign for a teamwork ethos that resulted in excellent relationships between the client and construction teams. Problems were aired openly and solved amicably with no recourse to contractual confrontation.
He successfully value-engineered the scheme to bring it within budget and promote buildability. He brought the project through such high-risk areas as redesigning a precast rock face to facilitate installation, and using vibro-compaction consolidation in phase 2 to allow for a ground-bearing concrete slab rather than the post-tensioned element causing difficulties in phase 1.
This calm and self-deprecating construction manager achieved all the project’s 100 unit handovers and two sectional completions on time or earlier. He gave the client its mall within budget and programme. His collaborative leadership ensured the supply chain secured its margin. And he also delivered a profit for his employer as well as an enhanced reputation for himself. In short, everybody won.