Name: David Firth MCIOB
Employer: Sir Robert McAlpine
Project: Chill Factor e, Manchester
Contract: JCT 98
Technical mastery, strong leadership and interpersonal excellence: David Firth’s awesome exposition of the higher arts of construction management shines through in this project.
He led from the front, laying down strategies that others were soon keen to follow. From the outset, he made it his business to understand fully the client’s design and business aspirations and used them as his guiding light for every aspect of the project. His commitment to engaging with the client and the design team spread through the project, generating a whole-team willingness to diagnose and find solutions to the inevitable challenges.
David personally took charge of working out for the client how to incorporate a toboggan run into the ski slope. His clear leadership and judicious risk analysis brought the solution: combining a swimming pool slide made of glass reinforced plastic with an ice rink freezer mat to form an ice-lined chute.
Having committed to a reduced contract period so the client could open in time for its peak pre-Christmas winter period, he then delivered by taking the crucial decision to build the snow-making gantries offsite. They were hoisted into place with the main steel frame erection, complete with flooring, handrails, blast chillers and snow gun valve stations. The offsite construction resulted in cost savings, superior pipe weld quality and fewer site works at height.
And when a few weeks before handover the client shrank the period for the crucial warm-side fit-out by removing two of the main structural columns and reconfiguring the layout of completed shop units, David took it in his stride. He drove a mini piling rig down the Alpine-themed street, temporarily propped the works, and personally reprogrammed the remaining finishing trades to coincide with the structural works.
David successfully incorporated 200 formal variations, amounting to £3m worth of substantial change, during the course of construction. By providing early indications of the extra build costs, and constantly advising on cost movements, he allowed the client to make fact-based value judgements and present a business case to secure the additional funding required.
No surprise, then, that the client wants to do it all again with the same Robert McAlpine team, as it looks to roll out more ski slopes across the country on the back of David’s success at Manchester.