Name: Mark Platt MCIOB
Employer: Laing O'Rourke Construction North
Project: MaST LIFT Health & Social Framework, Manchester
An ambassador for his company and a credit to his profession are just two in a long and glowing line of plaudits showered on Mark Platt.
In this healthcare project, which has built just about everything from a single general practice to a full joint-service centre, Mark performed superbly. Despite having a clutch of building sites progressing simultaneously at any one time, his ability to multitask effectively brought in all the schemes on time, to a high quality and within budget.
Yet Mark’s consistent capture of the construction manager’s tripartite grail is only half the story. The project’s health and safety record – no accident or injury in over 500,000 man-hours worked – is perfect. He drove community initiatives around the sites and engaged brilliantly with the neighbours, often succeeding where previous efforts by health executives had been fruitless, and laying the groundwork for longer-term engagement between the health facilities and the communities they serve.
Just as crucially, he mastered the very special client relationships typical of the NHS, where the many users are heavily involved in design specification to a very detailed level. Quite simply, the users love him. Cheerful and stoic even when the decision-making was by notoriously hard-to-manage committee, Mark steadied the ship whatever design alteration gale was blowing.
Rather than enforce the no-change contract rigidly, Mark was instrumental in creating mechanisms to accommodate changes from an inexperienced client very late in the design process. His proactive and helpful approach removed the often negative preconceptions of construction held by the health professionals.
Mark nurtured a real team ethic by organising charity events and setting up a five-a-side football club and golf society, both still active after four years. He built an innovative and integrated supply chain, encouraging framework commitment through repeat business for good performance. This generated further benefits through subcontractor advice in design and heightened teamwork as the supply chain moved from site to site.
Knowing that actions speak louder than words, Mark led by example, and team members aligned themselves with his ethic of hard work, enthusiasm, eye for detail, desire for excellence, sense of humour and determination to succeed. The undoubted success of this project owes him an incalculable amount.