Name: Keith Lovell MCIOB
Employer: Bovis Lend Lease
Project: Manchester Joint Hospitals
Contract: PFI
Construction is about leadership. Nowhere is that more clearly demonstrated than on this project. With programme, quality and financial challenges mounting, a senior management shake-up two years into the project included the arrival of Keith Lovell to take charge of a demoralised team.
Keith brought clear leadership and direction. His revitalised an underachieving team. He gave young colleagues clearly defined responsibilities and had them report to more experienced managers. He changed key personnel, filling crucial positions with proven managers from the site team and those he had worked with on other projects, and promoting staff who had been overlooked or were ready for additional responsibilities.
He established and maintained an environment that ensured staff were supported and enjoyed their work. Humour and welfare were deployed to great effect. Peer pressure helped ensure staff performed to their potential. And Keith brought together all operational staff at weekly communication meetings that covered health and safety, company business, staff matters, key objectives and social functions.
He gained the trust and confidence of the client and users by consistently delivering. He split the main hospital into 160sqm zones, each with their own programme, reported on weekly by the construction team and reviewed fortnightly. During his five years in charge he completed all 23 sectional handovers on time.
Keith regularly challenged the design to reduce costs while delivering the employer’s requirements. His solutions included reducing slab depth and rebar, rationalising internal walls from 40 types to 20, changing the atrium roof from glass to ETFE, and pan-finishing the concrete slabs with a thin structural screed that provided a dense, high-quality substrate.
Value: £403m