Recruitment
““The Amey signal structures team were initially mobilised at short notice in Autumn 2014 in response to an emerging urgent scope requirement to achieve W10 gauge clearance on the Acton to Reading route to secure a critical freight diversionary path, required to enable future possessoin patterns that were pivotal to the delivery of the GWML upgrade programme.
That initial requirement to provide 5 x twin track cantilevers in just 14 weeks from inception to commissioning was successfully delivered at Christmas 2014 to meet the January milestone for gauge clearance.
Key factors in this achievement were the behaiour and attitude of both the Amey contract team and the Network Rail delivery team, working together they behaved as a truly collaborative partnership that generated a 'can do' energy around the challenge.
Utilisation of lightweight strcutures with no permanent matinenance access was crucial to red uce manufacture and construction times, but required close liaison with the local maintenance and RAM teams to provide justification on the approach and support to fault team response. This included 24/7 on call response from the delivery team and a commitment for mobilisation of MEWP provision. This is a requirement that has not yet been required, and hopefully will never be needed, however the manner in which this arrangement was faciliated is a measure of the behavious of the teams. The requirement was accepted, embraced and responded to, rather than rejected or pushed back on.
In terms of execution, there were teething troubles that you would expect with forming a new team, but with a massively steep learning curve these issues were quickly and effectively addressed and contingency was built into the plan from the outset such that we soon began to see certainty of delivery established in the weeks leading up to Xmas.
The Xmas commissioning itself was once again a truly collaborative event, with Network Rail staff integrated with Amey teams to deliver a one team, one outcome approach standing side by side on site.
The success of this initial tranche of structures was subsequently transferred to the Easter 2015 commissioning, which supported the Slough PSB Relock/Recontrol with provision of a 5 track gantry and 2 further cantilevers delivered in the 12 weeks between Xmas and Easter.
The team continue to deliver further stucture renewals to provide OLE compliance to faciliate electrification of the GWML route to the west of Airport Junction.
All of this compressed delivery programme has been delivered safely and to quality, whilst also hitting all the key milestones.““
“The category Signalling and Telecommunications Engineer of the year is special to us as this is the main discipline within Rail that uses our products and services for their Critical Data Communications Infrastructure. So having faith in the robustness, ease of use and low maintenance of our systems is important to us and in return we as a key supplier to the Rail Industry need to recognise this. So this year and for the 4th year running Westermo are proud to be part of the Railstaff awards 2016.”
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