Nicola Uijen

Said the following about Damian Wright:

“Damian Wright arrived on the ATC Systemwide contract a little over twelve months ago. The project is to fit out the Crossrail tunnels with everything from track to signalling to power, etc to make them functional for the public. The tunnel has been handed over in piecemeal sections and to varying standards

The project is incredibly complex over 20km of tunnels with multiple entry points through other Principal Contractor domains. The performance when Damian arrived was not to the standard we as a Contractor or the Joint Venture Board found acceptable. The Client, Crossrail, also showed the project as one of the worst performing projects on their performance indicators.

Damian has used his calm unassuming nature to win the confidence of the Client and slowly change the thinking and behaviours of the operational team. Damian lead the senior team to recognise the areas that needed improving and really engaged with them to design how they would deliver these improvements. He also recognised weaknesses in his own team and has restructured that to get the best out of the team, it has been great to see the team change, grow in confidence and skill, and blossom to a different level of maturity. With the increased operation of trains, he influenced the senior management to strengthen the team responsible for these operations leading to reduced numbers of train incidents as the awareness of risk was better appreciated and the skill of those involved was improved. The increased confidence from the Client and delivering as expected to their requirements has seen the performance indicator score increase dramatically to be recognised as the most improved project in Crossrail and within the top 5 performing contracts.

On top of getting the basics right Damian has been involved with applying new technologies on the project to reduce significant risk. The project have adopted automation wherever possible to reduce human exposure to risk, this has included the use of a multi purpose gantry used for laying track and a drilling rig. One of Damian's concerns had been the drilling of over 20,000 holes for installation of cable management systems. He worked with the team to introduce a robotic rig, designed by the engineers on site, this has significantly reduced the exposure to noise, dust, and vibration of our colleagues installing this equipment. Damian is also focussed on mental health as well as physical and has driven through a training and awareness programme for everyone on the project. Damian is very keen to promote health on the project and has been striving to improve this significantly, something recognised by the Client in their health performance audits scoring the project with unprecedented level of health best practices.

The contract works in excess of 1 million man hours a month and Damian has halved the AFR on the contract in the last 12 months, reducing it to 0.16. Whilst other contracts have similar numbers of hours, few are spread out over such an area with so many access points, and such a varied intense programme of work. The achievements in terms of engineering are immense and never cease to amaze me in what is being constructed. The ability to produce such a great end product in terms of engineering excellence with such a strong culture of engagement, identification of risk and targeted actions is testament to Damian's hard work with the team, putting safety and health as true values and not add ons.“