Kathryn McGufficke

Said the following about Mike Hinchliffe:

“Michael Hinchliffe started his Graduate Program at Crossrail West Stations (CWS) as Graduate Planning Engineer in November 2015. He is proactive in his approach to acquiring knowledge and skills, which has been a key contributor to his personal and professional development. Michael can be relied upon to identify project challenges that need to be addressed to achieve and exceed contract and business objectives, and to present solutions. His key strength is taking on board feedback from his peers, colleagues, managers and mentors to further develop the solution, and invariably ask for feedback on the solution once it’s been implemented ensuring continuous improvement. The development and use of 4D Building Information Modelling (BIM) is one such project that exemplifies Michael’s initiative.

As you know in rail, safety and time is paramount. Most of our work is completed in short slots each night, every day of the week. Maximising the work that we can do in that slot and doing it safely is critical to completing the job, staying on budget, and keeping the railway running every day. Michael intuitively approaches his work with a view to work smarter, more efficiently, and to implement new technologies where applicable. He identified improvement in possession programming at CWS by the use of BIM. His focus on how we can (and do) use 3D modelling and progressing it into the 4D time perspective has allowed us to plan ahead effectively and maximise the possessions.

4D modelling has allowed CWS the ability to illustrate how the structures will be used in live platforms and has helped us plan how we are going to set up hoarding, build it during possession access, and keep the platform open for the several hundred passengers that disembark the first Great Western Rail train during rush hour.

At first 4D modelling was not greatly accepted by the station teams, however Michael went to each site and presented the benefits of using 4D modelling for possessions. This happened in the first two months Michael started as a graduate and by introducing the 4D modelling to each site, Michael got to know the station teams quite well. This is where the idea of using the 4D modelling of major possessions in inductions stemmed. The model helps inductees to understand the works and visualise what is going to happen, rather than looking at multiple drawings and reading plans.

Michael then took the modelling a step further, by including a time-lapse of the possession works with the model and programme, site teams were able to see how the work was completed against the planned programmed. The time-lapse is also used for photographic health and safety and dispute evidence. The time-lapses joined with the programme and 4D model has been used for Taylor Woodrow tender submissions, proving to potential clients that we do what we plan, and we plan effectively.

Some stations on the Crossrail West route were built 120 years and in between these buildings have been modified a number of times and often no records have been kept of these modifications. Michael saw this as an opportunity to introduce laser scanning technology to gives us point cloud data – the ability to capture every nook and cranny from one scan. This has allowed us to include the scans into our design packages and use the models for as-builts. Everything that is located and captured from the laser scans is fed into the 3D model which will be handed to the maintainer, therefore when Taylor Woodrow have completed work at Crossrail West we will leave Network Rail with a model of exactly what the stations look like.

Michael also discovered that a by-product of the laser scanner is its ability to take panoramic photos. He then taught himself HTML coding to convert these photos into a viewable format that can be inserted into addendums for dilapidation surveys.

Michael saw that the benefits of 4D modelling and laser scanning was beyond CWS, which led him to share his learnings and offer training to Taylor Woodrow employees outside of CWS.

The Crossrail West Stations team is ‘lean’, which has meant that Michael has had to take on a work load and level of responsibility over and above what would be expected of a graduate. In that sense, he has demonstrated an exceptional work ethic and a professionalism which makes him an ideal ambassador for graduates in our industry.“