The construction of four remote satellite stations saw one WA contractor play a critical role in linking rural communities to the rest of the country. Paul Skelton reports.

As the rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN) continues its sprawl across the country, many electrical and data cabling contractors are finding themselves playing a pivotal role in providing the infrastructure that will support the future of communications in Australia.

All around the country, contractors are actively involved in the day-to-day connection of homes to the ‘fibre grid’, laying cable in the street and ensuring that Australian home owners can connect to the vastly improved network.

This is great news for contractors as the opportunities available are no different in, say, New South Wales as they are in Western Australia, where Metrowest Electrical & Communications (MEC) recently completed the construction of and commissioning the electrical and communications component of multiple satellite base stations infrastructure that will enable internet access for remote communities.

“As a Western Australian-owned and operated company, we feel immensely proud to be part of such a significant project that has added real value to regional areas of WA,” MEC general manager Paul Frank says.

Established in 1995, MEC is part of the privately-owned West Australian Metrowest Group, which also has businesses in construction, UPS and power generation, electrical service and maintenance and property development.

The NBN Satellite Earth Stations – Electrical Services Project proved the most challenging project MEC has undertaken due to the complexity of the project combined with the geographic diversity of the site locations, a very tight timeframe and the need to run the site installations concurrently.

The project involved the supply and installation of electrical infrastructure and systems to four remote sites for the NBN network. The work on the sites was undertaken concurrently, which required applying strict project management principles to ensure each site had access to sufficient skilled resources, the project reached its completion within the compressed timeline and the project quality requirements were met. The locations and vast distances between the sites added significantly to the degree of difficulty.

MEC took on the role of lead coordinator for drawings and integrated systems testing (IST) to meet the client’s expectations and to ensure compliance with specifications.

“The size of this project and the fact that it involved working four teams concurrently in remote regions required MEC to place a very heavy emphasis on planning for procurement, labour resourcing and commissioning timelines. This brought a maturity and refinement to our company’s processes and exponentially strengthened our project management skills and capabilities,” MEC managing director Vin Ryan says.

“The company’s commitment to quality and a dedicated team were critical to the success of this project”.

The four sites – Eastern Goldfields, Mid West, Gascoyne and Great Southern – were designed with exacting and highly technical design specifications.

Throughout the project, MEC was responsible for coordinating all trades for equipment placement, commissioning and Revit 3D modelling; the supply and install of external electrical and data reticulation; data and electrical pits; earthing grid and lightning protection ; electrical panels; BMS system; lighting system; the UPS, power generation back up system and DC system; and managing and coordinating the IST.

Of course, as any contractor who has worked on as large a project knows, there are always challenges that need to be overcome.

“The project commenced in September 2013; initially the project was to start with the Eastern Goldfields and after six week intervals, each additional site was meant to launch. This did not eventuate as within three weeks of the initial site starting the second site started. Four weeks later the third site was underway quickly followed by the final site,” Paul says.

“This placed a major strain on resources, both on people and the equipment and tools required to complete the work.

“The late change to the installation schedule provided a challenging situation as prior work commitments had to be accommodated in parallel with the NBN project. This necessitated a reallocation of resources from other areas of the business, increased the need for training and supervision to maintain the high quality the project demanded and required additional equipment and tools to be purchased or hired depending on the length of time they would be required.”

The logistics of moving people and equipment between Perth and the site or from site to site imposed its own challenges due to the remoteness of the sites. Multiple sites, restricted accommodation options and seasonal demand provided further constraints on project planning. To overcome these limitations, MEC worked with a two month forecasting window to procure accommodation requirements.

Then the weather turned.

“In any typical project, inclement weather is a valid reason for an extension of time; however, in this case we had international companies booked for commissioning purposes, so the project had to be completed on schedule,” Paul says.

“This meant closely monitoring the weather and ensuring that all external works were finely coordinated to limit the damage caused by the weather.”

Due to inclement weather experienced on two sites, the approach to the early works was amended so only three trenches were worked on at any given time to reduce the risk of damage caused by rain. This required in-depth consultation with other trades to ensure their works were not restricted and a priority system was established.

The challenges arising from multiple locations, inclement weather and a compressed timeframe – such as having only four weeks to produce the site main distribution boards – led to some very innovative thinking on behalf of MEC.

“A large part of this project revolved around the certification of works by the consulting engineers as each stage was nearing completion,” Paul explains.

“Normally this would entail numerous site visits at the appropriate time; however, working in remote areas of the state made this very difficult.

“As an example, every trench had to be a precise depth and width with all conduits spaced exactly as designed. As work could not proceed without getting the engineers to signoff, we devised a method that allowed engineers located in another State to be able to sign off on each portion or works in a streamlined manner and leaving no doubt that the work was being completed as per the requirements. This ensured there were no hold ups on what was a very tight schedule.”

Further, based on the complexity of the in-group conduit system, and the exacting specifications on position and depth of all underground services, specially designed templates were used to ensure that the conduit positions were maintained during back-filling.

“As Metrowest has a history of working in the voice data and communications industry, the original perception of this project was that the works were to be relatively straight forward and would require our tried and proven approach. It soon became evident that this was not the case and a unique project management approach was required. An example of this was to ensure uniformity on all sites MEC created a live ‘lessons learnt’ and ‘information sharing’ system between all sites. . This also allowed MEC to achieve continuous improvement in the installation and testing processes and resulted in a reduction in defects from site to site.”

In keeping with Metrowest’s beliefs and high focus on safety management, and due to the compressed timeframe and schedule, a fatigue management plan was implemented to ensure the safety of MEC’s people. There was no downtime due to accidents on this project. The conformance to and understanding of company procedure was of a very high level.

“It’s great to think that the success of this project, which Metrowest has contributed to, is improving the way rural people communicate and the impact it is having on them,” Paul says.

MEC’s work on this project was recently announced as the winner of the 2015 WA MBA Sub Contractor – Electrical Services award as well as the winner of the overall MBA Subcontractor of the year award; in addition, MEC won the 2015 NECA WA Excellence Award in the Voice/Data category and is representing WA in the respective national awards.