Western Sydney Airport Bulk Earthworks

Development of the new Western Sydney Airport is a major infrastructure project that’s been many years in the planning. The Nancy Bird Walton Airport, named in honour of the pioneering Australian aviator who was the founder of the Australian Women’s Pilots’ Association, will initially have facilities to cater for 10 million domestic and international passengers a year, as well as freight services.

Following early construction in 2018, the bulk earthworks project was awarded to a joint venture between CPB Contractors and Acciona (CPBACC JV) in late 2019. Scheduled to be completed in 2022, the project includes topographical and drainage design for the entire airport precinct, as well as detailed design and construction of earthworks and drainage for the area.

It’s a large scale project, costing $644 million and involving significant design and construction. For example, the team expects to move around 25 million cubic metres of earth to support the construction of the runway and terminal alone.

The earthworks cover a large site of several square kilometres, and the CPBACC JV environment and sustainability team is responsible for measuring and managing the environmental impacts of all this activity. The team monitors noise and air quality across the site, using a variety of different devices including Thomson and other gauges for dust, and Svantek and Rion monitors to measure noise levels.

The tender process specified a web-based solution for greater efficiency

Managing all this disparate data in different formats and systems was set to be time-consuming and difficult, so the team wanted a way to streamline this and manage everything in one place. They also wanted the solution to be web-based. After investigating their options, the team chose SiteHive as the platform to manage all the data from the various sources.

Jon May, Environment and Sustainability Lead, explains, “We put the project out to tender and then reviewed three options. SiteHive gave us the best confidence because we knew they had done it before and they understood our requirements.”

Data from multiple devices is managed together in one graphical Dashboard

SiteHive allows data from different environmental monitoring devices to be managed together easily, from one place. The data is shown in graph form, so the environment team can see clearly what is happening on site at any point in time. The team set up their own rules within SiteHive, and use it to manage the various data inputs in line with the project requirements.

Claire Macpherson, Environmental Graduate on the project, says, “Using SiteHive has been a huge time saving. In the past we would have to download data and convert it into the right format for each device. Now it’s automatic - the data is right there and it’s put against our rules.”

“For example, it used to take four hours to get the air quality data downloaded, and then we had to put it in Excel and work on it. Now it’s automatic. It’s a big saving just on that - probably a day a month.”

SiteHive enables proactive management of environmental impacts

The CPBACC JV team uses SiteHive to manage the site proactively. Having continuous data available in real time means they can see what’s happening and investigate issues immediately. They also use SiteHive SMS alerts on their phones, which notify them, and their site team, whenever there are exceedances on site.

“Having the SMS alerts is great too as we know that we’ll be alerted if there’s an issue. Our environmental manager can just use their phone to manage it the whole time.”

Graphical reporting is easy and can be shared with stakeholders

The team finds their environmental reporting is much easier and more effective using SiteHive. The software provides graphs that are easy to understand, and the team uses them directly for reporting purposes and with clients. Plus they have a complete record of what has happened on site to aid with reporting.

Claire explains, “SiteHive has all the information you need for reporting. For example, the exceedance register table has all the exceedances recorded along with information and prompts, so you can just expand on that in the reports. The reporting is really useful.”

Having all this information in a user-friendly format also allows the team to keep their clients informed. Jon says, “Our client is very impressed with the data. Plus the presentation of the graphs is attractive so we can just use them directly with the client.”

Overall, SiteHive has made it much easier for the CPBACC JV team to manage their environmental impact and compliance across a large and complex site. They’ve been able to use the most appropriate devices for each monitoring task, and have all the data immediately accessible and understandable in one central place. It has facilitated a more proactive approach to environmental management, allowing the team to address issues as they happen to deliver better environmental outcomes.