Category Archives: Highway

Highway construction with excavators

Construction industry requires different types of heavy equipment for various types of works. They can’t limit their use to just one kind of machine for all the work. They have to bring in different heavy equipment that are capable of doing certain specialized work. For instance, you can’t make use of a loader for grading purpose. You have to use a grader for that work. Simultaneously, you can’t use any heavy equipment other than a water truck to spray water on the jobsite to contain the dust on the site. In the same way, when you are constructing a highway there are few heavy equipments that you need the most; without which you just can’t get the act right. You need a roller to crush the stuffs and make the road smooth and plain. Similarly, you also need an excavator at the beginning of the highway construction. Perhaps it all starts with an excavator which comes in handy for lot many activities.

A crawler excavator is perhaps the best heavy equipment that a contractor who engages in highway construction can have. A crawler excavator is quite similar to any other excavator which is exclusively used for excavating earth and rock and then loading them onto dump trucks. It basically has a boom which is attached to the front of the machine. At the end of the book, you will have a bucket with or without claws which is extensively used to pull out mud. The cabin in which the operator sits and operates the machine is just right above the undercarriage and is set on a rotating platform. The undercarriage of the machine has wheels or tracks which help the machine to move without losing grip. The attachment in a crawler excavator can be changed as per the requirement of the business. This means that you can now select from a range of options of attachments that you feel will get the work completed in lesser time.

The operator working on the excavator should be highly skilled and experienced as you can’t have someone who has little or no experience in highway construction. Operators who have worked for at least 5 years in constructing small roads can be signed up for highway construction. They should be under the supervision of senior operators who have loads of experience in constructing highways. Constructing highways is a tough job and it takes years for operators to clear the ground for the next level.

A contractor who has taken up the job of excavating should have more than 3 excavators working at a time on the site. They should set up a point till where the excavation work will be carried out and also a deadline should be given to the operators to make sure that the work is done within the given timeframe. Excavating work should be done in a phased manner and not dig up the entire place at one go. Once the excavating work is done, it should pave way for other machines to complete their part of job.

Design Build Highway construction

A country’s economy is largely dependent on the quality of highways it has. You need big roads for huge vehicles to move on and these huge vehicles carry tons of weight on it. This means that you need highways that are strong and long lasting. Now in order to have long lasting highways you need a solid design to go with so that the construction of the highway goes in accordance to the design being made by the engineers and it remain strong to cater to thousands of vehicles that passes each day. There is something known as “Design Build” which is majorly used in construction of roads and highways. Here the design of the highway and its construction are done by the same entity. This means that no 2 different entities will be in the picture and the entire responsibility of the highways construction remains with only one construction company who has taken the order to construct the highway.

Earlier there was something known as Design Bid and Build that was followed by construction companies. In this particular scenario, one entity used to prepare the design of the highway and the other followed the design and worked on it. This created lot of problems with who will take the accountability if something goes wrong in the making of the project. The company who designed the project will point fingers at the company who has taken the construction work and the later will do the same on the company who has designed the project. In this case, the ultimate sufferer is the common people, the taxpayer of the country who has paid for the project and what they got in return is something worthless. This is why the concept of “Design Build” came into existence where the sole responsibility of the project remains with one company and if anything goes wrong then we know who to catch hold of.

Reduces overall costs of the project:-

Since there is only one company involved with the design and construction of the highway, we can expect a sizeable amount of reduction in the overall cost to the project. The construction company can work on the design and if it finds any changes to be made which happens quite often in a project of this magnitude can have a talk with the guys who did the design work for them and get it redesigned to their convenience. Had there been 2 entities, the redesigning thing would have taken huge sum of money from the project and have also made the process quite time consuming. Moreover there are chances of ego clash happening and if that happens it becomes more difficult to complete the highway on time.

The designers and the contractors are in sync:-

The Design Build concept has brought in a greater sense of responsibility by generating strong team bonding between the designers and the contractors. Since they belong to the same entity they have to work in sync with each other and it has been seen that people who work in a team derives better result that guys who work alone.

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