Andrew Hobbs 19 Sep 2016
ROY HILL was recognised for outstanding achievement by the Western Australian division of Engineers Australia in an awards ceremony held in Perth on the weekend.
The project was named overall winner of the WA Engineering distinction award at the 2016 Australian Engineering Excellence Awards WA, as well as taking out prizes for project management and resource development.
Chief judge Ken Michael said the project, a joint submission by Roy Hill Holdings and WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff, had achieved an outstanding number of engineering firsts in its construction, which included a 344km railway line, a two berth port and a remote operations centre in Perth.
“A new average rail laying rate of 1.3 km per day is a breakthrough for the industry,” he said.
“This year’s winner demonstrated world best practice and established new benchmarks for the delivery of major resource development projects, benefiting the industry for years to come.” Roy Hill project director and acting chief operating officer Sanjiv Manchanda said the scale and complexity of the project was extraordinary by any measure.
The company’s engagement of a project management contractor to oversee the fixed price EPC contract and bring people, systems and processes to the project had never been attempted in an iron ore project before, he said.
On top of this, the company needed to manage a workforce of over 25,000 over the life of the project, doing so with no lost time injuries in over 37.9 million hours worked. “The way in which the project was structured and managed has set a new benchmark for project management excellence in Australia and indeed the project management of large scale mining projects in Australia, which is already being emulated by projects currently in development across the country,” he said.
Recipients of the AEEA Western Australia Awards 2016 are eligible to nominate for the national Australian Engineering Excellence Awards which will be staged in Brisbane during the Australian Engineering Conference, November 23-25.
