W.W. Clyde & Co.
I-15 South Cedar Interchange
What makes it interesting?
This project provided several interesting challenges, but namely the requirement to completely reconfigure an interchange and surface streets while maintaining the movement and function of those roads and pedestrian crossings for the general public. W.W. Clyde & Co.’s favorite analogy for this project was that the work was like converting a football field into a baseball diamond while the game was being played and only minor rules could be adjusted until there was one timeout to switch to playing baseball. That one timeout was one 32-hour shutdown when they were able to make the final switch into the Diverging Diamond Interchange configuration.
How HCSS Software assisted with this project
HeavyBid, HeavyJob and the HeavyJob Field mobile app were all used in this project. With the four rounds of estimating, we had to make several adjustments through the process as scope and approach were modified. By copying over estimates in HeavyBid for each round we could carry forward the applicable information easily while also maintaining a historical record of the past estimates.
In our many meetings with UDOT and the ICE we were often discussing productions, approaches, different subcontractors and suppliers, etc. HeavyBid made it easy to report and show justification for costs and crews while also providing a means to complete “what-if” scenarios. These analyses led to discoveries that benefited UDOT through design adjustments and cost savings and benefited W.W. Clyde & Co. through a detailed understanding of the best ways to approach the work. The end result of the estimating process was a project budget that had the right money in the right activities and could be used as a tool to benchmark each activity from and find even better ways to reduce costs.
HeavyJob was utilized daily to track time for labor and equipment as well as record quantities to claim for the days production of each applicable activity. It was also used by our foreman as a journal to record important items or events that impacted the work. The labor and equipment tracking information was utilized on a daily basis to generate daily cost reports from HeavyJob to share with the project supervision and executive staff. The daily cost reports were utilized to see how our costs compared with our budget and led to discussions where we further analyzed our approach to the work and found efficiencies.
In short, HeavyJob took the mystery away from knowing how the project was doing. The Field mobile app allowed our field personnel to quickly and accurately report and track employee time card information, equipment hours, and production quantities with an electronic, single-entry source. The project field teams were able to make critical production and daily cost-based decisions, in as close to real time as possible, and review results with their crews daily, without waiting for a print out from the office to tell them how they did that day. All the needed HeavyBid estimate and crew information was available to each field foreman (in the HCSS Field app) to help drive the production and performance results of his crew.
Project Description:
The I-15 South Cedar Interchange project consisted of reconstructing Cross Hollow Road and reconfiguring the I-15 interchange to a Diverging Diamond Interchange (DDI). The project was constructed to accommodate future travel needs and improve safety for the community. The DDI briefly channels traffic to the opposite side of the road to provide easier and safer access on and off the freeway. This configuration reduces the number of traffic signal phases, which allows traffic to proceed through the interchange more efficiently without increasing the number of lanes.
Specific elements of the design and construction of this interchange — as produced in Cedar City — provide additional benefits to the community. This project was a Construction Manager/General Contractor project so W.W. Clyde & Co. spent several months participating in the design process, four rounds of estimating with the Utah Department of Transportation, and comparisons with the Independent Cost Estimator (ICE). These iterations gave them the opportunity to assess risks and different approaches to make sure they provided an accurate estimate for the work that assigned risks only if they could not be mitigated through design or construction approach.
During the design phase, W.W. Clyde & Co. encouraged a signal layout that would allow foundations to be installed to be compatible with both a traditional configuration and the DDI configuration. This design alleviated the need to utilize temporary signals for the DDI which ensured that motorists were only becoming accustomed to new signals one time and saved cost.
