IMCO General Construction
SR-530 Slide Roadway Clearing
What makes it interesting?
The landslide on March 22, 2014 in Oso, Washington was the deadliest in U.S. history killing 44 people and obliterating a riverside neighborhood. The clean up was a fast-paced and complex project that had to be completed in 30 days.
How HCSS Software assisted with this project
Based on the reporting generated by HeavyJob, we were able to print reports and review them with the project team. We were able to make fast, educated decisions on crew size and productivity (Number of trucks and equipment). Because we absolutely had to be completed in 30 days, sometimes the most cost-effective way to do something wasn’t always the quickest. We had to look at using larger excavators and more of them to load out more trucks in the project duration–faster, but not the most cost effective. Using HeavyJob’s tools we were able to see how the project was going to perform using larger equipment, not only in the Production Analysis function of the software but also in the Cost to Complete Function. Utilizing HeavyJob to track, analyze, and project the projects performance was paramount in this project’s success.
Project Description:
IMCO was one of the first responding contractors following the mudslides on March 22, 2014, near the community of Oso, Washington. As search and rescue efforts waged on and plans and specs for clearing and rebuilding the roadway were underway, IMCO donated countless man-hours and equipment to search, recovery, and clearing and sorting through remains and debris. This was an incredibly emotional time, and there wasn’t a lot of clear direction until contracts were issued through Snohomish County and the Washington State Department of Transportation.
IMCO was the lowest of five bidders for the WSDOT contract to clear the debris from the highway. This was a critical piece to rehabilitation as it restored access from Arlington to Darrington and made the way for contractors and others to help rebuild the area and continue the search for the remaining two victims. IMCO felt connected to this work. We had been there since the beginning, but we also had employees from the area who were directly affected by this horrific disaster.
IMCO excels at projects with challenging schedules and a lot of earthwork, and especially when coordination between multiple parties is at stake. IMCO knew that this was somewhere we could provide value and speed along the process while maintaining proper care of the debris and material being sifted through. All 127,000 cubic yards of debris were cleared and sorted through in three weeks. The contract was bid, executed, and underway in less than a week. We put our best of the best on the project as we knew this had to be done right.
The job was an extremely fast-paced project (30 days) working long hours (seven days a week, 24 hours per day, two shifts per day) with large crews. Issue we were facing included not being able to wait for the information from our accounting software to get all of the costing information to the project. In order to maintain an actual cost accounting of the project as well as make reliable job cost projections, we decided that it was best to utilize HeavyJob to assist in tracking job costs. Our company does not utilize HeavyJob to track material and subcontractor costs due to the fact that our accounting software tracks these costs as they get input by the accounting department. Our company also doesn’t utilize the Cost to Complete feature of HeavyJob, due mainly to the fact that we only track labor and equipment hours/cost in HeavyJob. However, due to the fast pace of this particular project, we needed to see and update our actual project costs daily. There is a lag in our accounting software from when the costs hit the system. Utilizing HeavyJob to track, analyze, and project the projects performance was paramount in this project’s success.
