The five-storey 38,000m2 clinical centre is being constructed right in the middle of the hospital campus. "With the hospital still in operation around the work site we do, at times, have logistical issues with access to the site," says Jonathan Tindall, Project Manager for Clearwater Construction, the sub contractor to Hawkins Construction for this project. "This applies to Firth for their deliveries as well, depending on whether or not they are pumping or skipping in the concrete."
"We can have deliveries going to the site at any time of the day and on a daily basis," says Mark Hastie, Certified Plant Manager for Firth Hamilton. "Stage 2 of this project began for us in August and with approximately 10,000m3 required for the first two stages we expect to be supplying concrete to the site until about February or March next year."
"We have 12 different mix designs that Firth supply for us, often at odd times," admits Jonathan. "It's been plain sailing actually. I can't think of one issue we have had. Their technicians are really helpful, the testing data and results are supplied regularly for our records, and the deliveries arrive when we want them. Everything is running very smoothly."
Keeping up with demand on large projects is nothing new for Firth. Mark explains, "we are fortunate with our network to be able to draw support from other plants for large pours or high demand phases of projects. We have used trucks from our Te Awamutu plant a few times on stage 2 and with the large slab pours due to start soon we will call in support from Thames and Rotorua when required, as we do for them when they are working on large projects. This means we can ensure our customers get what they want, when they want it."
