Quote:
Originally Posted by Ridgerunner
For the third time, in three weeks, the TBM has simply ceased operating.
On Wednesday, the site closed up, no activity at all, no spoils, no trucks. And ... someone posted a "this is where we are now" PDF on the web site.
This is not a tirade (as some would call my postings) but a simple question.
Does anyone actually know what is really going on?
The tunnel will go through, no question. With 550 meters to go, and the alignment along Clark road from now on, if the TBM simply goes away, they could finish the job with cut and cover.
I just don't get this routine. Why dig for 5 to 6 days, then close up for three.
I thought a TBM was 24/7 until it is done.
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Not to kick a dead horse, or raise something from the grave (but it is Halloween)...
I would guess that they don't have the staff to run the TBM 24/7 for an indefinite period of time. To fully staff a 24/7 crew rotation (complete with scheduling trucks to pick up debris) can be expensive, and quite complex. It's hard to get that rotation scheduled with a minimum number of people. You often need part time on call employees to fill in the gaps, and in a skilled field for a difficult task that can be hard, expensive, or impossible.
Now you want the machine to be running as much continuously as much as possible, but you can afford to hire basically 6 different cews plus 6 part time crews for weekends.
So there are typical rotations used in certain industries where people work a long period on, and a long (but shorter) period off (to get around labor laws and minimize overtime). If you are not using a full overlapping crew, then there will be periods in your rotation where you have no crews available. So you shut down for a few days.
It is cheaper to work them to death for short bursts, than keep the machine humming non-stop. And it is cheaper to shut down for fewer but longer periods, than shutting down every night and all weekend (like a typical 2 shift factory).
I have some family members that have worked on some big, remote projects in the interior, and they had long times of being away from home working (like 3 weeks), and then a week off. And they would just shut the whole thing down for a week here and there rather than coming up with a bunch of difficult to manage rotation shifts to keep it running 24/7.
I'm not saying I have some kind of knowledge regarding this tunnel, but what I am saying is that the management of complex projects, large work forces, and complicated machines, is an expertise that is beyond the grasp of most people (including me) posting on this forum. So it is hard, if not impossible, for us to judge if they are actually doing a good job or not, or if the original estimates were just low-balled and inaccurate or not.
For all we know, the work slow downs could be due to the lack of qualified employees available in the region, or maybe the flu even made it's rounds. It's not the kind of job you can fill by calling a temp agency.
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