1

The new AUS-SPEC Specification by

NATSPEC

Driving Efficiency in Road Maintenance.

Innovative delivery models to demonstrate Value for Money.

A practical workshop by

Bill Woodcock

– Complete Urban, NSW

* Note: This Seminar has the support

of the IPWEA, NATSPEC and AUS-SPEC but is not

authorised by NATSPEC.

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1. Introductions.

2. AUS-SPEC Series.

3. Define the problem – An Amorphous Blob

4. Contract or Day Labour

5. The Logic – Cut into manageable portions

6. The Solution – A Systems Approach

7. Data Capture

8. Technology

9. OUTCOMES AND BENEFITS

10. CONCLUSION AND QUESTIONS

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1. Introductions.

This WORKSHOP is designed to advise

those of you who have not used AUS-SPEC

before of the benefits of using a uniform set of

contract documents and specifications in

Local Government.

4

Bill Woodcock has been in the Local Government

Engineering Industry for 35 years.

In that time he has worked in positions including

Director of Works and Services and Assistant

General Manager, Technical Services.

As co-author of the AUS-SPEC series he is more

than qualified to advise on the best ways to obtain

value from the AUS-SPEC series.

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Introductions

• The Institute of Public Works Engineering Australia (IPWEA)

is a professional organisation providing member services and

advocacy for those involved in and delivering public works

and engineering services to the community. One service is to

provide the lead in Asset Management, Plant Management

and Professional Specifications and Contract documentation.

• The IPWEA maintains the traditional expertise of local

government engineering but by broadening the base of

expertise and experience, adds a new dimension to public

works professionalism in Australia.

• To enquire about IPWEA membership please contact

your State Division directly or email the

www.ipwea.org.au

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Introductions

• NATSPEC is a not for profit organisation that is owned by the design, build, construct and property industry through professional associations and government property groups.

• NATSPEC’s major service is the comprehensive national building specification system endorsed by government and professional bodies.

• Its main specification system to date has been the specification for all building structures. It has specialist packages for architects, interior designers, landscape architects, structural engineers, service engineers and domestic owners.

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Introductions

• NATSPEC’s aims are to provide economies of scale

for its shareholders and to improve the quality of

construction in Australia via the provision of

information, tools, products and services.

• NATSPEC is now the Publisher of the AUS-SPEC

series of Engineering Specifications

• The NATSPEC web page is at:

• www.natspec.com.au

• An order form for the AUS-SPEC series is included in

the written notes.

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Introductions

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AUS-SPEC Up to date Continious improvements have been made to the AUS-SPEC

documents, as listed below:

• Reclassified to the National Classification system.

• Restructured as per the construction sequence and to a new

template. The Design and construction worksections for

Buildings, Roadworks and Public utilities have been

significantly revised.

•Introduction of NATSPEC Maintenance reference, a reference

book for building mainitenance contracts. AUS-SPEC Buildings

package also includes the NATSPEC Buildings Basic package.

Some results of poor Contract Documentation and non-specific Specifications.

Some examples of Road Defects that AUS-SPEC won’t fix !

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Defects!

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2. AUS-SPEC Series.

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• Contracts

• Urban and open spaces

(Includes NATSPEC Site)

• Buildings

(includes NATSPEC Basic)

• Roadworks and bridges

• Public utilities

• Maintenance (Non Parks)

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The new AUS-SPEC Series

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• AUS-SPEC Contracts covers tendering, contract

preliminaries, quality checklists and quality requirements

for the supply of projects and services.

• It includes sample documents which provide guidelines

for completing the tender and contract documentation,

maintenance management plans and contract schedules

for a maintenance contract.

• Appropriate AUS-SPEC TECHguides included provide

guidelines and examples to prepare the specifications.

• This package is for Contract, Supply, Asset and Works

Managers, Purchasing and Legal Officers.

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AUS-SPEC Benefits and Objectives

• AUS-SPEC provides a readily available Library of a full range

of individual specifications for a myriad of applications.

• A well-maintained, quality specification keeps costs down by

reducing the number of project variations, disputes and

correctional work. Without a correct specification the additional

costs are inevitably borne by you, the client.

• Sound specifications reduce costs by allowing Contractors to

provide more honest and accurate tenders instead of inflated

tenders because they do not know clearly what you want.

• By using standard terminology across the industry, ambiguity

of meaning is minimised.

• By using uniform Contract Documentation large economies of

scale are possible through staff training and Contractor

familiarity of one standard instead a myriad of good, bad and

ugly specification attempts.

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AUS-SPEC Benefits

and Objectives

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AUS-SPEC Up to date

• AUS-SPEC after 2007 is an update service, available to the

local government Councils at a greatly reduced price via

annual subscription.

• AUS-SPEC 2013 is fully updated to the current industry

standards, e.g. to Australian Standards, Austroads and

WSAA. It is also reviewed by local government Councils

and various industry organisations.

• New design and construction techniques have been

introduced in the design and construction worksections e.g.

Water Sensitive Urban Design, stormwater harvesting and

new design and construction techniques as per Austroads

and WSAA standards.

3. Define the problem – An

Amorphous Blob

• Waiting to be told where the problems are ?

• Different standards

• Budget

• Resources – Staff/ Plant

• Inspections

• Politics – Policy development

• Risk Assessment

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An Amorphous Blob !

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Waiting to be told where

the problems are ?

We will always be told where a pothole is or

a ragged edge break,

Should we respond to every request and

have the patching crew drive all over the

road network always catching up with any

request.

What constitutes a real problem ?

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Do all Gangs/Teams fill a pothole the same

or even more importantly the correct way.

The same goes for Edge break repair, rutting, alligator cracking ?

Is all the plant and equipment for each Gang/team the same or most appropriate ?

Is the materials being used the same or most appropriate ?

Do we use a machine, say a Paveliner for all potholes even if it is not the best fix ?

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Different Standards

Budget

What is the right budget ?

How much does the Engineer tell the

Council is enough ?

There is never enough !

The Asset management plan should tell

Council what the renewal budget is but how

big should the Maintenance budget be ?

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Resources – Staff/ Plant

How many staff is enough ?

What skill set do they need ?

How many trucks, backhoe’s, how many

dog trailers ?

How do we predict the quantities and at

what cost ?

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Inspections

What do our Gangs/teams look out for ?

Do we rely on the residents to tell us what is

wrong ?

What constitutes something that is valid from

a sound Asset Management perspective ?

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Politics

Do we fix every Customer request to placate

the Councillors ?

Are we being true to our profession, the one

we are being paid to provide advice from ?

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Risk Assessment

Do we comply with the Civil Liabilities Act ?

Do we fix something because we are asked

or fix something because it is needed ?

Do we comply with our ethical obligations to

safeguard the community or chase around

trying to fix everything ?

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At this point I would like to emphasise that

the processes defined here and in fact

defined in AUS-SPEC are independent on

whether Day Labour or Contract

Maintenance is carried out.

The only difference is how to define the level

of service and at what cost.

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4. Contract or Day Labour

5. The Logic – Cut into manageable

portions

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Amorphous Blob Manageable Portions

6. The Solution – A Systems

Approach

› Segments / Precincts / Areas defined

› Activity Specifications

› Road Traffic Score

› Split Inspection from Doing › Work Method Statements

› Materials specified – Australian Standards

› Levels of Service Intervention Level

Response Time

Compulsory Intervention Level

› The Law – The Judges Response

› Civil Liability › Proportioning the existing budget to Level of Service

› Risk Management

› Fine Tuning / Iteration

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Segments / Precincts /

Areas defined

We now split the Council area into a set

number of Segments, Precincts or areas.

An existing Precinct will do, as long as each

has approximately the same number of

length of streets.

This is easily done on a map/GIS.

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Activity Specifications

A set of some 40 separate Activity Specifications are available.

See Notes for list and a number of examples.

Acronym Code, “What work is Included ?”, Why do we do it ? Etc.

Work Method Requirements.

Material Standards.

Checklists

Performance

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Road Traffic Score

As part of the Activity Specification all roads

are allocated a “Road Traffic Score”.

This nominates the “importance of the road”

in the Hierarchy.

Roads near shops, Schools, Hospitals are

more important than back roads. This can

be easily shown on the map/GIS by colour

coding.

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Split Inspection from Doing

Work Method Statements

Why separate the “Inspection” from the

“Doing” ?

Work Method Requirements included for

each Activity.

Should these be changed ?

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Materials specified – Australian

Standards

In the Activity Specification, the materials

used are specified for compliance with up to

date Australian Standards.

Older versions have older Australian

Standards. This is not good.

The Activity Specifications also refer to the

normal AUS-SPEC Specifications. i.e.

“1141 Flexible paving”.

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Levels of Service

Intervention Level

Response Time

Compulsrory Intervention Level

Now please look at the sample Activity

Specifications.

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The Law – The Judges Response

Civil Liability

The intervention level is established by

Council and is directly proportional to the

available budget.

Unless it is unreasonable, a judge can only

rule that a system be in place and that

Inspections are regularly undertaken.

A judge cannot direct a Council to adopt

any particular Intervention level unless it is

dangerous (see Risk Management).

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Proportioning the existing budget to

Level of Service

You will see that the Intervention level is

mostly based on a dimension.

Through determining the equivalent current

intervention level through Consensus from

the Works staff a start level can be reached.

This is then used as an initial trial and costings

done for each Activity.

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Risk Management

Once the Level of service is determined from

the Staff Consensus, the relative risk is

considered based on AS 4360 principles.

A revision is made and the other Activity

Specifications are amended to allow for any

variations.

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Fine Tuning / Iteration

The system is then trialled for between 3 to 6

months to monitor relative costs associated

with meeting the levels of service.

These are then shifted up or down to suit the

actualities of the budget.

These then become the new levels of

service as being closer to the actual budget.

Through continuous iterations it is possible to

fine tune.

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7. Data Capture

› Records

› Costings

› Maintenance Defect Register (MDR)

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Records

It is imperative that records are kept for both

costing reasons and legal reasons.

It should be made as easy as possible for the

information to be captured and stored for

later retrieval.

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Costings

Each class of Activity Specification will have

its own separate budget.

To facilitate the fine tuning, any monthly

variations from a straight line show whether

the annual budget will be met or not.

This can be done using a simple progressive

monthly cumulative graph for each activity

class.

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Maintenance Defect Register (MDR)

The MDR is the easiest way to Register

defects.

It can record the inspection, nominate the

Road Traffic Score, Allocate the work to an

area or precinct, allocate the work to a

gang or team (work order) and finally record

the completion of the work with date.

An MDR form is available in the AUS-SPEC

documentation, but this can be automated.

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8. Technology

› I Pad or similar

X-Y Coordinate

Level of Service

Photo record

Court evidence

Work Orders

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I Pad or similar, X-Y Coordinate, Level

of Service, Photo record, Court

evidence, Work Orders

An “I Pad” or similar Tablet can be set up to

capture the X-Y Coordinate, Link this to the

Level of Service for that road, link a Photo

record of the site.

This then forms the Court evidence and

provides all the information for the resulting

Work Order.

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9. OUTCOMES AND BENEFITS

• OUTCOMES

• AUS-SPEC Benefits and Objectives.

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WHY HAVE A SPECIFICATION?

The primary function of a specification is to give

effect to design decisions. Many design decisions

cannot be expressed in graphic form and therefore

rely on words for their expression. Other decisions

would be too tedious or impractical to be conveyed

in graphic form.

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AUS-SPEC Benefits and Objectives

THE IMPORTANCE OF A SPECIFICATION?

• The quality of a project is dependent on the documentation provided.

• The contract documentation includes the conditions of contract, the drawings, the schedules and the specification.

• Whilst the specification is a multi-purpose document, its primary function is to define precisely and succinctly the quality required and the processes necessary for achieving it. Its role includes; but extends beyond; the selection of materials by providing the baseline for acceptable quality of construction.

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The word “Specification” comes from the word

“Specific”.

AUS-SPEC Benefits and Objectives

THE ROLES OF THE SPECIFICATION

The specification has many roles including being:

• a written record of design decisions taken.

• a document demonstrating compliance with

statutory requirements.

• an estimating document.

• a tendering document.

• a legal (contractual) document.

• an on-site working document.

• a dispute settlement document.

• a project management tool.

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AUS-SPEC Benefits and Objectives

SPECIFYING

RECREATION AREAS

This is listed as a Playground

for bad children.

Note, signage to cover liability.

This sign may not be as useful!

So is this.

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Traffic Calming we

would not recommend.

Wayfinding

we would not

recommend!

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• AUS-SPEC Roadworks and Bridges covers planning and

design, tendering and contract preliminaries, construction,

maintenance and operations of roadworks and minor bridges

for vehicle and pedestrian use.

• It provides the concepts of Maintenance Management Plan

(MMP) to organize and ensure quality maintenance

processes and Activity Requirements (AR) covering road

pavement and shoulder, drainage, roadside, traffic facilities

and miscellaneous activities such as emergency call out.

• Appropriate AUS-SPEC TECHguides included provide

guidelines and examples to prepare the specifications.

• This package is for Design and Development, Contracts,

Asset, Maintenance Business Unit and Strategic Planning

Managers.

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• AUS-SPEC Maintenance (Non Parks) covers tendering

and contract preliminaries, maintenance and operations

buildings, roadworks, minor bridges for vehicle and

pedestrian use and public utilities.

• It provides the concepts of Maintenance Management

Plan (MMP) to organize and ensure quality maintenance

and Activity Contract Requirements (ACR) for various

activities.

• Appropriate AUS-SPEC TECHguides included provide

guidelines and examples to prepare the specifications.

• This package is for Engineering Services, Environmental

Services, Asset and Maintenance Managers.

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AUS-SPEC Tech Guides

AUS-SPEC TECHguides

• TECHguides provide roadmaps and examples

of compiling the documentation required for local

government projects.

• They include information on contracts, technical

specifications and tender submission

requirements. They should be read prior to

commencing a project.

• They are included in the reference documents

section of SPECbuilder Pro in pdf format and

can be printed as well.

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Conversion Table

• The NATSPEC Web page includes a conversion

chart for those who need to associate their

original version with the new NATSPEC version.

• It consists of an equivalence table so that the

original grouping and specification can be

identified easily.

• NATSPEC strongly recommends only using the

new numbering system.

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• Can be done from Computer hard drive or over

the internet (Lite)

• C drive, NATSPEC Specifications

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SPECbuilder Pro

• The New AUS-SPEC specification series has now been

repackaged with a new front end software program called

SPECbuilder Pro. This makes compilation significantly

easier. SPECbuilder Pro has been a significant feature of

the existing NATSPEC series.

• There is also now Spec Lite, an on line version of

SPECbuilder Pro.

• SPECbuilder Pro is NATSPEC’s special compilation

program. It permits worksections to be easily compiled

into a draft worksection by the design team.

• See example.

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SPECbuilder Pro and Lite

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Screen Grab – SPECBuilder Pro.

AUS-SPEC Roads, Parks and Buildings

Maintenance Process and Principles - Recap

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Maintenance Process and Principles

The Maintenance specifications for Roads, Parks and

Buildings consists of a lot more than just specifications. Inside

these documents is a complete pro active maintenance

system with all of the support information required.

- Refer to the recent IPWEA technical paper (NSW and National)

with examples from Parramatta and Penrith City Councils.

(Attached to Notes).

- Do you want to establish “Levels of

Service” for roads, parks and buildings ?

71

Guide to Road Reserve

maintenance management

model documentation

Road Reserve

Management

Plan requirements

Quick Start Guide

Guide to adapting

asset delivery

documentation to

road reserve

maintenance

Technical Specifications

for Road Reserves

AUS-SPEC ROAD

MAINTENANCE

72

THE AUS-SPEC MAINTENANCE PROCESS

PRINCIPAL

COMMISSIONS

WORK

ROAD

INVENTORY

PROGRAMMED

BUSINESS UNIT

INSPECTIONS

MAINTENANCE

DEFECT

REGISTER

(MDR)

ACTIVITY

SPECIFICATIONS

DEFINE LEVEL OF

SERVICE

QUALITY

RANDOM

AUDIT

CARRIED OUT

BY PRINCIPAL

WORK

CARRIED

OUT

ADVICE TO

CUSTOMER

SERVICE UNIT

PROOF OF

SYSTEMATIC

APPROACH FOR

INSURANCE AND

LITIGATION CLAIMS REVIEW

73

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NOTE: The same basic process works for Parks and

Recreation Areas Specifications as well as Buildings and

Facilities Specifications.

-Parks and Recreation Maintenance Specifications

has 30 Activity Specifications. Cyclic or defect

driven ?

Number of Trades ?

-Buildings and Facilities has how many

Activity Specifications ? (NATSPEC).

Number of Trades ?

To go from an add-hoc or reactive maintenance system to

a pro active system involves a number of fairly basic and

logical steps.

These can be summarised as follows:

• Define the classes of defects to be addressed.

• Split each road in the network into one of 4 different

classes of road and apply a score being a “Road

Traffic Score”.

• This defines the level of risk should an intervention not

be carried out.

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The AUS-SPEC Process

• Define the “Intervention level”, the “Response

or need recording level” and the “Compulsory

intervention level”, for each road traffic score.

• Inspect the network and record defects meeting the

pre determined intervention levels in the Maintenance

Defect Register (MDR).

• Set up the maintenance gangs to work in the defined

precincts.

• Record the completed works.

• Monitor progress and modify the system as it gets

more and more accurate.

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The AUS-SPEC Process

These are:

• Proactive inspection and intervention.

• Pre determined and quantified intervention levels

based on the existing budget and a Council based

risk profile.

• Pre determined precinct based areas to reduce

unnecessary travel between jobs.

• Uniform Work Method Statements for each of the

tasks involved.

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PRACTICAL AND STRAIGHT

FORWARD PRINCIPLES

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INSPECT PRECINCTS IN A

CONTINUOUS CYCLE

• An element of multi tasking in carrying out many

maintenance tasks in any one precinct.

• Provision of all tools to allow all of the tasks to be

performed by a work crew while on the job.

• A simple communication and recording system to

organise work and record outcomes that facilitated

iterative improvements.

• The separation of the inspection role from the doing

role.

• A data base of knowledge to defend against litigation.

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LOGICAL AND STRAIGHT

FORWARD PRINCIPLES

Maintenance Defect

Register (MDR)

DEFECTS!

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• Defined intervention Levels linked to

allocated budget.

• Determined response times, also linked to

allocated budget.

• Compulsory intervention levels.

• 4 (or 6 Vic Roads) classifications of asset

type (Road Traffic Score).

• Maintenance carried out precinct by precinct based on pro active inspections.

• Defects that do not meet the intervention are ignored.

AUS-SPEC DEFINED

LEVELS OF SERVICE - PRINCIPLES

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• The line in the next graph shows the number of all

reported liability incidents over the last 10 years. The

bars show the value of claims made over the same

period. The reduced cost of claims could be

attributed to the introduction of the Civil Liabilities Act

in 2002/03.

• However the reduced number of incidents cannot be

attributed to changes in legislation. People have

incidents and report them.

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PENRITH CITY COUNCIL

Institute of

Public Works

Engineering

Australia

Liability Claims& Incidents

Cost & Frequency over last 10 years

$0

$200,000

$400,000

$600,000

$800,000

$1,000,000

$1,200,000

1998/1999 1999/2000 2000/2001 2001/2002 2002/2003 2003/2004 2004/2005 2005/2006 2006/2007 2007/2008 2008/2009

Cla

ims C

osts

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

Fre

qu

en

cy o

f C

laim

s

Cost (LHS) Claims (RHS)

LIABILITY CLAIMS & INCIDENTS

COST & FREQUENCY OVER 10 YRS Institute of

Public Works

Engineering

Australia

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• This next graph shows the number of incidents per km

of footpaths. In 1996/97 an incident occurred every 3

km of paving. The introduction of AUS-SPEC has

resulted in better priority setting and maintenance

management. The length of our paving has increased

at least twofold. You should note there is now only 1

incident in every 24 km

• The frequency of incidents has improved almost

eightfold in 2008.

85

PENRITH CITY COUNCIL

Institute of

Public Works

Engineering

Australia

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

1996/1997 1997/1998 1998/1999 1999/2000 2000/2001 2001/2002 2002/2003 2003/2004 2004/2005 2005/2006 2006/2007 2007/2008 2008/09

est

1 Incident every 3 km

1 Incident every 24 km

AUS-SPEC

Grinding

program

FOOTPATH INCIDENTS

PER KM OF FOOTPATH

Institute of

Public Works

Engineering

Australia

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• This next graph graphically summarises our liability

performance. While we acknowledge that the cost

of claims has been affected by the introduction of

the Civil Liabilities Act in 2002/03 the number of

incidents and claims is not affected by the

legislation.

• The reduction of the frequency of incidents and

claims is attributed to improved asset management

and our ability to demonstrate that we have

systems in place through the use of AUS-SPEC.

87

PENRITH CITY COUNCIL

Institute of

Public Works

Engineering

Australia

88

Road & Footpath Claims

Claims Received & Accepted & Cost of Claims

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

1999/2000 2000/2001 2001/2002 2002/2003 2003/2004 2004/2005 2005/2006 2006/2007 2007/2008 2008/2009

$0

$100,000

$200,000

$300,000

$400,000

$500,000

$600,000

$700,000

$800,000

Paid Claims (LHS) Claims Received (LHS) Claims Costs (RHS)

AusSpec

4 major claims

ROAD & FOOTPATH CLAIMS Claims Received, Accepted and Cost of Claims Institute of

Public Works

Engineering

Australia

Penrith City Council implemented the AUS-SPEC systems

approach to road reserve maintenance in 2001-02.

89

Council’s Objectives

Programmed Approach to

Maintenance

Appropriate quality management

controls

Decreasing number of community

complaints

Adequate reporting for insurance

purposes

Carry out work in a cost effective and

efficient manner

Repeatable and quantifiable criteria

for work

Be able to benchmark with peers Professional approach to asset

management

Satisfy our customers within a clear

framework

Organise maintenance in a

systematic way

More pro-active approach

Minimised risk profile

Inspection by Asset Coordinators

THE PROCESS AT PENRITH CITY

COUNCIL & RELATED BENEFITS

“I am convinced that a systematic (asset

centric) approach to road maintenance is

the only way to manage roads in a safe and

cost effective manner. The sooner the

process is implemented, the better the

outcome over the long term will be for

Councils and other road asset owners alike”.

90

Try cycling down

this cycle path !!

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Some buildings

With defects?

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THE AUS-SPEC ASSET

CENTRIC PRO ACTIVE

MAINTENANCE SYSTEM • As can be seen the maintenance specifications

have the potential to save most Councils both

operational costs and Insurance premium costs.

• It also makes the Engineer and other

professionals managing the process look good

!!!!

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Discover the value of

the new AUS-SPEC

Documentation series sponsored

by IPWEA and NATSPEC.

95

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For additional information and relevant

documents on AUS-SPEC they can visit our

website www.natspec.com.au.

NATSPEC conducts Professional development

seminar series every year in July/August,

interested Councils can contact us directly or

simply write to us at aus-spec@natspec.com.au.

If you need any assistance with the installation or

implementation of any of the new AUS-SPEC

Documentation series you have seen today, please

do not hesitate to discuss it with us.

bill_woodcock@completeurban.com.au

www.completeurban.com.au

(02) 9282 9900

97

10. CONCLUSION AND

QUESTIONS

98

Bill Woodcock bill_woodcock@ completeurban.com.au.

(02) 92829900. Mob 0402 026 917

PRINCIPAL, GOVERNMENT AND BUSINESS SERVICES

99

Driving Efficiency in Road Maintenance.

Innovative delivery models to demonstrate Value

for Money.