Many contractors treat compaction as a "grudge job" -- something that has to be done after they have done the "real" work of earthmoving. Typically, the attitude is place the material, then compact as an afterthought.
Colin Gibb from PLDC and Peter Burgess from Coffey worked here with Kelly & Shepherd for many years, along with Richard Moyle, Peter Burgess's offsider onsite.
Kelly & Shepherd has worked closely together with these parties to really ensure we have a good handle on compaction and really understand it - and that our operators, supervisors and foremen do as well.
We don't look at compaction as an "extra" we have to do; we have worked together to treat it as an integral part of the job, working as a "full circle" so that Cut-Fill-Compaction is seen as a single operation.
We have also worked hard to change the mindset of our people on the ground so that they also see in this way. This is a very important aspect of our success here, and an important element of our on-site training.
Scott Insel and Lance Hoad, Kelly & Shepherd's supervisors on site, have the aim of keeping compaction failures to absolute minimum. Currently achieving failure rates of less than 1.5%, significantly below the industry average.
Treating the whole operation as a "seamless circuit" is an important part of the process.
The key is to keep the scrapers, along with compaction equipment, in continuous circulation at same time. It is important to treat this operation as a single process, with it all happening together, so that compaction immediately follows scraper placement/removal. If this not done, areas get missed, then you have a failure.