Balfour Beatty Saves 30+ Minutes Daily on Core Valley Lines

Before Gather: Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, inconsistent data, and no useful management information. After Gather: 30+ minutes saved per record, 64% of shift details pre-filled, and complete clarity across a £378 million programme.

The Challenge: Paper Systems at Programme Scale

The Core Valley Lines (CVL) programme represents one of the most significant rail infrastructure investments in Wales. Funded by Transport for Wales, the programme electrifies 172 kilometres of track, transforms stations, and modernises the railway serving the South Wales valleys. Balfour Beatty leads the delivery alongside multiple specialist contractors and suppliers.

At £378 million programme value, the stakes couldn't be higher. Effective site record management isn't optional — it's fundamental to cost control, progress tracking, and commercial assurance. Yet before Gather, the CVL team relied on the same paper-based systems that had served rail construction for decades.

Peter Johnson, Senior Technical Manager, described the starting point: "Before Gather, we were very much reliant on paper-based systems. We didn't have a consistent process in place for site reporting. We mostly used Excel spreadsheets. Reports came back in Word documents. In the end, we didn't have any site data to provide us with useful management information going forward."

The problems were systemic:

• Inconsistent formats — Different supervisors used different templates. Some wrote detailed narratives; others used bullet points. Comparing productivity across sites was impossible.
• Data entry burden — Site supervisors spent 30+ minutes at the end of each shift transcribing handwritten notes into Word documents or spreadsheets.
• Information lag — By the time site records reached the office, they were already outdated. Decisions were made on yesterday's data, not today's reality.
• No analytical capability — The data existed, but in formats that couldn't be aggregated or analysed. Trends were invisible. Patterns went unnoticed.

Why CVL Demanded a Different Approach

The scale of the Core Valley Lines programme made traditional methods untenable. With works spanning 172 kilometres of track, dozens of stations, and multiple workstreams running in parallel, the volume of site records overwhelmed manual processes.

Transport for Wales and other stakeholders expected professional reporting. Monthly progress meetings required consolidated data across all activities. Commercial negotiations demanded contemporaneous records. Compliance audits needed structured documentation. The programme team couldn't deliver any of this efficiently with spreadsheets and Word documents.

Paul Shipton, Programme Manager, recognised that transformation was essential: "We needed a system that could handle the complexity of CVL without adding to the administrative burden on site teams. They were already working long hours in challenging conditions. We couldn't ask them to spend more time on paperwork."

The Implementation: Designed for Adoption

Balfour Beatty's implementation strategy prioritised user experience over feature completeness. The platform had to work for site supervisors first — if they didn't use it, nothing else mattered.

The Gather team worked closely with CVL to configure the platform around existing workflows. Rather than imposing a new structure, they mapped the platform to how teams already worked. Activities, resources, and locations used familiar terminology. The learning curve was minimal.

Pre-population became a game-changer. Before each shift, planned activities and expected resources were loaded into the system. Supervisors started with forms that were already 64% complete. They confirmed what happened, noted variations, and submitted. The process that used to take 30 minutes now took 5.

Training sessions focused on practical scenarios. How do you record a weather delay? How do you document additional resources brought in at short notice? How do you capture a client instruction that changes the scope? Each session addressed situations supervisors encountered weekly.

The Transformation: Data That Drives Decisions

The change in how information flowed through the programme was immediate and dramatic. Site records that previously took days to compile now appeared in real time. Project managers could see exactly what was happening across all CVL worksites without waiting for weekly reports.

"It takes two to three minutes to complete a record at the end of each shift. Our team was also able to enter the data as they completed tasks during the shift. This has saved us an incredible amount of time." — Paul Shipton, Programme Manager

The time savings cascaded through the organisation. Site supervisors spent less time on admin and more time supervising. Office staff spent less time chasing information and more time analysing it. Managers spent less time in data reconciliation meetings and more time making decisions.

But the real transformation was analytical. For the first time, the CVL team had structured data they could interrogate. Which activities consistently overran? Which sites outperformed others? Where were resources being under-utilised? Questions that were previously impossible to answer became routine analyses.

Results That Matter: The Numbers Behind the Transformation

The impact on productivity was substantial. Site supervisors save 30+ minutes per shift record compared to paper methods. Across a programme with hundreds of shifts per week, that's thousands of hours redirected from paperwork to productive work.

Over the programme lifecycle, the team created 6,935 records in a consistent, searchable format. Each record links to specific activities, resources, and outcomes. When commercial queries arise — and on a programme this size, they arise constantly — the answers are seconds away.

The programme manages £378 million of works with complete clarity over progress and productivity. Every activity, every resource allocation, every variation is documented contemporaneously. The audit trail is comprehensive and stands up to scrutiny.

Commercial Assurance at Scale

For a programme of CVL's scale, commercial assurance is paramount. Variations, compensation events, and payment applications all depend on accurate, contemporaneous records. Without them, contractors lose money. With them, contractors recover their entitlement.

The structured data from Gather transformed commercial processes. When a compensation event arose, the team could pull relevant records instantly. When a payment application was queried, the supporting evidence was already in the system. Negotiations shifted from debates about what happened to discussions about what it meant.

Paul Shipton observed the commercial benefits: "Gather can be easily and quickly implemented across the whole team, offering a huge amount of value to everyone involved." The value wasn't abstract — it was measured in disputes avoided, variations recovered, and payments processed faster.

Stakeholder Confidence Through Transparency

Transport for Wales and other CVL stakeholders noticed the improvement in reporting quality. Progress meetings became shorter and more focused. Instead of debating what had happened, discussions could move to what should happen next.

The automated reporting features were particularly valuable. Weekly and monthly reports generated themselves from the underlying data. Managers reviewed and approved rather than compiling from scratch. The Sunday evening scramble to prepare Monday's presentation disappeared.

Stakeholder confidence increased as reporting became more consistent and timely. The programme team could demonstrate professional programme management through the quality of their documentation, not just the quality of their physical work.

Lessons for Major Programmes

The CVL experience offers lessons for any contractor managing large-scale programmes. First, paper systems don't scale. What works on a £5 million project breaks down on a £378 million programme. The sooner teams transition to structured digital records, the better.

Second, adoption depends on reducing burden, not adding to it. The 64% pre-population rate was crucial. Supervisors adopted Gather because it saved them time, not despite requiring extra effort.

Third, data has compounding value. Each record is useful individually, but the real power emerges when thousands of records can be aggregated and analysed. Patterns become visible. Improvements become possible. Learning becomes systematic.

Looking Forward: Building on the Foundation

As CVL progresses toward completion, the foundation of structured data opens new possibilities. Predictive analytics can identify potential problems before they materialise. Productivity benchmarks can inform future bids and resource planning. The lessons from CVL can benefit Balfour Beatty's wider portfolio.

Peter Johnson reflected on the transformation: "We went from having no useful management information to having more data than we ever imagined. The challenge now isn't capturing information — it's making the most of what we've captured."

Key Takeaways

• 30+ minutes saved per record — Time redirected from paperwork to productive work
• 6,935 records created — Comprehensive, searchable documentation across the programme
• £378 million works managed — Complete clarity over progress and productivity
• 64% pre-population — Reduced supervisor burden drives adoption
• Real-time visibility — Decisions based on current data, not historical reports