Costain Achieves Efficiency at £150m Gatwick Airport Station

35+ hours saved per week on resource allocation and commercial reporting. That's the documented impact of Gather on Costain's £150m Gatwick Airport station redevelopment.

Gatwick Airport station underwent a major redevelopment to improve its capacity for handling passengers at the UK's second busiest airport. Costain won the project in 2019 and delivered the upgrades on budget and on time in 2022.

Then known by its former name Rail Diary, Gather provided Costain with a digital solution to capture and manage site records for this large-scale redevelopment project. The platform was used by both Costain's core project delivery team and subcontractors, streamlining resource allocation and reporting at every stage of the project.

The challenge

A large-scale, high-profile project like upgrading Gatwick Airport station comes with many challenges:

• Manual documentation: Error-prone methods of documenting site activities on paper
• Double handling: Redundant, cumbersome work of collating paper site diaries onto spreadsheets
• Information delay: Traditional methods causing lag between site and office
• Reactive management: Project team had to react to resource utilisation issues instead of proactively addressing them
• Cost visibility gaps: Lack of clarity on actual labour hours and associated costs, risking discrepancies between budget and actual expenses
• Estimation difficulties: Limited visibility on site activities made it hard to accurately estimate and control labour costs

In essence, paper-based reporting systems are not conducive to proactive project and cost management. To leapfrog from this archaic method to modern best practice, Costain chose to implement Gather for all stakeholders of the Gatwick Airport station redevelopment project, including supply chain partners.

Fast onboarding

To assist rapid and effective implementation, Gather provided in-person training with Costain and its key subcontractors. Over 70 users at supervisor level and above received thorough onboarding training in less than four weeks.

Gather's intuitive platform is built natively for mobile devices and tablets, designed for data entry while on site. Supervisors could effortlessly record labour hours and assign them to specific work activities on the go. This significantly reduced the need for paper site diaries and manual data entry afterwards. Not only has this saved time and reduced the risks of human errors, it has also curbed unnecessary after-shift trips to the office.

"Gather is simple and easy to use. I no longer have to complete paper allocation records. I can easily distribute the team's working hours to pre-planned work activities."Brian O'Connor, Supervisor

"For me, it saves a huge amount of time after every shift. It is straightforward. Importantly, Gather makes it so much easier to show where things change on site, and this provides detailed records to benefit our commercial team."Brian O'Connor, Supervisor

Commercial reporting made easy

"Gather has saved me a significant number of hours each week. I no longer have to collate paper records and transfer data to spreadsheets. All our cost information is now visible to those who need it as supervisors upload their daily activities. This has allowed the team to query data to drive decision-making quicker than ever."Adam Foster, Commercial Manager

Customisable reports played a big part. They provided key insights on resource usage trends, potential areas for improvement, and progress towards project goals. Having clarity on these key productivity metrics equipped the team with all the necessary tools to keep the project on track and within budget.

By eliminating paper forms, physically collating them and manually entering the data into spreadsheets, Gather made commercial reporting easy and fast.

The project team estimated that Gather saved them:

• 25+ hours per week on resource allocation
• 10+ hours per week on commercial reporting

This time saving allowed the team to focus on more strategic tasks, such as solving problems, making decisions and engaging stakeholders.

BIM integration

Besides adopting best practice in site record management, Costain also explored the possibilities of integrating site intelligence captured by Gather with Building Information Modelling (BIM) models.

BIM-Gather integration enabled the project team to automatically track labour hours and associated costs against the model. The project-wide labour expenses dashboard enabled the proactive identification and prevention of potential labour cost overruns.

This integration also facilitated a granular analysis of labour allocation across the project. By overlaying Gather data onto the BIM model, the project team could visualise how labour resources were being utilised in different areas of the project. This helped to identify and address any inefficiencies or areas for improvement swiftly.

First of its kind, integrating site intelligence with BIM showcased the potential of approaching different databases and information systems holistically. Collecting data is a means to an end. The decisions data inform also need not stay siloed.

The creativity that Costain introduced to redeveloping Gatwick Airport station gave the project team more tools to optimise resource allocation and utilisation. This was essential to delivering this high-profile project on budget and on time.

Transparent subcontractor management

"Gather has been an absolute game-changer. All our cost information is now integrated directly into the Gather platform. We can understand the true cost of works completed across the project areas in real time, as well as the works undertaken by our subcontractors beyond the agreed scope."Colin Tweed, Commercial Manager

The structured, standardised data generated by Gather facilitated performance evaluation across the supply chain. Comparative insights enabled a better, deeper understanding of subcontractor performance against the programme's baseline, as well as cost forecasting and budgeting.

Furthermore, the project team for Gatwick Airport station redevelopment was able to integrate Gather with Costain's in-house commercial reporting tool. This combined analytical tool provided a comprehensive overview of resource utilisation and supply chain performance, improving efficiency throughout the project lifecycle.

"Since switching to Gather, we have been able to consistently capture the work activities for our labour-only subcontractor. We can now stay on top of progress and make decisions in a timely manner. I would recommend Gather to be extended to all subcontractors on future projects."Marisa Rabbin, Commercial Manager

Leading industry with innovation

Costain is committed to innovation, efficiency and excellence, as demonstrated in their successful implementation of Gather for the Gatwick Airport station redevelopment project.

The adoption of Gather not only modernised their operations from paper to digital best practice; it was another signal to UK construction that Costain continues to lead the mission for digital transformation.

Its commitment to consistent site data capture and creativity to integrate site insights with BIM and its in-house reporting tools distinguished Costain from fellow contractors. The success and lessons learnt in the Gatwick Airport station project are now being replicated across other large-scale projects, such as A12 upgrades.

Key takeaways

• £150m project delivered on budget and on time
• 70+ users onboarded in less than four weeks
• 25+ hours saved per week on resource allocation
• 10+ hours saved per week on commercial reporting
• BIM integration for real-time labour cost tracking
• Supply chain visibility across all subcontractors

For Tier 1 contractors seeking to modernise operations and gain real-time visibility across complex projects, Gatwick Airport station demonstrates what's possible when you commit to digital best practice from day one.

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