The Arizona Department of Transportation’s (ADOT) is espousing the benefits of value engineering, which officials said allows projects to be executed with greater efficiency and cost effectiveness.
ADOT personnel and contractors can use value engineering to systematically analyze the plans, such as those to improve Interstate 17 bridges at Willard Springs Road south of Flagstaff, which called for replacing the decks and identifying ways to deliver improvements safely and reliably for the lowest overall cost possible.
The method improves quality and value while also reducing the time needed to complete the work, officials noted. For ADOT to approve a contractor’s value engineering proposal, the change must either reduce cost or delivery time or both while adding value.
ADOT officials said as an alternative to removing and replacing just the bridge decks at I-17 and Willard Springs Road, the contractor, Fisher Industries, proposed creating new bridge abutments as well by using giant steel plates attached to construction vehicles as molds around rebar cages.
Once the concrete sets, the steel plates can be moved quickly, allowing crews to pour concrete for another part of the abutment.
Building abutments normally takes weeks, officials said, but with the proposed technique used for the first time on an ADOT project, it took only days for crews to create abutments for the I-17 bridges at Willard Springs Road.
“Once the abutments are built, the bridge work is the same that we’ve always done,” Steve Monroe, senior resident engineer for ADOT’s North Central District, said. “It’s nice to have the contractor get in, get the job done in a much more efficient way and get out.”
The new bridges are expected to be ready before the long Thanksgiving weekend, according to officials.