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You’ve probably heard about a space ship hitting badly Venus or Mars, I don’t remember, because of miscalculations, right? Well, that’s everywhere. When you do your taxes, when you calculate your retirement or when you receive an inheritance. All are miscalculation errors. In construction, there are everywhere. In 1970, during the construction of the Kadena Air Base Bridge in Okinawa, Japan, engineers made a slight miscalculation. As usual… Two teams started building from opposite sides of the river, expecting to meet perfectly in the middle. But when they finally got close... one side was 2 meters higher than the other! I mean… not 1 cm, not 2 cm, not 10 cm… just 2 meters. The error? One team had used metric measurements, while the other worked in imperial units. If you think that this is impossible today, you’re absolutely wrong. If you don’t believe me, check this list of lessons learnt from my last project.
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Everyone loves the construction contractor. Big cranes. Huge concrete pours. Drone videos. Beautiful. But in a PPP project… Construction lasts 3 years, maybe 4… except in NZ… around 8 years – don’t ask me why. Operations last 30. And yet, people spend 90% of their time talking about construction. Very clever. And I understand… it’s the place of the big bucks; the ministers’ visit and the Public Relationship paradise. Question 72 of the course below answers a simple question: What is a good...
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