Introduction:

In July 2001 Barry Bros. under took a Non Destructive Digging (NDD) trial. Some 13 months and 10,000 potholes later using 5 different NDD units and 8 operators across 3 states, Barry Bros. successfully assisted in the piloting of 8 Leighton "plough crews" in their project to lay fibre optic cable around the country.

The overall objective for the $880 million project was for Leighton Contracting to successfully lay a new fibre optic cable between each capital city in Australia, on time and on budget.

Client: Leighton Contracting in Narrandera NSW.

Equipment: The equipment needs consisted of 3 large earth moving D9 bull dozers along with back hoes, graders, support vehicles and various other pieces of plant.

Solution: For this to happen it was critical for each "plough crew" to reach highly planned productivity goals. Each "plough crew" was made up of 18 people including engineers, surveyors, supervisors, operators and trade assistants. The base cost for operation was $35,000 per crew.

In order to maximise productivity in the cable laying process, NDD was engaged to pothole and verify under ground services buried in the "plough crews" path.

Down time for "plough crews" would be unaceptable, particularly if a result from striking and damaging an under ground service.

With the Next Gen "plough crews" running parallel to existing Telstra fibre optic cable, it was mandatory to follow the Telstra network integrity guidelines.

When excavating closer than 15 metres to an existing fibre optic cable, potholing must take place every 25 metres to physically view the actual Telstra cable location and avoid any contact.

The NDD trial in Narrandera proved to Leighton and NDD was the most cost effective, safest and only true way of protecting against significant damage and service outages and reduce the possible litigation exposure when operating near fibre optic cable and other under ground services.

The NDD trial in Narrandera proved to Leighton and NDD was the most cost effective, safest and only true way of protecting against significant damage and service outages and reduce the possible litigation exposure when operating near fibre optic cable and other under ground services.

Barry Bros. and NDD has been able to clearly demonstrate that to maintain project productivity and avoid expensive costs and outages associated with rupturing any under ground assets.

Barry Bros. continues to offer Non Destructive Digging for a wide range of projects from road widening, traffic light installations, power pole installation and straightening to basic underground service mapping.

The process is used widely for construction companies, service providers, surveyors when projects are first being designed where verification is of services can reduce the project cost as it is generally cheaper to redesign than move services.