Article provided by Andy O’Dea – Technical Director at Cognition Land and Water

Materials management is a key commercial and compliance issue on all construction projects, which often generate large amounts of surplus soil.  Managing these soils and navigating the abundance of associated guidance, regulation and legislation is an important but challenging task.  There are significant complexities around deciding if site soils are a waste or when they have achieved end-of-waste status.  There is also much confusion in the industry on how to classify, handle, store, dispose or reuse such soils whilst ensuring compliance with relevant legal obligations and regulatory requirements.

CIRIA has recognised these difficulties and commissioned a research project with the primary aim of producing concise, up to date, interactive guidance on the whole surplus soil management process from ‘cradle to grave’.  The guidance will allow the user to make informed decisions about how to manage their site soils including defining and classifying wastes, and procedures to be followed for treatment, reuse and disposal.  It will differ from other waste guidance by looking specifically at the management requirements for specific site activities.  This will enable the busy site manager to quickly get to the information they need for the actual process they are undertaking.  It will also help the designer or planner understand soil management options at the outset thereby reducing the opportunities for generation of waste soils in the first place.

Funding has been obtained, the project research contractor has been appointed and the first steering group meeting is to be held in November.  It is proposed that the first draft of the report will be completed by late December 2020 and open consultation workshops will be held in late January 2021.  CIRIA and the Project Steering Group would welcome contributions and comments during the consultation phase to ensure that the report meets the requirements of the industry.  If you have any queries or would like to receive early notification of consultation workshops, please contact CIRIA Project Manager, Joanne Kwan on joanne.kwan@ciria.org.

Full Name: Jonathan Robert Arthur Gammon
Job Title: Non-Executive Director / Advisor
Company: Geotechnical Observations Limited (GeO)

I am very fortunate to have enjoyed almost forty-five years of international ground engineering experience working for consultants and contractors. In addition to project work in the UK, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, I have lived and worked in Hong Kong and New Zealand. I was Geotechnical Design Manager and Resident Engineer for West Rail in Hong Kong and Sub-Surface Design Manager for Dublin Metro North in Ireland. My infrastructure experience in London includes the Northern Line Extension, for which I was the Expert Witness, Engineering at the Public Inquiry, and the Bond Street Station Upgrade for which I was Design Project Manager. From 2014 to 2016, I worked on Phase One of High Speed Two (HS2) as Head of Ground Investigations. In 2019, I was responsible for establishing AGS’s Instrumentation and Monitoring Working Group (I&MWG), of which I am now Leader, and which featured in the June/July 2020 issue of AGS Magazine.

What or who inspired you to join the geotechnical industry?
When studying for my Civil Engineering degree at the University of Surrey in the early 1970s, I was very fortunate to fall under the “spell” of Noel Simons and Bruce Menzies, who taught us Soil Mechanics. Although I had intended to take up a career in bridge engineering – my year in industry had been spent working for contractor Marti AG on the construction of the fantastic Felsenau Bridge in Switzerland – I was easily persuaded to change direction and had their support to gain a place on the MSc Course in Soil Mechanics at Imperial College. In 2018, I was very pleased to be invited by the University of Surrey to give a lecture about my career and acknowledge the inspiration Noel and Bruce had given me. In 2019 I gave the same lecture at Imperial College and could acknowledge the inspiration given to me there.

What does a typical day entail?
I retired from full-time work in August 2017, when I was Technical Director, Tunnelling and Geotechnics at CH2M (now Jacobs). In late 2018, I was delighted when Managing Director Andrew Ridley gave me the opportunity to be, on a part-time basis, Non-Executive Director and Advisor at instrumentation and monitoring (I&M) specialists Geotechnical Observations Limited (GeO).
One of the features of previous AGS Magazine “Q&As” has been an inability to assign the word “typical” to our days. Even in semi-retirement this applies. I am fortunate to have opportunities to join fitness classes at a nearby gym, or online during the COVID-19 lockdown, so some days start in that way. I will also admit that some days involve the typical retirement pastimes of gardening and walking!

My work at GeO and my input in a volunteer capacity to AGS and other organisations means that I keep a keen eye on the technical press. Most days I will be receiving and sending emails and searching out news and information via the internet. Zoom, Teams, and similar Calls often feature during my day. WhatsApp messages arrive and need attention. I have benefitted from watching excellent webinars on a wide range of topics.

Although based at home in West Sussex, I always enjoy the opportunity to travel to our offices in Weybridge and to catch up with everyone there. In November last year Andrew and I made a successful business visit to Switzerland, where I was able to use the German I had learned all those years ago for my Industrial Year at Surrey!

Once a month I prepare my Report to the GeO Board and take an active part in the Board Meeting.

I am a STEM Ambassador and that led to my role as a Volunteer at the Science Museum in London which would, prior to COVID-19, feature regularly in my calendar.

I am fortunate to have contact with those who have worked for me going back many decades and, as a Chartered Engineer and Chartered Geologist, I have been able to help those applying for their own professional qualifications. As a Fellow of Engineering New Zealand, I continue to take part in the on-line Assessments of UK-based candidates for New Zealand professional qualifications

Are there any projects which you’re particularly proud to have been a part of?
Yes. And I am very lucky to have too many to list here! However, when pressed for an answer I will readily admit that my very first project – the Felsenau Bridge in Switzerland, where I learned about foundations, superstructures, temporary works, and site operations and was given an astonishing amount of responsibility – is still a favourite. I am also particularly proud of all the wonderful staff who have worked with me on projects in the UK and overseas.

What are the most challenging aspects of your role?
One challenge, being semi-retired, is not having the daily contact with friends and colleagues that I enjoyed when working full-time. That situation has applied to almost everyone during the COVID-19 lockdown, so there should now be a wider appreciation of that aspect of retirement.
I am fortunate to have a never-ending To Do list, not all work-related, and a major challenge is setting priorities and trying to exercise effective time-management. I had thought I would be able to keep up to date with my reading of the journals that my professional memberships keep supplying through my letter-box; that has proven harder than expected, even more so when the journals are delivered electronically.
Directly related to my part-time role at GeO, the most challenging aspect would be keeping sufficiently engaged with our overall operations and commercial well-being to know where I can best apply my experience and provide the advice required of me. I am very fortunate to be able to continue my involvement with, and passion for, civil engineering in this way but it is a challenge not to make it a full-time commitment.

What AGS Working Group(s) are you a Member of and what are your current focuses?
I am the Leader of the Instrumentation and Monitoring Working Group (I&MWG). Members of the I&MWG are nominated to be Primary Contacts with the other AGS Working Groups, and I represent the I&MWG on the Business Practice WG.
We are currently focussing on: the I&M Webinar we are broadcasting on 4 November 2020 at 10am; input to the revision of the “Yellow Book” (UK Specification for Ground Investigation); and contributing to the AGS initiative relating to procurement and related matters as influenced by the Institution of Civil Engineers’ “Project 13”. We also expect to be helping the British Tunnelling Society with revisions to their published documents and contributing to the work of CIRIA.
Education, training, and qualifications for those working in I&M receive on-going attention.

What do you enjoy most about being an AGS Member?
I attended the meeting at Imperial College in 1988 that led to the formation of AGS, I helped establish AGS in Hong Kong in the late 1990s, and I was Chairman of AGS from 2008 to 2010. I was both surprised and delighted to be made an Honorary Member of AGS in 2019. So, it is fantastic to be able to continue my very enjoyable involvement with AGS and to represent the I&MWG and GeO on AGS’s Executive.
AGS Meetings, Seminars, and other events are not only informative and stimulating. They are also enjoyable. It is a hallmark of AGS. I have been told by guests invited to our meetings that they find them a refreshing change from other gatherings of a similar kind. That is not to say that we do not have differences of opinion and some very robust debates before reaching final decisions. We do. This reflects the breadth of experience, the different work-place roles, and the range of ages sat around the table. Mutual respect is a feature of AGS membership; that means that no “harm” is done because of such exchanges and enjoyment persists.

What do you find beneficial about being an AGS Member?
As a Member, we have access to the fantastic library of guidance and information – and the Help Lines – that AGS provides. And to the practical advice and know-how available directly from other Members. AGS Seminars and Webinars on a wide range of topics are very beneficial to Members.

Membership also generates the awareness, particularly to those just setting out in careers, that the term “specialist” is far from being equal in meaning to “narrow”. The breadth of involvement of geotechnical and geoenvironmental specialists in projects is huge. The opportunities to be engaged in ground engineering are immense. The names of the Working Groups at AGS, with active participation in their activities always extremely beneficial, reflect the diverse nature of the membership of AGS.

Why do you feel the AGS is important to the industry?

As someone who was involved in that first meeting in 1988 that led to the formation of AGS, I can confidently say that AGS is as important to the industry today as it was then. During the 1980s it was becoming very clear that the “learned societies” and the professional bodies were unable to represent, fairly or adequately, the whole range of types of companies and organisations that were working in or contributing to geotechnical activity. Adopting the role of a Trade Association, AGS increased in importance to those involved in ground investigation, laboratory testing, equipment and material supplies, education and training, insurance and legal matters, as well as those working as specialists within consultants or contractors or working as sole practitioners who then had access to a wealth of know-how and experience not easily available elsewhere.

Initially an Association of Geotechnical Specialists, it was not long before those working in the “new” Geoenvironmental sector found themselves welcome at AGS. The outstanding success of the Contaminated Land Working Group from those earliest of days is testament, alone, to the importance of AGS to the industry. As has been the establishment of the Loss Prevention Working Group.

AGS is a unique and vital organisation. Less than ten years after AGS was established in the UK, I arrived back in Hong Kong for a second period of work on the exciting geotechnical and geoenvironmental challenges there. Immediately, and with the support of the whole specialist community for reasons that echoed the UK in 1988, I found myself involved in setting up a “sister” to the UK’s AGS. With the enormous assistance of the wonderful AGS Secretariat, an AGS Hong Kong came into being and persists with great importance to this day; its programme of Continuing Professional Development events is highly regarded and much treasured.

What changes would you like to see implemented in the geotechnical industry?

Those working in the geotechnical industry, irrespective of background or area of work, do seem to get on well with each other. However, this sense of “camaraderie” does not seem to find its way easily into commercial arrangements. When looking after the Ground Investigation for Phase One of HS2 I spoke on several occasions about the benefits that would be realised if contractors would collaborate and form Joint Ventures. In some instances, ground investigation contractors, as an example, are owned by large Tier One contractors and the opportunities for collaboration then seem remote; a similar situation occurs in I&M. This does conflict, however, with the ability of Tier One contractors (and their consulting engineers’ equivalents) to collaborate with their peers to bid for and secure work.

It is important that we are represented on the various committees and steering groups, national and international, that are involved with Standards, Codes, Specifications, Good Practice Guides, and the like; AGS enables us to do this.

We need to assert ourselves in the arenas occupied by Quantity Surveyors and Structural Engineers, to make sure that geotechnical and geoenvironmental considerations receive timely attention. The need for adequate Baseline Monitoring and, where appropriate, Whole-Life Monitoring, must be understood and underlined.

Attention to the ICE’s “Project 13”, and its related changes, is vital, especially if we are to align the geotechnical industry with the NEC Forms of Contract.

One major change? Not so much in the geotechnical industry but for the industry. To find that Ground Investigation and I&M are thought about and actioned at the appropriate time and do not become an after-thought, entirely out-of-step with the design and construction programme.

Name: Phil Wade

Job title: Managing Director

Company name: Datgel

What does the company do and what areas does it specialise in?
Datgel is a hybrid software company focusing on ground engineering data management and reporting software. We develop Add-Ins to gINT, provide customisation and software development consulting services to our clients, which oftentimes is to further develop our gINT Add-In products. We also provide training services for gINT and Datgel software, and we resell gINT as well as other Bentley Systems software and Golden Software.

Where is Datgel located?
Datgel’s team is in Singapore, Spain and Australia. Further, we have companies in Australia, Singapore and Malaysia. I’m based in Singapore.

How many people does the company employ?
Currently 7 people contribute in a range of specialist roles. By the way, we are on the lookout for suitably qualified and motivated sales engineers in the UK and North America.

When did you set up Datgel?
I started Datgel 15 years ago, in October 2005.

What is your career background, and what enticed you to set up Datgel?
I began my career in construction as a labourer for a construction company during summer holidays before university started and after my first year.  My interest in geotechnics was initiated when I worked on a landslip dewatering project, followed by work experience with a geotechnical consultant.

After graduating from Civil Engineering at the University of Sydney, I went on to work for a major global geotechnical consultancy, based in their Sydney office. I worked on site investigations in Australia and New Caledonia.  I also became their gINT developer, developing Excel VBA applications, and managing the site data for a massive new nickel mine development.  From here I could see my future career was to be focused on Geotechnical Software. Through this period, I did a part time course work masters in Geotechnical Engineering at the University of New South Wales.

I went on to work for the gINT reseller in the UK at the time for 18 months.  We won some major new clients in my time in the UK, and I developed the geotechnical data management system for the civil works contractor for the New Doha International Airport.

In 2005 I returned to Australia to start Datgel.  At the time I don’t think many geotechnical companies in Australia took data management seriously (which has changed now). I saw running my own business was the way for me to do the type of work I wanted to do and turn my ideas in to products.

What does a typical day entail?
Being a small enterprise, and the technical expert in our company, I wear many hats as the Managing Director.  My week would entail a wide range of tasks including sales calls with customers, technical support, programming new features in Datgel’s software products using VB.NET, developing reports in gINT, reviewing the work of my team members, through to people and financial management.

What are the company’s core values?
A few years ago I wrote these aims for Datgel, and they still ring true:

• • To provide quality solutions and support to our clients
  • To advance the use of databases and electronic data interchange in Geotechnical Engineering
  • Humane organisation – people are the organisation
  • Straight and honourable dealings
  • Social usefulness

Are there any projects or achievements which Datgel are particularly proud to have been a part of?
The first project Datgel worked on was to set up a gINT system and customised/localised AGS Format for the New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority (now Transport for NSW).  This kick started AGS format use in Australia and set the stage of our business in Australia.

Since the beginning, Datgel has worked with 3 of the world’s biggest dredging companies, which seeded may of our software products.  Two of the biggest projects were Ras Laffan Port Expansion and Khalifa Port. Coincidently, today these same companies are using our software on the Tuas Mega Port in Singapore.

Datgel’s software products are our lasting achievement.  Most were developed with close collaboration with clients, and it is very fulfilling to see them in use and see the logs and other reports made by our software posted on the internet or in publications.

How important is sustainability within the company?
Datgel has made a big effort over the past few years to go paperless in our internal work. Compared to a more physical company, there is only so much we can do in this space.

How does Datgel support graduates and early career professionals who are entering the industry?
Datgel has taken on half a dozen paid interns/work experience students, and graduates over the years in the software engineering/computer science space. We supported their development by allowing them time to self-study new technologies, mentoring and external training.

How has COVID- 19 effect the day to day running of the company? How have staff adapted?
We pivoted to all online marketing and conducted a well-attended webinar series on our product range.  For a time, we all had to work from home, but thankfully we were already in a position to do this as our IT infrastructure was already in Microsoft Azure (cloud) and we had multiple remote employees already working from home so everything was proven. I think for us, the way of working was not fundamentally different, and other types of companies had a much more difficult time.

Why do you feel the AGS is important to the industry?
I probably have a different viewpoint than most, being a remote member of AGS. I see AGS facilitates the UK industry to get together to do greater good tasks.  It brings together professionals from across the ground engineering industry that other societies/organisations just don’t achieve.  This has facilitated the creation of the world’s leading ground engineering data interchange format.

What are Datgel’s future ambitions?
There have been quite some changes over the years with Bentley Systems buying out gINT ten years ago and now Keynetix last year. Further with Bentley Systems’ greater focus on a SAS cloud application, not that gINT is going anywhere.  But we can assume there won’t be too many big leaps in future for gINT, the platform for Datgel’s existing software products.

Also, the business of software reselling is not what it was with the greater focus on subscription licenses and SAS cloud applications where resellers see less or no revenue.

Certainly, some plans are in the making, and you should look out for our new initiatives over the coming years. What I can say now is we are looking to make our software more accessible to the North America and Europe markets, partly through making it easier to buy online, and secondly with further localisation.

Datgel are the diamond sponsors of the AGS4.1 webinar which is due to take place on Tuesday 8th December 2020 at 11am.