Lead the design for the replacement of 20 km of Urban Residential Distribution (URD) at a cost of $2.97 M. Drilling (boring) once, under one contract to install SaskTel’s fiber network and replace SaskPower’s URD was the flagship Crown collaboration. Capitalizing on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity brought immense benefits to all stakeholders:

• Customer Service: The project reduced noise and land disruption caused by construction in residential neighborhoods.
• Safety: Every additional bore in an already congested right-of-way increases risk for future drilling. By consolidating the work, this risk was minimized.
• Cost Savings: SaskTel and SaskPower reduced their $/m costs by sharing the overhead burdens of daylighting, permitting, engineering, and procurement.
• Time Savings: Public communication was streamlined into a single message signed by both SaskTel and SaskPower, instead of each corporation issuing separate messages.
• Reliability Improvement: Compared to piecemeal asset replacement, the large scale of this project allowed redesign of non-conforming URD loops. Eliminating loops that resembled a spaghetti bowl, rather than a reliable loop, simplified system operations for local linemen.

Joey’s knowledge of the SaskPower and SaskTel Joint Use Program improved the development of the boring progress tracker which facilitated cradle to the grave project management. The organization in the design made cost sharing with SaskTel administratively easy. While working on the North Battleford design, Joey showed effective cost management with invoicing being within 5% of estimate. He achieved cost savings by synchronizing projects such as PCB removal, and correction of non-conformance assets.

Olivier Larocque – Asset Management Program Manager

Like all great accomplishments, success was achieved through teamwork and dedication. Several special efforts were essential to make the collaboration a success:

• Development of standards for URD pull boxes and spare conduit turn-up into energized transformers
• Resolution of a 46-year-old easement clerical error that threatened the construction schedule
• Unifying our engineering standards to capture the scope for both SaskTel and SaskPower in a a single construction map
• Drafting a Memorandum of Understanding to fairly distribute boring costs between SaskTel and SaskPower
• Creation of job aids as part of a design lead succession plan