Delays to delivery of the contract

11 Delivery of the contractual requirements in line with the plan to open the central section in December 2018 was highly dependent on the main station contractors installing the required infrastructure and equipment to enable all the communications systems to be tested and commissioned. Crossrail Ltd's programme reports show that installation of this equipment and handover to the communications and control contractor for testing and commissioning were significantly delayed. Actual progress with delivery of the contract fell behind the planned level of progress by the middle of 2017 and the gap continued to grow throughout 2017 and 2018 (Figure 13 overleaf).

12 The causes of cost increases included delays to the availability of work sites, and the availability of stations. One of the key specialisms required for delivery of the contract was for technicians to test and commission the systems, including Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) devices, that enable remote control of systems in the stations and tunnels. Siemens' initial plan was for approximately 30 technicians to move between the stations and commission the devices sequentially. However, as completion of the installation of required infrastructure was delayed, Siemens was requested to significantly increase the number of technicians working on the programme in order to mitigate the delays and meet the handover schedule. During 2018 the number of technicians required to complete testing work in the reduced timeframe increased, with 160 being required by October 2018.

13 During 2018, Siemens was unable to recruit technicians from the limited pool available as quickly as required. In August, Siemens had 88 technicians available against a requirement of 144. However, further delays to the installation of equipment to test led to the divergence between actual progress and planned progress in the chart overleaf. The ramp-up of resources to accelerate delivery of the contract, the prolongation of the time that these resources were required, and the higher than expected cost of the technicians themselves led to a 20% increase in costs (from £116 million to £139 million) between April 2018 and December 2018 (Figure 14 on page 45).

Note

1 The dips in the planned progress line reflect the rebasing of the programme plan when Crossrail Ltd revised the Master Operational Handover Schedule (MOHS).

Notes

1 The costs given are the contractor view of forecast of total defined cost, as reported in the Crossrail Ltd's Board reports each month.

2 Costs are given in cash terms.