Quantified KM success story number 86 - three weeks work saved at Crossrail

Taken from this APM article, we see this story from Crossrail showing the value of collecting and re-using Knowledge in the form of lessons and innovations.

"Crossrail has developed its own ‘innovation portal’ in order to capture, track and develop innovation across its supply team. The portal is also a useful means of sharing ideas and unusual solutions to problems. Meanwhile, (John Pelton, Crossrail’s strategic projects director)'s team is proactive about encouraging innovation on the ground. 

“Their job is to go to the sites and talk to people about the innovation programme,” he says. “They have to be known, so people will come up to them and say: ‘I’ve had this really good idea. What do I do with it?’ Or, if they have a problem, they can be shown how to search and see what can be done to overcome any challenges they have faced.” 

An example of where this has worked in practice is the Pudding Mill Lane site in Stratford, east London. There, the contractors had struggled with erecting a reinforced earth wall. They tried a new technique, which had mostly worked, but there were a few problems. So they captured the lessons learned and logged the new construction technique on the innovation portal. 

A year later, contractors at the Plumstead site, also in east London, were having difficulties with a reinforced earth wall of their own, while battling severe time constraints. Fortunately, the innovation team was able to point them in the direction of the innovation portal and the lessons learned from Pudding Mill Lane. These were taken and developed further in order to devise a frame in front of the wall. 

“Nobody had ever done that before,” Pelton explains. “It took three weeks off production and they delivered the wall on time.”