Commercial Considerations for Contemporary Geotechnical Grouting Projects

The state of the art of geotechnical grouting projects has advanced considerably in the last decade. Notable achievements include the use of computer-aided grouting systems, balanced stable grouts, automated batching, measurement while drilling, borehole digital mapping and deviation measuring tools. When new tools and techniques are employed on projects it is inevitable that older practices that are thought were serving well now prove to be detrimental to overall project success. There are two areas that are significant contributing factors for failure that have not evolved in step with the technical advancements to date. These areas are budget costing (pricing, data and measurement) and scheduling (planning, sequence and effort). This paper examines the costing side of the modern grouting project referencing scheduling only as required. The structure of how a project is priced has a significant effect on a project’s chance for success. New techniques and equipment must be integrated into the whole project costing equation to optimize success for all stakeholders. This has not been the case in many projects in the past few years because for all the successes there appear to have been significant failures also. The simple fact that most geotechnical grouting projects cannot be precisely defined at the onset is a fundamental flaw if commercial requirements are not created to accommodate this variability for all stakeholders’ best interests.