In December of 2021 Bowhill were signed up to deliver the first of 2 bridges for the Sydney Gateway Project, a road bridge 20m wide and spanning over 70m made up of 5 open top box girders each weighing around 130 tonnes. Bowhill also needed to deliver each of these 5 girders in 2 halves, to be set up and FPBW’ed on site prior to installation over the canal. Working for the John Holland/Seymour Whyte Joint Venture and TfNSW was a significant challenge, Bowhill needed to be at the top of our game to deliver on all of the stringent requirements that such a high profile project demands. Keeping in mind that this was one of Australia’s biggest infrastructure projects of the time, at around $2b, so as you might expect the prequalification’s required to be eligible to work on this project was of the highest order. TfNSW and the JV required Bowhill to complete/pass a total of 9 audits prior to award. These audits included CC3, RMS, environmental, Bowhill took all of this in their stride, our procedures are mature and well tested, our Projects and Quality teams were well up to the task and after this process, Bowhill Eng joined an elite group of heavy steelwork fabricators in the country that can deliver this level of compliance. Covid and the aftermath of supply chain disruption, material price increases and the flow on challenge of delivering on time and on budget tested our team, but we delivered to the satisfaction of the JV and learned a lot in the process as well which will serve us well for future similar projects.
