Technical Groups and Technical Newsletters

To share knowledge and make the most of combined expertise, Technical Groups were formed within SCIRT during the design phase for each engineering discipline, including wastewater, land drainage, geotechnical, structures, pump stations and roadways.

Technical Groups met on a regular basis and were established to utilise the shared knowledge of the wider SCIRT to:

• Share lessons learned with the wider Design and Delivery Teams in order to share ideas and provide consistency of approach across all projects
• Streamline the design process
• Provide constructability input to design ideas
• Generate and investigate innovations
• Prepare standard details and specifications
• Resolve technical issues

A chairperson was assigned to each Technical Forum with one of their key responsibilities being to drive progress within agreed timeframes. Each Technical Group included the CCC Technical Lead for that discipline, one representative from each Design Team and representation from the Delivery Teams. The Technical Leads represented the asset owner participant organisations, Design Team members identified issues/concerns and innovations, and the Delivery Team members provided constructability input to technical solutions and innovations.

Updates on innovations and technical developments from the Technical Groups were captured and published in the form of newsletters which were disseminated to the SCIRT Integrated Services Team (IST), asset owner representatives and Delivery Team representatives. The newsletters typically included updates on standard details, specifications, Designer Guidelines and innovations developed by both SCIRT Designers and Delivery Teams.

The benefits of the Technical Groups were speed in decision making; ready dissemination of information on the latest agreed approaches, and consistent, widespread adoption of agreed technical solutions and innovations.