CityEdge Alliance CASE STUDY: Waikato Expressway Testing Application

Engineers working on the Waikato’s largest ever roading project need to ensure the new Hamilton section of the Waikato Expressway meets the highest standards.

The CityEdge Alliance comprises civil engineering consultancy Beca and civil engineering contractors Coffey Group, Fletcher Construction, Higgins Construction and the Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency.

The CityEdge Alliance is building the 22km four-lane Hamilton section of the Waikato Expressway

The CityEdge Alliance tested its work building the 22km four-lane Hamilton section of the Waikato Expressway.

The alliance had thousands of reports in its project information management system containing the test data.

But there was no quick and easy way to find specific data or visually represent the spread of testing along a stretch of the project.

CityEdge Alliance looked to Company-X solutions architect Luke McGregor to design and develop a software solution.

McGregor did some rapid prototyping and explored the different ways that the data could be visualised. Company-X gave CityEdge Alliance its first designs to look at in less than a week and the solution was iterated from there.

The final solution was ready for use three months after work began and used daily by about 50 CityEdge Alliance users.

Company-X built the Waikato Expressway Testing Application (WETA) in 2018 for the use of engineers from civil engineering consultancy Beca and civil engineering contractors Coffey Group, Fletcher Construction, Hick Bros, Higgins Construction and the Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency.

Construction of the 22km Hamilton section of the Waikato Expressway is divided into work packages, or chunks of work, and assigned to a specific roading engineer. Work packages are regularly tested to ensure they meet stringent safety and quality requirements.

The test results are imported into WETA. Engineers run reports to check that the road is up to standard.

WETA uses a graphic user interface featuring a traffic light system to communicate whether a work package passes a test. A pass is given a green light, a fail received a red light. The data is also displayed in a graph.

“I was looking for a local software company to help. Company-X had previous experience in road construction so were familiar with much of the terminology. Luke came up with innovative ways to solve the requirements challenges we presented to him.”

CityEdge Alliance process manager Vicky Wells

“We were impressed with a working concept within a couple of weeks. Luke showed us what became the Waikato Expressway Testing Application or WETA early on. It looks and feels like what we have today. It’s pulling everything together.”

CityEdge Alliance manufacturing engineer James Higgins

“The CityEdge Alliance team who worked with Company-X only had good things to say about how proactive Company-X was in tailoring the system for what we wanted it to do.”

CityEdge Alliance Quality Manager Paul Gurran