The Silo Maintenance Facility (SMF) at Sellafield in Cumbria has been named the Engineering, Construction and Infrastructure Project of the Year by the Association for Project Management (APM). The project was delivered for Sellafield Ltd by a joint venture between Cavendish Nuclear and Balfour Beatty.
The Silo Maintenance Facility, which was eight years in the making is a mechanical handling plant that provides equipment storage, inspection, package loading, unloading, decontamination and the maintenance capabilities essential to supporting waste retrievals.
The Silo Maintenance Facility Delivery Team (SMFDT), a joint venture between Cavendish Nuclear and Balfour Beatty, was established to deliver the SMF project. Its approach was to support the delivery of a simple fit-for-purpose design, making extensive use of 3D modelling, utilising modularisation where practicable and maximising the use of Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) equipment.
The benefits of this project were delivered in January 2019 within the sanctioned business case. In addition to delivering to cost and two weeks ahead of schedule, the team achievement in project safety performance with more than four million man-hours worked without a Lost Time Accident. The National Audit Office also identified the SMF project as one of Sellafield site’s top-performing projects.
Kevin Bell, Senior Project Manager at Sellafield Ltd said: “Everybody had a great time on the project. But being recognised by your peers in delivering something makes me so proud.
“These awards are really important because they really show, as a profession, how much we’ve grown in recent years and how we’re raising standards for delivery.”
Sellafield Ltd’s contribution to the project profession was also recognised with the Contribution to the Profession Award: Company.
The APM awards took place in London on 18 November. The awards, which recognise the best individuals, projects and programmes the profession has to offer, received a record number of entries in 2019.
Photo: Teams from Sellafield Ltd, Balfour Beatty and Cavendish Nuclear collecting the award for Silo Maintenance Facility
