Posted 22 January 2011
Project Overview
Cabling the World Cup 2010
With most large infrastructure projects the pressure to finish on time builds towards the end, the Gautrain rail development in South Africa was no exception. Completing the rail link between Johannesburg and Pretoria was vital to transport thousands of people to the World’s greatest football competition. It was also the most complex part of the project due to the extended underground sections.
To meet the stringent safety requirements armoured power cables had been specified to BS6387, a world leading standard in fire resistant cabling. The construction consortium had some major problems, the cables were not familiar, they were not available locally and they were needed fast.
How did FSCG help?
As a specialist cable supplier we instantly recognised “armoured power cable to BS6387” to mean BS7846. Once the specification had been clarified we set to work on the cable schedule to establish exactly when each cable was required on site and the lengths it was being used in.
With this information we were able to categorise the schedule into three priority levels:
Critical– Supply from stock and air freight to South Africa
Urgent– Manufacture to order and air freight to South Africa
Standard– Supply from stock and sea freight to South Africa
All three phases we immediately mobilised to deliver a constant stream of cable onto site over an 8 week period to get the job done.
By using our expertise as a specialist cable distributor and exporter we pulled from our own stock and fast manufacture resources to provide the project with the ultimate just in time delivery and cost managed solution.
Whilst England’s performance on the football field may not have been fantastic we did score goals in the tunnel before the game and the Gautrain went into service on time.