Construction plant capacity for a rebuild

Anyone who has run a site knows that a project is limited by plant availability long before it is limited by drawings. A national reconstruction is the same problem multiplied, and it is worth stating in trade terms.

What the job actually needs

Tower cranes for anything above four storeys, and mobile cranes for erection and for lifting plant into place. Tower cranes are the scarce item: they are slow to procure, need trained erectors and a competent inspection regime.

Excavators and breakers for demolition and foundations, in far larger numbers than for normal construction, because clearance precedes building.

Concrete batching within about an hour of the pour, since ready-mix has a working life and cannot be trucked across a country.

Crushers and screens to convert rubble into aggregate on site, which halves the haulage in both directions.

The parts nobody budgets for

Spares and servicing. A fleet without a parts supply chain is a fleet that is progressively parked. Filters, hydraulic hoses, undercarriage and tyres are consumables at this intensity, not occasional purchases.

And operators. A machine without a trained operator is an asset earning nothing, and operator training takes months.

Where it comes from

Import, some of it used, plus whatever can be redeployed domestically. Used plant is the sensible answer where the servicing capability exists, and a bad answer where it does not.

The planning point

Plant, operators and spares should be procured as one package on a multi-year horizon. Buying machines without the other two produces a yard full of equipment and a site that is still waiting.

This piece comes straight off my own desk. The item most often left out of reconstruction plans is not the machine but what keeps the machine running: the spare parts stock, the service crew, the trained operator. Buying a fleet is a budget decision; keeping a fleet working for three years is an operating decision, and every programme that skips the second stops in its second season.