Staff Feature – Project Controls

October 31, 2022

Situation: Construction Services staff are finishing up an armourstone wall and unexpectedly find a soft spot. They’ll need more materials – and that wasn’t captured in the original designs! Will construction progress be halted?

Solution: Project Controls to the rescue! Their contingency plans for extra material were built into the project budget to cover these kinds of unforeseen circumstances. One quick Change Order and more stone is on route, and work can continue right on schedule.

TRCA’s Project Controls (PC) team provides technical and administrative support throughout the project lifecycle for up to 16 consecutive projects being implemented by Construction Services. PC coordinators play an integrated role in the construction management team by coordinating between the field and the office to ensure the project is delivered on time and on budget.

The team is essential to any TRCA construction project; before any implementation can begin, Project Controls must prepare the vitally important project binders that contain crucial health and safety documents, designs, permits, estimates, POs, budgets, and more.

Put simply, the team’s tried-and-tested process means there’s never a scramble – key information and solutions are always on hand and prepared ahead of time.

Takeoffs, Purchase Orders, Locates, and More!

All TRCA Construction Services projects begin with drawings and requests for estimates. This is the takeoff stage.

Project Controls meets with project managers, coordinators, and construction supervisors onsite to assess existing conditions and estimate materials needed.

Whether it’s a question of the amount of aggregate or the length of fence panels, PC uses design drawings and Bluebeam software to estimate all the materials that will be required, square metre by square metre.

These quantity takeoffs inform project budgets, which are then delivered to Construction Services supervisors and R&I project managers.

Daily work responsibilities include a multitude of other tasks to prepare for project implementation. Purchase order creation and tracking, and preparation of health and safety documentation (like traffic control and emergency response plans) are all managed by PC.

Locates are documentation and ground markings that identify the position of underground facilities based on records or electronic locating equipment. They identify utility lines and other existing infrastructure and are important for construction crews to operate safely on any site.

Program Management

When it comes to scheduling, The PC team uses TeamGantt software to prioritize and assign tasks, identifying scheduling efficiencies and preventing redundancies. Down the line, PC connects with the financial team to work on payment requisitions and delivery tickets.

PC’s work can be wide in scope and challenging at times, but the team’s intimate knowledge of the projects means that any difficulties are expertly managed thanks to years of experience.

Meet the Team

	Lin Hao – Supervisor, Project Controls Lin joined TRCA’s Contract Management team at the beginning of 2020. With a decade of experience in construction and high-rise development prior to joining TRCA, Lin was in a perfect position to lead the newly created Project Controls sub-unit later that year.
	Valerie Schuller – Coordinator, Project Controls Valerie joined TRCA’s RMP field staff in 2015 and became project assistant in the same sub-unit in 2018. Valerie joined Project Controls in 2021.
	Michael Ball – Coordinator, Project Controls Michael joined TRCA’s Sustainable Technologies Evaluation Program (STEP) in 2017. Michael joined the field staff team later that year and stayed on as senior field staff until joining PC in 2021
	Hyacinth Bouchard – Coordinator, Project Controls Hyacinth joined TRCA’s RMMP field staff team in 2017 before moving on to Erosion Risk Management in 2019. Hyacinth joined PC in 2021.

For Lin and her team, Project Controls entails more than simply being a link between the job site and the office.

Developing an organized system for initializing and tracking projects – with those mighty project binders – may be what PC is known for, but what really gets the team out of bed in the mornings is the opportunity to work with other hardworking TRCA teams on diverse projects that positively impact residents and the environment long after the project wraps up and the bills are all paid.