16 July 2013

Costain has won the Construction News Award for Best Use of Technology for the third year running.

This year’s winning entry is the Company’s innovative asset management tool MARIO (Mass Asset Recognition and Intelligent Optimisation). Developed in-house by a team led by Joe Rice-Jones, Project Manager, it gives clients a cost-effective and accurate picture of the condition of their infrastructure assets.

Costain’s previous winners were its deployment of Primavera P6 in 2011 and its SwingletCAM in 2012.

MARIO uses a scanner attached to a vehicle to collect data. This data is then used to calculate assets’ location and condition. This reduces the manual process of collecting data and improves the accuracy of the information collected. To date 15 projects ranging from airports to motorways have been completed for both internal and external customers.

MARIO particularly impressed the awards’ judges – 57 clients, consultants, contractors and representatives of government and industry bodies – with its quick and thorough surveying.

They commented: “The developed technology allows rapid and detailed surveying of infrastructure assets, is cheaper and safer than current alternatives, and allows direct links to the BIM (building information management) environment.”

Joe Rice-Jones collected the award at a ceremony at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London on 11 July attended by more than 1,000 of the industry’s finest.

He commented: “This award validates my team’s breadth and depth of knowledge to deliver critical, estate-wide national infrastructure projects with our partners.

Joe added: “Winning this award three years in a row demonstrates Costain’s ambition to invent the future of business process automation for road and rail asset management.”

MARIO was the first winner of the Costain Start-Up initiative, an internal competition launched in 2012 to create and support innovative business ideas across the Company.

Alan Kay, Group Technical and Operations Director, commented: “This award is further proof that Costain provides an environment where innovation can flourish. It also shows our commitment to bring innovation to market faster to provide new services and solutions to our customers.”

 

Ends