Repetition should make temporary works easier. Unfortunately, it often doesn't.
Sydney Water needed removable edge protection for precast manhole lids. The system had to protect workers entering and exiting the manholes, but there was another important requirement: it needed to move between sites.
That meant a bespoke handrail for every manhole was not much of a solution. The lids varied in size and their lifting-anchor locations were not identical.
NON-DRILL connected the edge-protection system to the four existing lifting anchors in each precast lid and designed the arrangement around the largest lid. Adjustable rails could then be reduced to suit smaller configurations.
The result was a reusable system that could adapt to different assets without requiring new drilled fixings into the precast lids.
Standardise what can be standardised
Utilities manage large populations of similar assets. That makes reusability especially important.
If every variation in asset geometry requires an entirely new temporary-works system, the organisation ends up managing more equipment, more configurations and more site decisions.
A better approach is often to standardise the main system and build adjustment into the places where variation actually occurs.
That is what happened here.
The lifting anchors provided repeatable connection points. The adjustable rails dealt with the changing dimensions.
The principle is simple:
Standardise the connection. Adapt the system. Reuse the temporary works.
That has relevance well beyond manholes.
Any organisation managing repeated precast assets should be asking whether temporary safety systems can travel between locations rather than being reinvented each time.
And, as always, the fact that an anchor exists does not automatically make it suitable. Capacity, geometry, condition, loading and the complete system still need to be considered.
But where a suitable connection already exists, it may be possible to build far more flexibility into the temporary works than first appears.