Adler Enoksen on some of Norway’s Most Complex Infrastructure Projects

Adler Enoksen has worked on some of the most advanced, complex and detailed infrastructure and engineering projects in Norway, including the Follo Line and the Rogfast tunnel.

As Director for Hydropower Plants and Caverns at Implenia Norway, Adler is an engineering geologist with a specialism in substructure construction.

In this episode of The Okana Podcast, host Dr Graham Kelly delves into Adler’s fascinating career (to the envy of many engineers around the world) and vast knowledge to understand how he leads successful, large complex projects for both the Norwegian Government and private sector clients.

The conversation also leans towards risk and safety and how these are measured, monitored and managed, and what parts data and digital play from the planning stage through to breaking ground.

Let’s begin by talking about the current market position of construction and infrastructure projects in Norway.

In Norway large infrastructure is primarily run by the government and public companies. For example, we have the roads administrations and railroad administration, they have the largest part of the infrastructure market. We had a dip in projects due the Ukraine war, because prices changed and things were a little, let’s say, uncertain. But we saw this in the same way after Covid.

We are now witnessing the market starting to balance itself, and we are looking at a lot of new projects. There is a need to look at civil infrastructure also related to water and sewage, particularly as our cities are still growing, and we also have an issue with power. We are seeing an increase in demand for renewable energy, as well as upgrades to our current hydropower plants – these opportunities make me very excited about the future for our industry.

What projects are you working on right now?

We have two live contracts right now working on the Rogfast project, which is the world’s longest and deepest under sea road tunnel, plus live contacts on the new subway in Oslo, the Fornebubanen, which is the largest subway development in recent times and will stretch 8.2 km. Plus North of Oslo, we are currently constructing the longest railroad bridge in Norway.

What aspects of these projects are presenting the most challenges?

The biggest challenge is always the people. When managing huge projects you first need to put in place the people infrastructure and have a solid foundation within your team from which to start from, particularly as you could be managing hundreds of people from day one.

It is important to prioritise communication in order to avoid let’s say, forming of silos within the project. In all these different fractions, all these different fields of experience that are involved in the project, they have to pull in the right direction. Everybody has to understand where the project is going and their role within it.

Still focusing on the people, how you keep people safe in in what is a hugely complex and very large project?

In Norway we have a very high focus on safety within in the construction industry, and to be honest, I see it coming as a result of what’s been happening in the petroleum and the offshore industry – which I think is the correct and the right approach. I’d like to hope that everybody working in the construction industry in Norway can go to work in the morning and feel safe.

Workers are our most valuable commodity, our focus is to prevent injury because if you look at the manpower we have in Norway, and I think maybe you have the same issues in Britain, we don’t have enough people. Legislation is very important and strict for safety for this very reason.

What is the level of digital technology adoption on large project across the Norwegian market?

Building information modelling (BIM) is big in Norway and has been for some time, with interest and expertise growth in digital methods of working. There is also a great interest in AI, although this adoption is a little slower.

I recently looked at a piece of PhD research where they had looked at the possibility of using AI to develop the blasting patterns in a tunnel to see how to load differently and to achieve better blasting results – this was intriguing and I am keen to see how this develops.

From a digital perspective, there is almost no limit to how much data you can gather, the challenges come from which elements of this data do you actually need. Let’s say 10 years into the future and whatever you have built is in operation, you can be drowning in information – I’d like to see how AI can help with this and how to identify which information to isolate.

What are your predictions for future of the construction sector in Norway?

I think that there are things happening that we don’t necessarily see the consequences of yet. Such as, how will the European security change, I’m thinking about military security and how that will influence construction and infrastructure, because if the governments of Europe start thinking that they need to increase their security, this will require both economic and physical resource.

For Norway in particular we still have a lot to improve on our infrastructure, roads especially. There is still a lot to figure out when it comes to the energy and renewables questions. Maybe we should rethink our approach towards nuclear power and why not build it underground.

From a positive perspective, as contractors, we are very agile and can adapt to new requirements, to new systems very fast. We are using new technologies to be quicker, faster and more correct. Technology maybe the way forward, but we still need to put our people first.