PHILADELPHIA -- The word "audit" usually conjures a boring -- and sometimes terrifying -- tableau of invoices, spreadsheets and calculators. But ask Robert Bright about a construction audit that his Philadelphia firm, Talson Solutions, just wrapped, and he breaks out a slideshow of what could be mistaken for an exotic vacation.
International locales: Italy, South Korea and China, to name a few. Pictures of waterways and ships. Bands and celebratory fireworks.
They're scenes of a job like no other for the 15-year-old boutique firm: the $5.2 billion Panama Canal expansion.
The eight-year effort that doubled the shipping channel's tonnage capacity was eagerly anticipated by the worldwide maritime community, to reduce travel time for vessels crossing between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, handle massive new cargo ships, and relieve congestion. The expansion opened in late June, the first substantial change in the canal's 100-year history.
"These are numbers that just don't compare to any other project," said Bright, 56, Talson's founder and president. "This is a project that impacts not just one city, one country; it impacts the world."
Talson, whose local clients include Princeton and Drexel universities and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, has worked on big-dollar, high-profile jobs before, including the Freedom Tower in Lower Manhattan. But none have matched the complexity of the canal project, Bright said.
For starters, the construction site covered about 50 miles, the work managed by four contractors from as many countries: Panama, Italy, Spain and Belgium. Design centers and fabricators assigned to portions of the work were in 10 countries. The project's duration -- two years longer than anticipated because of construction delays and labor strife -- spanned three presidential administrations in Panama.
Bright -- one of 10 Talson employees (the firm has 24) assigned to the project -- accumulated 123 passport stamps for his travels alone to check on quality-management systems of vendors or to foster better communication between contractors and clients.
He would not say how much Talson made for its auditing and consulting services to the inspector general's office of the Panama Canal Authority, only that it was a "multimillion-dollar contract." Talson's annual revenue last year was $4 million, Bright said.
Arguably as valuable is the credibility-building that comes with such a massive job.
"It's a signature project," Bright said. "By doing it, it eliminates a lot of questions about 'Who is Talson?'"
It is not, he said, a party responsible for alleged design flaws that, according to a July 31 New York Times article, led to rips in the hull of a Chinese container ship that struck a lock wall, and the shearing off or damage to up to 100 buffering fenders intended to protect lock walls and ship hulls should they touch.
Canal pilots are blaming the absence of an approach wall like those at the canal's two other entrances, serving as effective counters to winds and currents.
"Talson focused on compliance and project management of the design/engineering processes, procedures, quality management, schedule in place, etc. to identify risk to the overall project," Bright wrote in a recent email, saying his company has no role in the design deficiencies suggested by the New York Times.
"Very unfortunate for the canal to have this bad news," he said. "The people of Panama and the overall project deserve a bit more."
There are also an estimated $3.5 billion in outstanding claims by contractors and other project participants currently in international arbitration, which Bright summed up as "very typical mega-project-type claims," such as unexpected price increases for materials and changes in site conditions. A shortage of funds caused contractors to temporarily stop work in 2012.
Talson's overall project objective was "identifying that missing piece of the puzzle to move things along," Bright said.
Elsa Jamarillo, "acting" inspector general for the Panama Canal Authority for nearly two years of the canal expansion, cited Talson's expertise in both auditing and engineering for its contract's two-time renewal during the project. She also lauded Talson's training sessions and its "helping us walk through the maze of relationships ... in a project such as this one."
Now Talson is tackling another first, as project manager with Liberty Property Trust on the $1.5 billion Comcast Corp. tower going up in downtown Philadelphia. Talson was construction auditor on the Comcast Center, completed in 2008.
SundayMonday Business on 08/21/2016