Science

Trust and timing

Relations between Novartis and its external General Plan ERM and the remediation partners from the ARGE (Joint Venture) Marti and Züblin, which took over the project in 2014, were tested right from the start. But thanks to mutual trust, the team was able to cope with even the toughest challenges.

Text by Goran Mijuk, illustration by Ikonaut, photos by Gregory Collavini

Installation of a second, airtight marquee.

Published on 01/07/2021

Andi Truessel is a no-nonsense type of person. The Novartis engineer and army officer is direct and rarely minces his words. But his straightforward manner as well as his reliance on trust and timing were decisive in bringing the STEIH remediation project to a successful close.

“I’m not a remediation specialist, I’m a trained electrical engineer,” Truessel says. “But being a colonel in the general staff of the Swiss army, I know how to run a project and bring it to a successful conclusion.”

When Truessel was asked to join Novartis on the project team in late 2013, success could not be further away. The STEIH remediation project to clean up the lindane residue next to the Novartis Campus had suffered a major setback and faced public criticism following the unexpected release of waste material from the site a few months earlier.

Truessel was charged to look into how the project could be turned around and whether further collaboration with the existing external remediation partner would make any sense.

Truessel, who is used to a strict and disciplined approach to work and dislikes erratic behavior, quickly concluded that the site remediation needed to be executed by a different team. “There were just too many things that didn’t add up, and eventually in such a mammoth project you reach the stage when the only solution is to make a fresh start.”

As Novartis started to look for new potential partners, they hit upon Swiss remediation specialist company Marti and had a very inspiring early discussion with its Chief Executive Officer, Manuel Schiffmann. “After only our first encounter, we had a very good feeling as we immediately realized that we were talking to an experienced leader who understood the problem and would be instrumental in helping us develop the right solution,” Truessel said.

Soon afterwards, Novartis entered into a work agreement with Marti Infra AG as well as their collaboration partner Züblin Umwelttechnik GmbH. As part of the remediation team, ERM, short for Environmental Resources Management, also joined the working group.

But the collaboration was soon put to the test as Klemens Mueller from ERM recalls: “As we started our work in the tents to excavate the contaminated ground, machines regularly broke down. Within three weeks, there were five destroyed engines and almost no functioning excavator and we could not immediately explain the reason for these regular breakdowns.”

The ARGE (Joint Venture) Marti and Züblin, which had collaborated on other remediation sites in the past, as well as ERM have a long history in cleaning up industrial waste and are used to running into huge challenges, from moving bridges to fixing industrial ground contaminated over decades of chemical manufacturing.

But this one was different. When they took over the project, they first fixed the tents under which the waste material was excavated. They installed hydraulic systems allowing the tents to be moved over the entire affected area in order to gain time to remediate the site. They also installed a new ventilation system, using dust and activated carbon filters and cooling gear. However, all these fixes, which were supposed to speed up the remediation process and make it secure, proved in vain when engines started to break down.

“We tried to fix the problem with our construction machinery producers Caterpillar and Liebherr, but they had no solution and had never had a problem like it before,” said Hans-Ulrich Knehr, who led the project for Züblin. “It took us some considerable time to find that the problem was due to chlorine entering the cooling system of the machines and forming hydrochloric acid, which corroded the engine, and to find the technical solution to solve it.”

Andi Truessel supported this procedure. “Also because of other open points there was a risk that the project would stop again and that we would face a major delay and become embroiled in a legal discussion. But I wanted to avoid that and really find a technical solution as quickly as possible. Also, I was convinced that the people from Marti, Züblin and ERM would find the right solutions. I was convinced that my good feeling from my first encounter with Manuel Schiffmann was right.”

Truessel had complete trust in the ability of the teams to find a way out of the problem. He neither pressured them with legal consequences nor formulated financial constraints that could have hindered the teams from working on a sustainable solution.

His approach worked like magic. Within two weeks, the ARGE came up with a ready installed solution not only to fix the machines but to keep them intact for the rest of the remediation period as the strenuous work under the tents continued.

The people from Marti, Züblin and ERM still vividly remember this period and underline how important trust was in overcoming this challenge. “We had a lot of trust, especially in Andi Truessel,” said Klemens Mueller. “This was absolutely decisive. We told ourselves that we would not ask for a legal stop because of the engine breakdowns but would work hard to find a solution.”

Hans-Ulrich Knehr agrees: “Without Andi Truessel we could have eventually been embroiled in a legal discussion. For me, in a complex and risky project like this, clear and direct communication is important, and trust between the partners is of the essence. Anyone working on such a project should keep this in mind. Even if all project elements are set up, including transparent governance, it’s trust between the partners which makes the difference.”

“When thinking back, and it’s now almost six years that we have been working on this project together,” Truessel said, “I can only repeat that we have collaborated in the best possible way, not least because Marti and Züblin are companies where trust and integrity are deeply ingrained in the corporate DNA like in family-owned companies. Every move is informed by this hands-on ethos. And I’m thankful to them that we had the benefit of working together with them in such as collaborative manner.”

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