NATS engineering team win prestigious Association for Project Management award

NATS, the UK’s leading provider of air traffic services, has been awarded the prestigious ‘Project of the Year’ award for 2013 by the Association for Project Management (APM).

Presented at an awards ceremony on 4 November, the APM named NATS’ Radar Replacement Programme as the winning project, and described it as “a seamless replacement of 23 radars across Britain with new radar technology that has improved the safety of one of the busiest airspaces in the world.”

The NATS project team oversaw the replacement of 23 operational radars over 10 years at the cost of £164 million. The last radar to be replaced was located at Manchester Airport and was completed on 23 July 2013.

Throughout the project, the team coped with a variety of challenges, ranging from changing stakeholders, contract amendments and governance demands to the day-to-day challenges of construction sites and delivering radars back into service without major operational impacts.

Frank Wood, General Manager, Programmes explained: “The Radar Replacement Programme was extremely challenging due to the geographical spread of the radars and the inhospitable locations at which most of them are located. The success of the project was only due to the cooperation of a lot of people across NATS, and it is great to receive this accolade, which recognises all of the efforts made.”

David Hawken, General Manager, Engineering said: “This has been a real team effort over many, many years and I’m delighted that the APM has recognised the success of this major infrastructure project, which was completed without disturbance to the day-to-day operations of air traffic control.”

The APM Project Management Awards has become the most prestigious night in the professional calendar and has been awarding project management excellence for over 20 years. Recognising the very best in the profession, winners of the most sought-after trophy have demonstrated the invaluable contribution project management and project professionals make in all sectors of society.