IPWEA Vic Blog

Summary Report from Maurice Stabb attending on behalf of IPWEA

IPWEA attended the Roads Australia Forum recently and a summary of the material presented and discussion at the workshop is as follows.

The workshop focused on the different types of construction delivery models (primarily relating to horizontal construction), their strengths and weaknesses, opportunities to improve them and an overview of the concept of ‘managing contract’ as a delivery model and its applications.

George Mavroyeni (VicRoads)

• Use of D&C contracts has been common due to time saving and earlier start of construction
• D&C contracts have fundamental issues around risk sharing and developing a shared understanding/communication of the project scope
• A new alliance model was discussed
• The challenges of D&C are:

1. Shared understanding of project scope
2. Appropriate risk sharing
3. Clarity of tender process and timeframes
4. Achievement of desired project outcomes
5. Reduced cost of tendering
6. A ‘pipeline’ of works
7. More interaction between principal and contractors
8. Shorter ‘shortlists’ -> cost of tendering

• D&C improvement opportunities:

1. More interaction between the parties during selection and then delivery
2. Clearer project objectives and outcomes
3. Better understanding of principal interests and expectations

• An end to end process from EoI to contract award was outlined
• Inclusion of ‘non-price’ attributes (eg sustainable materials and technologies) in tenders was discussed and how they could be evaluated
• Development of a contractor performance scheme to allow performance assessment on Alliances and D&Cs for use in short listing for future projects was discussed
• Query on where whole of life costing and maintainability of new assets is considered
• Project objectives should include consideration of any future stages and how they have been ‘built-in’

Marko Misko (Clayton UTS) and Ewen Nevett (VicRoads)

• Concept of Managing Contractor (MC)(as distinct from contractor management) tabled -> concept underpinned by collaboration
• Model is often commenced with limited defined project scope at the outset  ->concept aims to maximise over the life of the project
• Fundamentally a D&C but without fixed cost and time
• MC responsible for all reimbursable works via sub-contractors approved by the Principal
• Indicative costs submitted at tendering time are adjusted at the end of the project planning phase once the scope is finalised
• This can be structured as a two phase contract -> planning phase and delivery phase
• Movement to phase two is based on set criteria for phase one
• New models for Alliances and D&C need to include ‘maintainers’ in ALL projects at the front end

Bob Vickers (Abigroup)

• Discussed model of collaborative contracts -> one in which the parties co-operate to achieve desired outcome
• Many forms of collaborative contracts including:

1. Alliances -> non-adversarial relationships, focused on project outcomes -> virtual enterprise
2. Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) -> negotiated D&C with incentives (commonly used in SA/Qld)
3. Early Tenderer Involvement (ETI) -> negotiated construct only contract with incentives (involves constructability input to design)
4. Hybrids (incl. MC) -> lump sum or % of construction cost

• Hybrids likely to be the future
• Reference point is the Alliancing Association of Australasia web site -> alliancingassociation.org
• A comparative table of the different forms of contract with their strengths and weaknesses, etc was presented

Should any Board Members or IPWEA member have any queries please do not hesitate to call or email IPWEAvic office. vic@ipwea.org.au or 03 90050860

Take a look at this video from the Dutch Cycling Embassy at http://dutchcycling.nl/  It gives an overview of cycling in Holland.  The Dutch Cycling Embassy provides consultancy services in cycling to toher countries.

Department of Infrastructure and Transport has released a research document outlining a methodology for calculation of road vehicle-kilometers travelled estimation from state and territory fuel sales.  It can be accessed via this url http://www.bitre.gov.au/publications/2011/report_124.aspx