OUR APPROACH TO INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT
”Leadership, like coaching is working hard to earn the trust of your team and getting them to believe in you and empowering them with confidence and self motivation to work to achieve the best possible outcomes for the team” - H.O'Callaghan
Relationships
We believe that trust should be at the centre of all relationships and without it the relationship is doomed to fail. The contract underpins the relationship between the client and the contractor. In the current infrastructure environment the contracts used are heavily modified from standard forms of contract by legal experts and they attempt to optimise a position in someone's favour, depending on where the bargaining power lies at the time of signing the contract. We see contractors and clients taking on risks that they can't manage well and that perhaps they would be wiser to avoid. We see downstream supply chain parties signing up to very onerous contracts that could potentially put them out of business. These one sided contracts erode trust and put the relationship on a shaky footing to start with. The end result is that the parties are more concerned with their own short term commercial ambitions at the expense of a successful project outcomes focus.
Desired outcomes for clients include delivery certainty, delivery on time for a capped max. cost to the highest quality standards whereas desired outcomes for contractors include certainty of income for a fixed scope with flexibility of delivery time to an acceptable quality standard for the least possible cost. Focussing on these differences in individual desired outcomes takes the focus away from the project outcomes. More collaboration between the parties is required to ensure risks are managed by the party best placed to manage them and that decisions are made in the best interests of the project rather than by party commercial interests alone. We believe that fairer upstream and downstream contracts are essential to establishing good project stakeholder working relationships. If the contractual tools and mechanisms exist to deal with project risks and allow open collaboration and decision making in a fair and equitable manner then a high degree of trust will exist between the contracting parties and focus will turn to achieving the best project outcomes possible. An open collaborative environment is fostered where expectations are such that misunderstandings that arise and may lead to a conflict can be minimised.
Costs & Risks
Infrastructure projects are fraught with risks and no action can be deemed to be absolutely safe and nothing can be absolutely certain. Cost estimating and assessing risks are concerned with predicting what will happen in the future, of which nothing is certain. Nevertheless progress and innovation stems from taking risks. Risk assessment techniques are about investing money, time, people and resources to control uncertainty to an acceptable tolerable level. We believe in using our judgement to identify and highlight risk issues so they cannot be ignored or delegated to parties who don't have the resources to deal with them. We strive to consider the cost implications of all aspects of risk management to allow effective consultation with those who may be exposed to the risks and ultimately allow our customers to determine those risks to their acceptable levels of tolerance.
In collaboration with our customers we use our experience and understanding of civil engineering to compile cost estimates of probable costs of work breakdown structures included in a given scope using Expert Genesis estimating software and we crosscheck our estimates against historical benchmark rates and data. We aim to minimise uncertainty by collaborating with clients to apply a contingency reserve and management reserve to the cost estimates as they see fit.
Variations
Contract variation mechanisms are usually well defined though short unrealistic time bars for the submission of claims can erode fairness and trust. We believe that high frequency claims are to no ones benefit as they are difficult to plan for and execute and lead to project inefficiencies and global claims that are difficult to quantify and come to agreement on. They also erode the relationship between the parties. We believe that a low price high variation approach is better replaced with a clear estimate allowance with adequate risk provision.
Delivery
The realisation of the project uncertainties mentioned above during the delivery phase must be managed well. Good project controls and reporting must be in place prior to commencement. We work with our customers to ensure these are in place and risks and changes are identified and managed appropriately. Costs, time, quality, WHS, community, stakeholders and the Environment all require detailed management processes and recording and documentation for auditing. Commercial aspects and contract administration must be under a vigilant eye. Contingency reserves must be taken up as required to ensure that the project remains on track with budget. Frequent scheduling updates and comparisons against base lines are needed to keep delivery on track with time, tomitigate costs and to claim extensions of time where appropriate.