A THREE-COMPANY consortium of Clough Engineering, Henry Walker Eltin and Maunsell has been selected as preferred proponent for Main Roads’ first alliance contract.
A THREE-COMPANY consortium of Clough Engineering, Henry Walker Eltin and Maunsell has been selected as preferred proponent for Main Roads’ first alliance contract.
The consortium will design and construct stage seven of Roe Highway, at an estimated cost of about $58 million.
Alliance contracting, which Main Roads plans to use on a selective basis, marks a major shift from traditional contracting arrangements.
Under the system Main Roads and the contractors will work as a single entity, making joint decisions at every stage of the project and sharing risks and savings.
Alliance contracts are also viewed by industry as a means of helping Main Roads acquire skills from the private sector.
This would support the State Government’s plan to rebuild Main Roads’ in-house design and engineering skills.
Main Roads is aiming to lift the percentage of design work performed in-house from 5 per cent to 25 per cent within three years.
Its adoption of alliance contracting follows last year’s appointment of Menno Henneveld as commissioner of Main Roads.
He was formerly a senior executive at the Water Corporation, which has led the public sector in using alliances.
This included WA21, an alliance with Clough and Halliburton KBR for the $150 million upgrade of the Woodman Point wastewater treatment plant.
The Water Corporation has also established alliance arrangements for the upgrades of its Beenyup and Subiaco wastewater treatment plants, which are presently under way.
Clough group manager corporate affairs Peter Collins said the company had a long history of alliances and relationship-based contracting for both public and private sector clients.
Six alliance submissions were received from road builders and designers for Roe Highway stage seven.
“The alliance form of project delivery allows for better project management, risk sharing and problem solving between the contractor, designers and the Government on major infrastructure projects,” Planning and Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan said.
“The level of interest shown in this project indicates that these benefits have been recognised and embraced by the construction industry.”
She said the Government had taken the innovative contracting approach to enable Main Roads to pursue a number of critical project activities in parallel.
“For instance, project design and community consultation can be conducted by the alliance team at the same time as fulfilling other project requirements, such as seeking formal environmental approval for stage seven, which is expected early in 2004,” Ms MacTiernan said.
“If this environmental approval is gained at the time we anticipate, the project will have all other approvals and processes in place in order for a start to construction almost immediately.”
Based on this timetable, work could commence on stage seven, which runs from South Street to the Kwinana Freeway, well before the completion of stage six.
Main Roads is aiming to finalise the alliance agreement with the Clough, Henry Walker Eltin and Maunsell consortium in the next month.
The three companies in the consortium all have prior experience working on projects together.
Henry Walker Eltin recently completed the $46 million upgrade and sealing of a 163-kilometre section of the Mt Magnet-Leinster Road, and Maunsell worked on the project as design consultants.
Clough and HWE worked together on the Kwinana Freeway bus transitway.
