Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
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In Focus: Delivery models ognise value and outperformance rather than the amount of work completed. "It wasn't about inventing something," Evans says. "A team was put together to look at good projects, as well as not-so-good projects, across infrastructure and identify the real characteristics of best practice, which were then rolled up into the shi• that Project 13 advocates." New roles In essence, the enterprise model represents an integrated organisation characterised by sophisticated, maturing and typically longer-term relationships between the various participants. The model may change in accordance with project requirements, but the P13 Blue- print set out five core roles: owners, inves- tors, integrators, advisors and suppliers. In the case of water companies, they may play the role of owner, which involves identifying the needs of the asset network, as well as investor, taking responsibility for leading the financial strategy. The integrator brings in appropriate suppliers and advisors – experts in their particular subject areas – as and when they can best add value. "There are questions about who the integrator should be," Scott Jackson, UK regional director for water at Stantec, says. "Is that a member of the supply chain you bring in? Is it the client? Is it a mixture? That's something that should be defined by the specific enter- prise you're trying to create." In the case of Anglian Water, its alliance teams – made up of the utility and its main contractors – serve as the integrator, developing strategies for how the programme should be delivered and driving improvement initiatives. Advisors are defined as organisa- tions that provide expertise to realise the owner's definition of value and professionalism to support the delivery. Suppliers are those that provide materi- als, components, specialist services, construction or labour. Craig McMaster, Stantec's strategic growth and business development director for energy and infrastructure, says: "One of the biggest challenges to making an enterprise successful is bringing the supply chain in to be a part of the machine. "There's a huge amount of knowl- edge, experience and ideas within the supply chain but it's about how you commercially and contractually incentivise those suppliers to be part of that machine, rather than just having them supplying steel and concrete or whatever it is. "It's about creating a really high- performing enterprise where that supply chain is fully engaged in the delivery of these innovative ideas and not sitting separately. I think the supply chain is hugely enthusiastic and can contribute loads of experience and loads of ideas. That's innovation." Jackson adds: "If the UK water indus- try wants to be more innovative in the future, innovation is driven by diversity of thought. Having different people with different experiences in the decision- making process as part of a collabora- tive working environment can only be a good thing." With more traditional approaches so entrenched in many areas, though, devel- oping the kind of relationships that are re- quired to facilitate innovation throughout the supply ecosystem is not a simple task and will rely on having the right person- nel in place to lead the change. "If you look at the challenges clients and the supply chain have, a lot of it is about leadership and behaviours, especially in culture," Jackson says. "Collaboration generally is very difficult and it needs a lot of innovation around behaviours. "Clients and partners need to make sure they have the right types of leaders in their organisation, because they'll be responsible for driving the behaviours in a very collabo- rative manner. That can be difficult." Contractors will also have to adapt to a change in role. Project 13 promotes the idea that the infrastructure owner should be a 'capable owner', which consists of numerous key characteristics including focusing on the delivery of value and creating the condi- tions to facilitate early engagement and alignment between customers' needs and the supply chain. "Rather than the clients asking the tier 1s to manage the supply community, the capable owner has a greater recognition that others within the supply ecosystem need to have a voice," former BIM4Water chair Andrew Cowell says. "People have a share in the outcome of the project so you get rewarded by the value you create. It's much more of a network enterprise where everyone can make contributions, and tier 1s will have to get used to working in a different way with their suppliers." Amid a difficult financial environment that is likely to intensify in AMP7, many contractors might welcome the opportu- nity to recalibrate their approach. Project 13 presents the enterprise structure as an alternative to transactional approaches 12 | SEPTEMBER 2019 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk