ALLIANCING AT ITS BEST
PAUL STEPHEN finds out why COLAS RAIL is championing the alliancing approach, and what has made it the partner of choice for this highly collaborative form of project delivery
Alliancing is a relatively new way of working for the rail industry, having made its debut in 2012.
Already a popular and highly effective contractual arrangement in the construction sector, its application to the complex and more risk-diverse environment of rail was a key recommendation of Sir Roy McNulty’s Rail Value for Money Study published a year earlier.
The theory behind it is quite simple: all participants adopt a ‘one team’ approach, rather than merely working within their own organisation. By aligning individual objectives to achieve a mutually agreed outcome, everyone is incentivised to work together to quickly resolve problems, drive down costs, and more efficiently deliver enhancements and renewals.
Risk becomes a collective responsibility, while the proceeds of cost reductions are also shared, creating strong, commercially driven outcomes.
Forming an alliance is less simple in practice, however, and requires not only suitable commercial terms to be in place, but also a strong commitment from participants to make the behavioural and cultural changes necessary for this type of close partnership working to succeed.
Alliancing is therefore just as much about ethos as a contractor’s technical and engineering prowess, and the effectiveness of any alliance will rest on its people, and their motivation to achieve outstanding results.
Leading the way in making these challenging adaptations is Colas Rail, which has positively embraced the alliancing model, and is the only rail contractor to be part of three major UK alliances.
Not only does this demonstrate the global company’s enthusiastic support of the concept, but that it also possesses the full range of disciplines needed to make it succeed by being an effective and reliable partner.
These three alliances feature varying degrees of complexity, duration and resource, but are all underpinned by Colas Rail’s ability to show trust, respect and openness to its partners while sharing in knowledge and creative ideas.
They also show what can be achieved through alliancing to exceed customers’ requirements, and why the future of this model looks bright into Control Period 6 (April 2019March 2024) and beyond. S&C SOUTH ALLIANCE The S&C South Alliance is a ten-year collaborative framework agreement with Network Rail and AECOM to deliver renewal and enhancement work to switches and crossings, plus associated catenary, third rail, signalling and civil engineering work.
Said Lahssioui, Colas Rail’s S&C South Alliance Director, says: “We delivered trackwork for Riccardo’s team at Waterloo, which could well be the first time an alliance has worked for another alliance, and is a great demonstration of its scalability.
“The complexity of both our alliance and the Wessex Capacity Alliance is similar, and we face the same problems and share the same spirit of collaboration, but the key thing is that we share risk and share opportunities.
“The fact that alliancing will be crucial on HS2 is not surprising because having one interface between a client and contractors is great for a project, but HS2 is not just doing it for the sake of it.
“You cannot force alliances together - it’s a big step in culture, in which Colas Rail has lots of experience. Everyone wins or everyone loses, and everything must be done in the spirit of fairness, with no place for individual claim.
“Everyone can challenge each other because everyone has the same status - there are no second-class members.” WESSEX CAPACITY ALLIANCE Colas Rail is working in alliance with AECOM, Mott MacDonald, Network Rail and Skanska to deliver £400 million worth of multidisciplinary upgrades to Britain’s busiest station, Waterloo and its approaches.
This included a 23-day partial blockade of the station throughout August to reconfigure the station throat, extend four platforms and increase capacity by 30%.
During the upgrade, more than 180,000 hours were worked to lay 1,270m of track, install 230m of pre-cast concrete, lay seven miles of cable and built 160m of new platform.
Alliance Director Riccardo Zampieri says that delivering this amount of work in just 23 days would not have been possible without working as part of an alliance, and believes it is an optimal way to deliver similar projects in future.
He adds: “Our success was measured by the amount of work we did in such a short space of time while maintaining an acceptable level of service. One company simply couldn’t have done that due to its complexity, and because the client would not have been part of the alliance.
“By working as one team, everyone got around each obstacle to keep the railway and the project running, with full buy-in from Network Rail. Our biggest problem was how congested the work site was over the 23 days, but this was planned in military fashion, and we built a BIM model to make sure there were no conflicting activities and to maintain a safe level of planning.
“Setting up the alliance and getting the culture right took a long time, but
once we’d got up and running we took the project from GRIP 4-6 [Governance for Railway Investment Projects] in just over 18 months, which would have taken twice as long on a conventional project. That speed, and the fact we came in under budget, was quite exceptional.
“If I was given the choice between a conventional project or another alliance, the latter would win hands down. I’ve experienced this exciting method of working, where the client makes decisions very quickly and projects do not come to a standstill. The ‘showstoppers’ vanish and everyone concentrates on delivering the project.”
MIDLAND METRO ALLIANCE
The Midland Metro Alliance was created in 2016 to deliver a challenging ten-year enhancement programme that involves the construction or extension of lines for the West Midlands’ light rail system.
This includes a £149 million extension between Birmingham New Street and Edgbaston, which was given the go-ahead for Department for Transport funding on September 1 and which will feature a catenary-free section, across which trams will be powered using onboard batteries.
The alliance is formed of five international partners (three of them being sub-alliance members), including the client ( West Midlands Combined Authority). It is led by Alejandro Moreno of Colas Rail, who was appointed Midland Metro Alliance Director in September 2016.
He says: “Creating the necessary culture for alliancing is a challenge, but we did it very well here. Across the whole programme, we expect to be on time and under budget because we all share common objectives and incentives.
“The client is also embedded in the alliance, which speeds up decision-making and increases trust - everything is an open book.
“And there’s a real mutual understanding of what the client wants, and the mechanisms on the delivery side.
He adds: “We are achieving our objective of delivering value for money on a budget of £1.3 billion.
“We’re also leaving a legacy in the West Midlands - up-lifting skills in local people by providing six-weeks training courses for NEETs [young persons not in education, employment or training] so we are creating a future for unemployed people in the area.
“There are more than 250 cities throughout Europe with light rail systems, and each of them is different. But I can say with confidence that the one solution everyone will be happy with for future projects is alliancing.”