Westconnex Early Works Package at Mascot – ECI Design Challenge Process
ACVM provided assistance to Aurecon and RMS through July and August 2015 for the early works package around Sydney Airport. RMS and Aurecon had selected 2 contractors to bid for the works and sought their input as critical reviewers and to make suggestions for improving the design and its constructability prior to lodging their final tenders. Their starting point was Aurecon’s design (then at about 20%). RMS wanted contractors’ teams to be kept independent of each other, working in parallel but separately.
They each participated in 3 distinct workshop processes: value engineering; risk management; and a constructability workshop. The workshop events needed a consistent team from Aurecon and RMS and the reps from key stakeholder organisations affected by the works (notably the Australian Rail & Track Corporation and Sydney Airports Corporation). The workshops covered a range of technical and delivery aspects that the challenge teams were being asked to consider and incorporate in their final reports and recommendations.
ACVM’s role was to provide independence and consistency in the facilitation of each workshop event.
To avoid ‘contamination’ of the process and each team’s ideas it was necessary to establish and get commitment to a set of protocols for how the common teams from Aurecon and RMS conducted themselves. ACVM used a two-person workshop team, with a common lead facilitator but alternate support for documenting the session outcomes. Each event had three steps – Pre-Workshop Planning, the Workshop and then a Report.
The time between each event allowed for adequacy of preparations for the next one, reporting and feedback – to ensure accuracy of outcomes. This included a short briefing session with each challenge team for its upcoming workshop to be clear about preparations, workshop activities and support arrangements. Improvement evaluation criteria were agreed – so suggestions could be ‘screened’ to select those worthwhile proceeding into the design development phase.
