Sydney Water, Australia

Future planning

By 2036, there will be an extra 2.71 million people and over 570,000 new homes across greater Sydney, putting pressure on the city’s natural resources, housing and infrastructure.

To service the customers of today and tomorrow, Sydney Water has developed a new procurement framework called Partnering for Success (P4S) which includes regional planning partners, three regional delivery consortia (RDC) and an integrated planning partner under decade long contracts using the market-leading NEC4 contract suite and the establishment of shared purchasing.

The new model is designed to drive innovation; better safety and outcomes for customers; as well as stability, integration and certainty within the procurement process. The framework covers the full investment lifecycle – from design to plan, build and maintain.

Uplifting project controls 

Working as part of an integrated team, we have been involved at key stages in the evolution of P4S. We have uplifted Sydney Water’s project controls function by providing cost advice and estimation, preparation of tender documents, price evaluation and negotiation and procurement support for major partner procurement. We are supporting the transactions and the technical work streams. This includes:

• Driving procurement value: We reviewed stage one tenders to aid contractor selection for the multi-billion delivery contractor packages.
• Our review included benchmark rates for comparison, a detailed assessment of all submissions noting any normalisation and adjustment factors, and a comparison of pre-tender estimates with priced submissions to identify cost risks.
• Supporting negotiations: We developed benchmark costs for nine sample projects priced by proponents and a stage two Bill of Quantities for negotiation and contract price finalisation.
• Aided cost analysis of innovative partnering: To aid development of the shared purchasing function, we analysed Sydney Water’s previous projects to compile a matrix of typical projects and scales and estimate direct supply plant and equipment usage for each type and value.

We continue to support the P4S program in its implementation phase as a centralised project controls function, providing independent advice and ensuring consistent project controls implementation across Sydney Water and their RDC partner teams.

Game-changing project

P4S is a game-changing project for the local industry and has been developed and established in very short timeframes with every milestone achieved on time. This is even more remarkable when it is considered that this model is aligned to the ‘best practice’ Project 13 framework – the first in Australia and will be the first major infrastructure programme in Australia to use the NEC contract approach to deliver new works.

This highly innovative project was delivered in true partnership and in an integrated manner with a NSW Government state-owned corporation. Through P4S we established a best-practice organisation, and one way of working which fully aligns with and brings to life the NSW Government’s ten-point plan to the construction sector.

"This is an outstanding achievement by Sydney Water, taking partnering to another level through P4S to bring world’s best practice in infrastructure delivery to serve our customers and build a resilient and future-proofed water network.”

Mark Simister, Head of Programme Delivery, Sydney Water