Hunt for smart motorway trio to deliver £600m plan

Highways England is advancing plans to deliver all the smart motorway programme through a single alliance arrangement.

Radical plans to adopt a full alliance model for all smart motorway work over the next 10 years are now underway with bids being invited to find three tier one contractors, two designers and a logistic specialist to create a production hub.

This promises a major shake-up in the motorway industry where around eight contractors are presently engaged.

The entire spend is expected to be around £700m with the new ‘on-site assembly partners’ sharing out £595m across three new operating regions in the north- midlands and south.

The arrangement will also include two design partners allocated to the north or south and a single production management partners, accountable for the programme-wide management activities within the production hub function over the term of the alliance agreement.

Shaun Pidcock, Smart motorways programme director, told the Enquirer: “We want a production line approach, using a planned programme with a level spending profile for greater continuity of work that gets the best from the supply chain and can drive greater standardisation of design and use of offsite construction. ”

“We aim to optimised learning and get everybody focused on delivering the best solutions on site,” he added.

The model is to shift to pure alliancing of the type operated in the water industry by Anglian Water.

He said that the alliance would work on an open platform, sharing resources when needed and engaging with strategic tier 2 supply teams early to book factory space for key supplies like gantries.

The production hub will operate under an alliance board made up of Highways England and its design and tier one stakeholders.

Highways England expects to make big savings, drive down man hours on site, drive innovation and make greater use of standardised design using the new alliance approach.

Further documents can be found on the website, with submission due back on 18 January.

from Construction Enquirer http://www.constructionenquirer.com/2018/12/05/hunt-for-smart-motorway-trio-to-deliver-600m-plan/

via Tumblr http://ndbasilica.tumblr.com/post/180821476544