Strategic Alliance
Durham County Council and Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering Ltd have made a Strategic Alliancing Agreement for Civil Engineering and Environment Works and Services.
The goal of the Strategic Alliance is to achieve Best Value in the delivery of the Council's civil engineering works and services and environment services. Each has made a commitment to apply and develop the principles of Rethinking Construction in connection with all works and services arising out of the Agreement.
Two Years On
During the first two years of the Alliance a number of outcomes have been achieved.First Year Developments
- The LTP Programme for 2002/03 was delivered in full.
- Balfour Beatty and Service Direct began working together on projects.
- Value engineering was widened from only major projects to include smaller projects.
- Risk Management was introduced into the delivery of all large projects.
- The agreement of actual maximum prices and the target costs on projects involved a significant effort owing to the lack of an industry-wide target cost benchmarking system.
Second Year and Onwards
- A formal Business Plan has been introduced to manage operation and improvements.
- A dedicated Alliance Project Team of officers from Environment, Service Direct and the Joint Venture has been established to drive the Business Plan and Performance Management framework
- The Performance Management framework has been developed to provide information on comparison with other highway authorities and ongoing savings. The framework for 2005/06 will consider performance on all projects with a works value greater than £6,000
- The annual highways programmes continue to be delivered effectively.
Future Actions
Some of the future key actions for the Alliance include:- Developing a design and works cost benchmarking system to enable us to improve the identification of savings being made through the alliance
- To further develop integrated team work
- To widen the application of Risk Registers to cover all project work
- Introducing Lean Construction principles to improve the flow of processes and minimise waste
