Water sector projects dominate alliancing awards

Held as part of the AAA’s third annual national convention, they attracted submissions from Australia’s and New Zealand’s best and brightest alliance infrastructure projects across a wide range of industries.
Sydney Water and one of its key alliance programs, NetWorks Alliance, took home two out of three categories on the night.
It was recognised as the Team of Excellence in a Long Term Alliance at the awards. Now in its fifth year, the alliance is a collaboration between Sydney Water, Bovis Lend Lease, CLM Infrastructure and Veolia Water Network Services, and is delivering a program of upgrade and renewal works across Sydney Water’s 13,000km² network.
The alliance team’s commitment to driving innovation and new technology for Sydney Water, resulted in increased use of trenchless technology on renewal projects, from 10% to around 50%. Benefits in reduced time, cost and lessened community impacts, contributed to Sydney Water’s decision to grant a one-year extension to the four-year NetWorks Alliance program in 2008.
Second award
AAA executive director Alain Mignot said Sydney Water was also recognised corporately, with the Outstanding Contributor to Alliancing award, for its role as an advocate and pioneer of alliance contracting across the public sector. 
“Since creating Australia’s first public infrastructure project in 1997, to use an alliance approach between public and private sectors, Sydney Water has been active in its support of the alliance community. It continues to champion alliance values, benefits and best practice,” he said.
Queensland’s Department of Main Roads’ Tully Alliance, which also won a national Civil Contractors Federation category 5 Earth Award in Perth in October, received the third award of the evening for Team of Excellence in a Project Alliance. The award recognised the successful delivery of the Bruce Highway upgrade project in North Queensland, one year ahead of the original program, in one of Australia’s wettest environments.
With a strong focus on its people and the environment, the Tully Alliance project achieved more than 80,000 hours of registered training to up skill a workforce consisting of almost 50% locals. The project’s integration with traditional owners, its strong leadership and motivated workforce, led to environmental innovations including wildlife passage devices for cassowaries, and the reconnection of ecological corridors previously separated by years of intensive agriculture and development.
Honourable mentions
Additional water sector projects, Auckland’s Clear Harbour Alliance and Queensland’s Southern Regional Water Pipeline Alliance, were also both awarded honourable mentions to acknowledge close scores in the project alliance category. 
“The Clear Harbour Alliance was selected by Auckland’s Metrowater to minimise pollution from overflows of polluted stormwater from within its combined pipe system. With nearly 1000 properties directly affected by the project, it stepped up to the challenge of improving the community’s experience and perception of intrusive infrastructure projects,” Mignot said.
“The Southern Regional Water Pipeline Alliance Project, began as a single regional infrastructure project in South East Queensland, and grew to become a $1.3bn program of works over an area spanning 200km. Collaboration between participant companies and concurrent disciplines, saw the project delivered on time and under budget, despite the significant increase in scope,” he said.
This year’s Alliancing Association of Australasia’s National Convention took place on 22 and 23 October at the Melbourne Sofitel.
Best practice resources
AAA provides members with best practice resources, conducts more than 20 events, undertakes benchmarking and research and promotes industry excellence.
As a not-for-profit, independent, cross-sector industry initiative, the AAA connects people to create better infrastructure projects. AAA membership has experienced strong growth since establishment in 2006, numbering 91 members from 84 separate organisations, from among the biggest and most influential of the industry’s participants.
Mignot said these submissions stood out from the field for their leadership and success in building seamless teams to achieve successful alliance outcomes.
“Alliance projects are often complex: they need to start up quickly and frequently deliver ahead of schedule. This is especially relevant to Australia’s water infrastructure projects in the current world of climate change,” Mignot said. “Under the alliance model, strong integration between client and partner companies is vital to streamline the different disciplines that work simultaneously to deliver these kinds of results,” he said.