In community engagement, health and safety, value, supply chain management, collaboration, quality of product and leadership, this project exceeds all expectations.

Government commitment to removing 75 dangerous level crossings in Melbourne has allowed Laing O’Rourke, as part of the South Eastern Program Alliance (SEPA), to showcase not just its global experience of best-practice rail development, but much more.

The program of works has a high degree of engineering complexity and involves significant community impact and deep engagement with numerous key stakeholders.

Laing O’Rourke has adopted a fully collaborative approach with the client, Level Crossing Removal Authority (LXRA), and the rail operator. The sharing of IP with contractors across the program has created project-wide, value-for-money solutions.

Building skills along the way

SEPA’s objectives include maximising social outcomes, fostering an inclusive workforce and culture and building skills and capability for future projects. This has included the appointment of a dedicated Social Inclusion Manager, engagement with apprentice groups, targets for Aboriginal, disability, female and disadvantaged groups, and more.

As of November 2020, SEPA has an overall performance rating of 4.5 out of 5. Key criteria include community engagement, health and safety, value for money, supply chain management, collaboration, quality of product and leadership.

The result

The client has identified one of the benefits of the collaborative model as the provision of “a robust benchmarking database with standardised work breakdown structure, generating clearer visibility of value for money and certainty around costs”.

It has led to numerous program benefits, such as the Toorak Road Level Crossing being removed six months ahead of schedule.

The traditional cost to the owner to bring a project to execution of contract can be as high as 6% of total project value. On this program, the cost was reduced to around 4% through less duplication and greater sharing of information.