Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The competition to award the DP contract to work with the ODA was
won by a joint venture organisation made up of three companies from
different parts of the construction industry. The fi rst was a large engi-
neering organisation and programme manager, CH2M Hill; the second
was a tier 1 contractor, Laing O'Rourke; and the third was a construction
management organisation, Mace. These three organisations, along with
a number of strategic partners (including Davis Langdon) became the DP,
known as CLM.
The Delivery Partner was tasked with the day-to-day practicalities of
managing and delivering the programme and administering the con-
tracts for each of the construction projects. Moreover, among the
members of the DP they held the necessary skill sets and, if the need
arose, they could be the 'builder of last resort' and step in if required to
assist in the construction process. It was the depth and breadth of the
DP expertise that meant they were an extremely well-informed client
delivery partner, with insights and a detailed understanding of the con-
tractors' points of view.
In 2006, when the DP was mobilising to begin its work to deliver the
programme, the global economy was confi dent and growing and the
construction industry was experiencing high private-sector demand
both at home and abroad, with this demand returning very good margins
for contractors. However, widely publicised problems surrounding the
late delivery of the Wembley Stadium project, a major sporting venue
(eventually completed in 2007), had received much negative coverage,
both at home and overseas. The criticism centred around the enormous
overruns of both its budgets and schedules on what was agreed to be a
complex stadium construction project. Therefore the prospect of a
one-off government client procuring a number of sporting arenas and
other associated infrastructure, which were to be built in a densely
populated area of London, on highly contaminated land and to a sched-
ule with an immoveable completion date (namely, the opening cere-
mony of the Olympic Games), meant that the tender opportunities
offered by the Olympic Games infrastructure did not present an attrac-
tive business case to contractors when compared with alternative
projects on offer from private-sector markets and their clients. These
clients, after all, also had the added attraction of not being bound
by the red tape of public contract regulations and EU procurement
legislation.
Therefore, from the supply market's point of view, private-sector
contracts offered not only greater fl exibility to suppliers but - more
