On 13 July the CE Procurement Group held a lively session on Capable Owner – Project 13. We were joined by Lucy Howard, UK Head of Infrastructure Markets at Turner & Townsend and Co-Chair of the Capable Owner Workstream, and Andrew Page, Head of Commercial Services at Anglian Water.
Project 13 is all about setting up projects and the industry for success. All of the elements from productivity, sustainable industry, and digital transformation are interlinked and the capable owner wraps around it all.
Here are some of the key discussion points that came out of the session – unsurprisingly the CE Procurement Group was very supportive:
- You get the supply chain you deserve -Clients need to recognise that margins are a good thing. Project 13 recognises the symbiotic relationship between clients and their supply chains. Clients need to reinvest productivity gains to give supply chain opportunities and incentivise innovation and productivity.
- Culture – alliancing requires a total commitment from the top of the organisation. This is a completely different way of working and it requires buy-in from the top of every organisation involved, from the large consultancies to the specialists.
- Snowball effect – once people get it they really do get it! Change can feel incremental at first but once you reach the tipping point it takes off.
- Scale & Time – Long-term visibility of pipeline enables investment, this is easier over long-term projects such as water and Nuclear, but more difficult on less predictable infrastructure such as railway.
- Unlocking SME investment – CE member Solomons Europe is working with SMEs in the Sellafield P13 trial and they are finding that the long-term alliance is allowing the supply chain to invest in factories, skills, and increased capacity. Banks are more willing to lend due to the increased certainty.
- Procurement isn’t a one-off exercise – the most successful projects happen when procurement is involved beyond the initial procurement into supply chain management. This is particularly important in uncertain times, such as during COVID.
It’s fair to say we had a really enjoyable session and had so much to discuss that Lucy and Andrew will be re-joining us in October to go further into the topic.
The previous broadcast on the Capable Owner is available here: What does it mean to be a Capable Owner? – Watch here! – News – Project 13 and the next webinar should be announced soon along with a blog from Andrew.
Our next CE Procurement Group meeting will be face to face at the offices of Trowers & Hamlin 12.00-16.00 on 28 September, where amongst other things we will be looking at the Value Toolkit. CE Procurement Group Event Tickets, Wed 28 Sep 2022 at 12:00 | Eventbrite
