INEIGHT CASE STUDY
MAJOR TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE AUTHORITY (MTIA)
TAKING A CONNECTED APPROACH TO INFRASTRUCTURE MEGAPROJECTS
The Victorian Government’s Big Build program encompasses several infrastructure megaprojects, including the North East Link Project (NELP): the largest-ever investment in the northeast of the state capital Melbourne, which is home to almost five million people. Launched in 2022 with the aim of reducing road congestion, NELP will see the construction of freeway tunnels that will take 15,000 trucks off local roads every day and reduce travel times by up to 35 minutes.
A Director of Project Controls of NELP says: “Back in 2019, when we were setting up NELP, we consulted with the other project offices within the MTIA and found that they were using multiple different sets of processes and technologies. As a group, we asked, ‘How much better would things be if we could ensure greater synergy between us?’”
“We’ve managed to align the processes around project controls across the MTIA and consolidate our information, which means that we can report in a consistent way.”
-MTIA Director
The director observes that there are often fundamental disconnects between the strategic governance of an organisation on the one hand, and the tactical project controls on the other. “Technology is often wrongly seen as a silver bullet here,” he says. “Rather than diving into a selection process, we thought about what we wanted to accomplish around project controls and data. Every project generates data, and it’s vital to consider how you’re gathering that data and what the intended purpose is. Before getting anywhere near the technology, we wanted to work out how we would transform data into relevant information, analyse it, and disseminate it.”
These discussions gave rise to the Connect Program, in which five major project offices within the MTIA joined forces for a AU$110 billion digital transformation initiative. Working with consultants from EY, the joint team successfully agreed on standardised project controls, establishing centres of practices for all the core elements such as cost, time, risk, quality, document control, information, collaboration, management and so on.
“We’ve managed to align the processes around project controls across the MTIA and consolidate our information, which means that we can report in a consistent way to the Office of the Director General, opening up the prospect of more accurate benchmarking,” says the director. “We also did a lot of market analysis and short-listed three technology vendors that we thought could support our requirements. Ultimately, we hope to have a single end-to-end technology platform, but we’re still on journey to rationalise the systems.”