Highways England is investing £1.5bn over 5 years in the North West region of England. Transport and infrastructure improvements are crucial to unlocking the potential of the Northern Powerhouse. The North West’s motorways and dual carriageways form the backbone for the region and, to build a stronger economy, Highways England have committed to making the biggest investment to the road network in over 50 years.
Client: Arcadis
Contract Duration: 18 months
Contract Value: £200,000
Programme Duration: 5 Years
Programme Value: >£1.5bn
Optimise assisted a Client who was a Tier 1 supplier to Highways England during design and development of three North-West schemes. The primary service provided by Optimise was delivery of Project and Programme Risk and Efficiency Management. This included:
- Developing Risk Management Plans and processes;
- Establishing risk reporting tools and dashboards;
- Facilitating regular risk workshops and reviews with all levels in the supply chain;
- Creating innovative solutions to improving risk culture.
Risk Management was a Key Performance Indicator for the contract which required risk data to be submitted quarterly for assessment and assurance; Optimise were able to add value almost immediately in this area by revising the existing risk registers to contain quality, meaningful data.
In addition, Optimise facilitated the identification and management of efficiencies; Highways England, as a whole, had a set efficiency target for the period which was imperative to meet in order to deliver the portfolio of works on budget. A fundamental enabler to being able to meet this target was to implement a Lean strategy, and Optimise assisted with embedding this in the project teams as well as supporting the Client through Lean Maturity Assessments.
The combination of mature Risk Management and Efficiency/Value Management with strong Lean thinking results in not only meeting time and budget constraints but beating them.
