Major Project Delivery Success

The project owner and multiple contractors engaged ORBIZ between 2016 and 2022 to help develop the system and culture of innovation and continuous improvement that continues to deliver the project successfully.

ORBIZ played a pivotal role in enabling the success of the alliance contracting model. By embedding experts into the project owner and delivery alliance teams, ORBIZ facilitated the development of commercial governance and project control systems that enabled the commercially complex contracting model to function effectively.

WHERE THE STORY BEGAN

A tier two construction contractor engaged ORBIZ in 2016 to provide advisory support to a bid to secure one of the five alliance contracts that would be involved in delivering work packages for the LXRP. ORBIZ successfully supported the contractor in winning the A$600M+ Western Program Alliance (WPA) contract by advising on the lean management system required to meet the tender’s commercial governance, project controls, and continuous improvement requirements.

ORBIZ was then retained as a consulting partner in the alliance to support developing and implementing the lean management system between 2017 and 2021. The engagement involved ongoing development of the management system and a series of problem-solving and breakthrough improvement activities to increase operational and commercial performance. Notable initiatives and return on investment from the partnership include:

1. The lean management system’s commercial governance and continuous improvement framework supported the alliance’s award of A$11m for delivering the LXRA’s Key Result Areas (KRAs) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
2. A breakthrough improvement event targeting inefficiencies in the Systems Engineering & Systems Assurance (SESA) process that involved stakeholders from across the program resulted in the implementation of a new operating model and estimated project lifecycle savings of A$5.2M
3. A problem-solving study of Social Procurement (goods and services procured from social enterprises, Aboriginal businesses, training and employment, and marginalised and disadvantaged individuals) spend target underperformance resulted in an improvement strategy that delivered the social procurement objectives and delivered an A$4.4M benefit to the alliance.

SUPPORTING THE PROJECT OWNER

The systems developed by the alliance supported by ORBIZ quickly delivered significant operational and commercial success, which resulted in the LXRP engaging ORBIZ to support streamlining organisational effectiveness, program governance, and operational efficiency for the project owner. ORBIZ facilitated a series of discreet improvement initiatives for the LXRP.

Commercial Governance & Project Control

Development and implementation of a commercial governance and project control system using visual management principles at the project owners’ headquarters in Melbourne CBD.

This system provided performance management forums focused on key performance indicators for each of the project owner’s functional departments, which fed into dashboard reporting for each Alliance Director to report weekly project status to the overall Delivery Director.

This system significantly increased performance transparency and accountability across the program, which was a catalyst for innovation and continuous improvement. The system also created a foundation for accurate and timely reporting to the Minister for Transport, who held ultimate responsibility for the project.

Organisational Redesign & Strategic Alignment

Organisational structure and role redesign, supported by developing performance management frameworks, helped streamline various departments across the project owner’s headquarters and realign the departments with each other and the strategic intent of the LXRP. This initiative delivered significant improvements in productivity and organisational effectiveness.

Design Review Process Redesign

ORBIZ was engaged to design and facilitate a week-long Breakthrough Event that engaged stakeholders from across the project in examining the design review process and identifying opportunities for improvement.

The LXRP recognised that the design review process was a significant obstacle to effectively delivering the program on budget due to its inefficiency and lack of control. The current process was causing considerable delays and overspending, which was forecast to cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

The event was attended by a broad range of more than 50 individual stakeholders from over 20 different entities who interfaced with the design review process across the program. The activity involved a study of the current state process to identify all communication failures, bottlenecks in information flow and generally inefficient activities.

Once the stakeholder group had a shared vision of the current situation, a blue-sky approach was used to collaborate and agree on a vision for the future and the changes needed to create an improved future state. A transformation plan containing 42 initiatives to deliver the future state was presented to an executive group from across the program and received a full endorsement for implementation.

This initiative is estimated to save A$100M+ over the project lifecycle.

Railway Testing & Commissioning Optimisation

Delivering the LXRP program alongside the regular maintenance activities required to operate an urban railway network in a heavily populated city put immense pressure on the engineers responsible for managing test and commissioning activities to return the network to service following closures for possession. The network had a limited number of engineers with the experience to manage the test and commissioning program, and the team was being stretched out of their comfort zone.

Several incidents during these testing and commissioning activities damaged confidence in the program’s integrity and safety. Due to the risk to the network’s safety, the situation was unsustainable. The test and commission process needed to be improved, and more test and commissioning capacity must be created if the LXRP and other agencies taking possession of the railway could deliver their construction and maintenance works safely in parallel.

The LXRP took a lead role in resolving this problem for all agencies and created a steering committee to formulate strategies to improve the test and commission process to ensure all rail network possessions could be completed safely, efficiently, and consistently.

ORBIZ was engaged in creating and delivering an improvement strategy for this critical problem by facilitating the engagement of stakeholders from across the network to develop and implement process changes.

A series of workshops were facilitated to study the T-minus process, starting at T-minus 20 weeks (20 weeks from the test and commissioning event). The workshops assessed all the responsibilities the Tester in Charge (TIC) must manage during a test and commissioning event. The TIC is the individual responsible for ensuring all test and commission activities have been completed and then approving a safe network handover back into service.

The activity identified many initiatives that were stratified into four themes:

1. Maturity of our People
2. Project Lifecycle Governance
3. Event Management & Reporting
4. Performance Auditing & Escalation

The initiatives were used to form a five-year testing and commissioning improvement strategy, and a task force was formed to lead the network-wide deployment.

The program delivered the following benefits:

• Established a strategic vision for test and commissioning excellence and a five-year strategy to deliver the vision.
• Restored confidence in the integrity and safety of the test and commissioning process.
• Identified opportunities to improve test and commissioning competency across the network and broader industry.
• Supported the mitigation of safety incidents on the railway following possessions.

SUPPORTING THE WIDER PROJECT

Due to the commercial success of the collaboration between ORBIZ and WPA, three of the other four alliances also engaged ORBIZ to support a series of initiatives to increase the project’s commercial success.

Southern Program Alliance (SPA)

SPA engaged ORBIZ in 2018 to facilitate the implementation of a commercial governance and project control system based on lean management principles.

North West Program Alliance (NWPA)

NWPA retained the services of ORBIZ from 2018 to 2019 to implement a commercial governance and project control system based on lean management principles and facilitate a series of problem-solving and breakthrough improvement events to increase commercial performance.

A notable problem-solving initiative involved facilitating a study to reduce the construction program risk and target outturn cost of an A$480M work package that involved the construction of a 2.5km rail bridge to remove four level crossings. The viaduct substructure and superstructure were the critical paths in the railway possession, and the program was tight due to the inherent constraints of operating in a densely populated suburban area compounded by the risk of bad weather during the winter months.

The activity facilitated by ORBIZ identified a series of requirements to mitigate program risk and opportunities to reduce overall construction costs:

• The pile cap construction process must be reduced from 58 hours per cap to 48 hours to meet the schedule.
• The Onsite L-beam inventory had to be increased from 69 units to 92 before the railway possession program started to mitigate trucking constraints and avoid a shortage that would stop the project midway through the program.
• A detailed traffic simulation was needed to identify material delivery constraints and enable the development and management of a comprehensive hourly plan throughout the occupation.
• The plan for offsite pre-cast crossheads and piers could cancelled, eliminating significant costs that provide minimal program value.

These recommendations provided the following benefits to the alliance:

• A 25% risk contingency was established, an increase from 19% with investable options to increase to 31%.
• 3x critical risks were identified that would have caused the program to railway possession program to overrun.
• $5M saving through a change to the pre-cast crosshead and pier construction strategy.
• The railway possession program was completed 14 days early (93-day program in 79-days).

Metropolitan Roads Program Alliance (MRPA)

MRPA engaged ORBIZ to facilitate the implementation of the Last Planner System (LPS) using Touchplan SaaS. WPA successfully implemented Touchplan, and MRPA wanted to capitalise after seeing the productivity benefits realised by WPA. The first work package that Touchplan was used to deliver was a 22-month construction program A$200M project to elevate the railway over a busy suburban road.

The increased collaboration across planning and construction disciplines, real-time program status transparency, and accountability for accurate work front planning enabled MRPA to achieve on-time delivery of planned work rate of 80%+ versus the industry average of 50%.

OUTCOMES & LEGACY

Speaking at the 2023 Victorian Transport Infrastructure Conference, LXRP CEO Matthew Gault emphasised that the program’s success was not a result of avoiding the typical challenges faced by major infrastructure projects but a result of facing them differently.

Gault credited LXRP’s outcomes to three deliberate strategies:

1. Adopting a manufacturing-style mindset to enhance productivity and enable continuous course correction.
2. Implementing time-bound contracting with a long-term pipeline and manageable package sizes to reduce risk.
3. Prioritising early collaboration through extensive front-end engineering and design discussions to simplify delivery.

Rejecting limitations imposed by labour shortages, Gault instead focused on how to do more with less by applying a culture of continuous improvement to drive faster, more efficient project delivery.

Through empowering delivery teams to embrace change, solve problems, and innovate at the work front, LXRP achieved results that set a new benchmark in Australian infrastructure.

ORBIZ is proud to have supported the LXRP program over several years to implement Lean strategies aligned with this innovation and continuous improvement mindset. Our work contributed directly to the project’s ability to reduce complexity, boost productivity, and maintain delivery momentum across a complex, multi-contractor environment.

Some of the benefits of the system developed by LXRP with the support of ORBIZ are:

• Embedded a culture of collaboration, visual accountability, and empowered leadership.
• Enabled consistent planning practices across multiple contractors and alliances.
• Improved program predictability through enhanced constraint management and plan reliability.
• Fostered real-time governance that supported rather than burdened delivery.
• Accelerated knowledge transfer and process reuse across the 110-project pipeline.
• Strengthened industry capability in digital tools and lean infrastructure delivery.

The Level Crossing Removal Project exemplifies how large-scale infrastructure programs can deliver extraordinary outcomes when powered by the right mindset, tools, and behaviours. Through its partnership with LXRP, ORBIZ supported delivery and actively shaped how teams worked, embedding lean leadership, digital planning, and visual governance practices that unlocked productivity, accountability, and sustained improvement.

We congratulate everyone involved in LXRP on their outstanding work and are honoured to have contributed to this landmark infrastructure success story.