Integrated project teams and ECI

The concept of ECI (Early Contractor Involvement) and Integrated Project Teams is starting to be adopted across longer term Construction programmes where value for money and total cost of ownership are concerns.

If applied well, such an approach encourages all parties across the lifecycle of the project to share their requirements and also to innovate before the requirements for the programme are cast in stone.

However, the theory is much easier than the practice. When you have potentially competing parties around the table, how can you get them to innovate and share commercially sensitive approaches, and what is the incentive for them. Well, enlightened contractors, architects, support contractors and even de-commissioning experts will know that the earlier they get involved in the process, the more the likelihood that they can influence the customer’s requirements and encourage a focus on value rather than cost. Also, for potential bidders, a longer term engagement with the client team enables them to make a decision much sooner as to whether this is the right project for them to invest significant bid effort in. Earlier qualification of opportunities and being able to drop out of projects which are unlikely to be won will be worth millions to the major contractors.

A key enabler for IPTs and the ECI approach is collaboration between clients, contractors and the supply chain. In working within an IPT environment, contractors can also get a real sense of the operating style and values of other parties, and this can help inform their selection of Supply Chain partners. Certainly, this has been the experience in the adoption of IPTs elsewhere in Public Sector projects. Collaboration in such a situation will only be effective if parties across the Supply Chain begin to trust each other. Construction is often cited as a low-trust economy when compared to industries such as Retail, Automotive or Aerospace, but this lack of trust has been a by-product of the short-term and regional nature of relationships driven by lowest cost. A move towards value rather than cost will encourage all parties to look at how value is achieved, and it will encourage longer-term, tighter integration between parties that work together on multiple projects and programmes, and rely on each other for successful delivery of value.

So the key components for success in the ECI and IPT approach are:
• Early involvement of all stakeholders before the requirements are set to focus on the client users’ needs and to keep them at the forefront
• Focus on value rather than lowest cost
• Longer-term partnerships based on shared values and objectives
• Collaboration based on Trust