A £750m water and wastewater infrastructure programme of over 300 individual projects calls for on the ball project management, reports Mark Hansford.

From the start United Utilities was determined to use IT to support its £750m three year capital investment programme (AMP3) for water and water and wastewater projects in north west England. In particular it regarded project collaboration as central to improved efficiency through better planning and greater standardisation in design and construction.

UU is responsible for providing services to nearly three million customers in north west England. It owns, manages and maintains more than 600 wastewater treatment works and over 100 water treatment works, together with 80,000 kilometres of pipes and sewers.

In February 2002 it signed three framework agreements, each worth about £250m, for the construction of new water and wastewater capital projects up to March 2005. The agreements were signed with three joint venture companies, each allocated an area. HMB Alliance (Morgan Est, Barhale Construction, and Harbour and General Works) covers all new capital investment works in the northern region, including Cumbria and the Ribble Valley, while KMI Alliance (Kier Construction, J Murphy & Sons and Interserve Project Services) is responsible for the central region project, covering Liverpool, Oldham, Burnley and Warrington.

Finally, the Galliford Costain framework agreement covers works in UU’s southern region, which includes Manchester and north Cheshire. Consultant Montgomery Watson Harza is project manager.

BIW Information Channel (IC) from BIW Technologies (BIW) was chosen as collaboration provider. IC is web based and designed specifically to manage individual construction projects or major multi-project programmes of work. Information can be made available to the client’s staff and to every authorised project team member, with the amount and type of information tailored exactly to fit the security profile and roles and responsibilities of each user.

For example, United Utilities and MWH staff can login to and access project-specific information and management information relating to the overall AMP3 programme. This helps them keep track of all work on over 300 projects currently under way.

Similarly, framework contractors can access necessary information to manage schemes covered by their particular agreements. Individual subcontractors, subconsultants and suppliers can get details directly relevant to their projects.

Data can range from the earliest concepts and specifications, through design drawings and construction method statements, to operation and maintenance manuals.

IC is currently being used on 316 individual projects across the UU region, by more than 500 users from upwards of 40 companies in each of the framework areas. In total, the system has so far been accessed over 230,000 times, and more than 18,000 drawings and 29,000 documents have already been downloaded to the system.

BIW’s systems are also being to manage information which is not project-specific but which relates to the overall programme of work. Standard designs, procedures and product or component specifications and any associated documents or drawings can be saved in a central repository and used as reference material by all project teams.

BIW has created a dynamic two-way link between the standards “library” and each project-specific use of that standard. As a result, project team members can now quickly find and access standard reference material for use in live projects, while those managing United Utilities’ corporate standards can easily monitor where particular standards have been employed.

“This is a further step towards use of online collaboration technology to manage corporate information about an organisation’s assets and projects,” says BIW chief executive Colin Smith. “We are developing powerful tools that allow project team users to feed back information to United Utilities. Potential amendments can be captured and used to update current standards, promoting continuous improvement.”