Enhancing highways delivery through Project 13

Project 13 is an industry-led initiative to evolve how high-performing infrastructure is delivered and managed. Being fully sector agnostic, it plays a pivotal role in shaping the future of multiple industry projects, including those in highways. Its enterprise model and principles offer a transformative approach to infrastructure delivery and management, which could be significant for the highways sector where sizeable budgets come with high efficiency targets.

Highways project teams traditionally follow transactional arrangements to deliver projects. However, embedding Project 13’s enterprise model could revolutionise the sector. The model helps to deliver better outcomes for the public and customers of infrastructure, brings together a more highly skilled and innovative workforce, and stimulates a more sustainable and productive construction industry.

Established properly, enterprises can easily introduce the necessary skills and new technologies to highway projects, enabling them to achieve optimal results. Although the enterprise model is a recent concept, its principles are being demonstrated effectively across various projects, programs, and industries such as water, transport and energy that the highways sector can learn from.

Project 13 brings together owners, partners, advisers and suppliers working in more integrated and collaborative arrangements and is underpinned by long term relationships. Participating organisations are usually incentivised to deliver better outcomes. By effectively enhancing the efficiency of suppliers and boosting overall productivity, the Project 13 approach will make highways more appealing for the supply chain and enhance the sector's capabilities. This will result in streamlined collaboration, optimising resource utilisation and enabling a focus towards achieving better outcomes and value - not only for clients, but also for road users and the public.

To achieve these goals, Project 13 uses five pillars: capable owner, governance, integration, organisation and digital transformation. The?deployment of the core principles?is part of an understanding of the maturity at various stages, illustrating the journey to a high performing enterprise.

The application of these pillars and principles is particularly relevant in highways, where projects tend to be complex and involve multiple stakeholders. By adopting a new approach, teams can foster enhanced collaboration, leading to seamless integration and alignment among stakeholders.

An example of Project 13’s success in infrastructure was employed for a power tunnel project in London, costing over ￡1bn, which sets a clear example of potential benefits for the highways sector. The initiative aimed to strengthen the city's electrical network. Through Project 13, the focus was on customer outcomes, achieved by early collaboration for innovative solutions and knowledge exchange. The project's success was facilitated by a shared data environment that ensured all partners had a unified platform that supported efficient teamwork. To mitigate risks, a communication charter enhanced transparency among partners, alongside tools and resources for smooth team integration and sustained project delivery. Using this approach helped set a record for eco-friendly concrete pouring, saving around 82tof carbon. The project also achieved over a million work hours with zero injury lost time incidents.

With infrastructure projects already adopting the model and witnessing tangible benefits, there is scope the model and principles are set to reshape the landscape and future of highways infrastructure delivery. By fostering collaboration, integration, and efficiency better outcomes for the public, customers, and stakeholders in the highway sector can be delivered, ultimately contributing to more sustainable and innovative highways for the future.

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Join me on 19 October at the Big Thinking stage at Highways UK at 11:55 where I will be discussing in more detail, Project 13 and its use of pillars and principles.