Smart Cities need Smart Project Delivery to be successful

A Smart City is an urban area that leverages data, information and communication technology to enable the efficient and sustainable use of assets, resources and services to reduce consumption / waste and improve the overall quality of life for its citizens.

A Smart City requires the integration of physical infrastructure, with technology, smart applications and people to be successful.

The planning, design and construction of the physical infrastructure needs to be implemented in conjunction with developing the technology and smart applications that people will use.

A successful Smart City solution will incorporate requirements from the future operators of the assets and views from the public. Co-creating applications in conjunction with citizens is a smart way of ensuring the relevance of solutions and a human centric environment.

Futureproofing the design and building in flexibility and subsequent change of use to respond to evolving technology and changing work / life preferences and behaviours is critical.  As the world faces an exponential rate of change, flexibility and agility are needed to respond to future needs.

The smartest way to achieve this outcome is to establish an organisational design and delivery model that facilitates a programmatic and scalable yet agile way of working ie a Programme Management Office.  A Smart PMO will create an environment that enables smart ways of working such as:

Smart Planning 

• Benchmarking smart solutions and attributes from other Smart Cities.
• Demand planning to estimate future usage and plan accordingly.
• Engaging the community and future operators to develop practical workable solutions.
• Reference class estimating to ensure budgets and schedules are realistic.
• Creating an optimised phasing strategy where development costs and revenue are carefully aligned.

Smart Design

• Design thinking and co-creation with all relevant stakeholders including future operators and end users.
• Leveraging technology including BIM, Generative Design and Augmented / Virtual Reality to generate, evaluate and test proposed designs.
• Futureproofing designs and incorporating flexibility for changes of use and evolving operational and end user requirements.
• Early involvement of the supply chain to increase standardisation, modularisation and pre-fabrication.
• Designing sustainably through the use of whole life costing to minimise future operating costs.

Smart Procurement 

• A procurement strategy that includes demand analysis, category management, strategic sourcing, contract bundling and supply chain management that delivers best value for money.

Smart Contract Management 

• Fair forms of contract that include an appropriate allocation of risk and incentivise performance and innovation.
• Data analytics, and project controls including predictive analytics to provide early warning of risks and issues and develop actions to keep the project on track.

Smart Construction 

• Maximise the use of prefabrication, 3D printing, drones, robotics and RFID to improve productivity, safety and speed of construction whilst reducing defects and waste.

Please feel free to contact us for advice on how to develop a Blueprint and optimised Delivery Model for the successful planning, design, construction and operation of a Smart City Development or to join our growing Eco-system of Smart City stakeholders.

Andrew Macpherson is the Arcadis Regional Head of Project and Programme Management and can be contacted on [email protected]

Arcadis is advising on a number of Smart City developments worldwide providing solutions including feasibility studies, investible masterplans, stakeholder management, organisational design, cost and schedule benchmarks, programme management, technology platforms, BIM, project controls, procurement advice and supply chain management.