Thank you!
The 36th NETLIPSE Network meeting was a great succes! Over the course of two days, public professionals from 14+ countries gathered to delve into the latest developments in infrastructure delivery.
Our thanks go out to The Autobahn GmbH, and especially Christina Richter and Bernard Gyergyay for hosting the Network Meeting in their impressive Berlin headquarters. We also want to thank Deutsche Bahn for hosting the Network Dinner in their Innovation Start-Up Hub DB mindbox.
And last but not least a big round of applause to all presenters, workshop facilitators, contributors and participants that shared their insights, challenges, and best practices. It’s this exchange of ideas that inspires us to try new things and help shape the future of infrastructure delivery in Europe!
Below you will find a summary of the presentations that were given and the photos of the event.
Summary of presentations
Opening Network Meeting
Hans Ruijter / Rijkswaterstaat (NL)
Pau Lian Staal-Ong / NETLIPSE (NL)
Opening & Introduction NETLIPSE
Hans Ruijter welcomes all the delegates and opens the Network Meeting, followed by and introduction of NETLIPSE by Pau Lian Staal-Ong.
Dr. Michael Güntner / The Autobahn GmbH (DE)
Welcome & Introduction The Autobahn GmbH
Dr. Güntner welcomes the delegates to the new Autobahn GmbH office in Berlin. He explains that the federal agency is still young, and continuously striving to improve and learn from sister organisations. In order to maintain the 13.000KM of motorway which is a crucial driver for the economy and prosperity in Europe, The Autobahn GmbH focusses on three main topics:
- Digitalisation
- Faster Construction
- Sustainability
NETLIPSE provides an excellent platform to share knowledge on these topics.
Johannes Meiners / The Autobahn GmbH (DE)
Contracting & Procurement at The Autobahn GmbH
Johannes Meiners explains that the legal department develops innovative contract and procurement instruments that can help the regional entities to deliver better projects. These innovations include instruments such as functional tendering, awarding contracts based on sustainability or availability criteria, open house procurement, and workstream agreements.
The Autobahn GmbH makes use of pilot projects to learn from practice and develop the instruments into standardised tools and documents. These are shared with the regional entities to help them deliver faster, more efficient, and more sustainable projects.
Block 1: Innovations in Collaboration
Marie-Claire Horden / ProRail (NL)
Public Transport Terminal Breda
Marie-Claire Horden shares her experience as a project manager of the Breda Public Transport Terminal. She explains that the project involved multiple owners with larger stakes in the project than ProRail, but because of the railroad law, ProRail was acting as the client for the contractor.
The initial cooperation contract that was used led to disputes between the owners. In order to solve these issues, it was necessary to work more closely together. It was then decided to move away from contractual positions, and allocate roles in the project based on talent. This meant that the organisation that was best equipped to fulfill a specific role, would staff that role. This also meant that everyone involved had to defend actions from other owners within their own organisations, to gain their support for the project.
Marie-Claire explains that the only way to make that kind of collaboration work, is when you’re able to trust eachother. This means:
- You have to really know eachother and find out what motivates people. Only a PSU is not enough.
- You have to be transparent in what you’re doing, communicate what you intend to do and act accordingly.
- You have to be honest, there is no room for hidden agendas.
- It helps to work in the same building.
- Trust untill proven otherwise.
Bjorn Andersen / NTNU (NO)
OptimalTime Tool for Early Contractor Involvement
Bjorn Andersen explains that the research project “OptimalTime” has worked with a selection of project owners and contractors to develop a model for clients to determine when and how contractors should be involved early in the development of a project.
This has culminated in the development of an easy-to-use tool that can be applied to analyse whether various task to be subcontracted are suitable for ECI and if so, when.
The tool is publicly availabe on this link.
Dr. Jochen Eid / The Autobahn GmbH (DE)
Manuel Zimmermann / The Autobahn GmbH (DE)
Workstream Agreements: Open House & Framework Contracts
Manuel Zimmermann explains that The Autobahn GmbH had trouble to find contractors that were willing to tender to supply services for individual projects. The tender costs are high and the reward minimal. In order to adress this issue, The Autobahn GmbH has developed framework agreements in which contractors can tender once to provide the same service for multiple projects. This makes The Autobahn GmbH a more attractive client, and lowers the capacity needed on both sides to conduct the tender.
Another innovative tool that has been developed is the Open-House Procedure. In this procedure, every contractor that meets certain requirements and accepts a specified price, is added to a pool of contractors from which a contractor is selected when the work has to be conducted.
Dr. Jochen Eid presents the Federal Bridge Modernisation Programme in which these tools have been used. The bridge projects were divided into workstreams, and clustered in regional bundles.
If it is clear what service level is needed against a certain price, Open-House procedures can be used. For bridge inspections, a different contractor can be selected from the pool for each bridge project. If services are needed that require The Autobahn GmbH to become a more attractive client, e.g. concrete repair, a framework agreement can be used.
The main benefit is that the required capacity for procurement procedures of both contractor and client is greatly reduced.
Block 2: Monitoring & Reducing Building Site Emissions
Akseli Nurmi – Väylä (FI)
Tarmo Savolainen / Väylä (FI)
Using BIM to Measure Emissions
Akseli Nurmi and Tarmo Savolainen show that projects can be developed more cost-effective, efficient, and sustainable by using BIM. Väylä uses BIM to measure the environmental impact of projects, calculations are currently based on materials and quantities obtained from the BIM-models. The project site is scanned continiously to make sure that also temporary structures are included in the model, and actual material use is measured. The next step is to feed the model with live data from contractors, for example to monitor vehicle movements.
Stefan van der Voorn / Rijkswaterstaat (NL)
Sustainability A16 Rotterdam
Stefan van der Voorn introduces the A16 Rotterdam. It is a new 11 km long highway North of rotterdam, including a 2.2km long tunnel. It will be the first energy neutral highway when construction is finished.
The project spent a lot of attention to the theme of sustainability. In addition to a proper integration with it’s surroundings, attention was given to material and energy use.
Additionally there is the “emission-free construction site” pilot on behalf of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management. In this pilot, contractors are awarded if they make use of sustainable materials, and thematic tables were introduced to discuss sustainability. This resulted in subsidies for electric machines, HVO fuel and tunnel lighting optimisation.
Johanna Wersäll / Stockholm City (SE)
BREEAM Infrastructure: A Sustainable Approach to the Stockholm Metro Expansion Project
Johanna Wersäll shows how the BREEAM infrastructure has been implemented in the Stockholm Metro Expansion project.
BREEAM is an international sustainability assessment scheme for infrastructure and civil engineering projects, providing a third-party verification of a project’s performance. It provides a comprehensive evaluation of a project’s environmental, social, and economic impacts, and helps to make informed decisions on the sustainability of infrastructure investments.
A key success factor to gain the benefits of BREEAM is to implement the process of questions and providing evidence in the overall systemic way of working in the project, otherwise it will be very administrative heavy and hard to steer on results.
One example is that the BREEAM tool influenced the project when designing the Barkarbystaden Station ventilation towers. By making the sustainability impact measureable, the project was challenged to go beyond functionality. This has resulted in wooden ventilation towers that are incorporated in the surrounding nature reserve, and provide a home to birds and bees.
Construction Site Visit: A100 Highway
Thomas Heyder / The Autobahn GmbH (DE)
Thomas Heyder took the delegates on a visit to the construction site of the A100 Highway which is set to be extended from the Neukölln intersection through to the Treptower Park interchange to further improve access to long-distance, regional and city road networks.
The delegates were given a tour to the tunnel section that is currently being constructed, including a visit to the underground water container and drainage system.
Network Dinner
DB Mindbox
Deutsche Bahn invited NETLIPSE to join for a Network Dinner in their innovation start-up hub ‘DB Mindbox’. Here Deutsche Bahn departments can collaborate with start-ups to address their everyday challenges.
Block 3: IPAT Assessment Experiences
Pau Lian Staal / NETLIPSE (NL) Introduction to the IPAT Assessment
Pau Lian introduces the IPAT Assessment. The Infrastructure Project Assessment Tool (IPAT) was originally developed through an EU funded research project.
Currently it is used to assess the maturity of infrastructure projects. The IPAT Assessment is unique in the fact that it is conducted by teams of experienced project managers. This makes them able to quickly get to the core to of issues that projects are facing, and can make suggestions for improvement based on their experience in their own projects.
If you want to learn more about the IPAT Assessment you can access the Q&A through this link.
Christina Richter / The Autobahn GmbH (DE)
IPAT As an Innovation Project
Christina Richter explains that the IPAT Assessment is a proces innovation that has been introduced in The Autobahn GmbH’s organisation to foster learning from projects across the ten regional branches.
Individual projects can improve their delivery by incorporating findings from the IPAT Assessment. But more importantly, if similar findings are noticed in multiple projects, an overarching approach may be needed to address them.
The innnovation department of The Autobahn GmbH supports the projects when they want to commission an IPAT Assessment and will facilitate the execution.
Bernard Gyergyay / The Autobahn GmbH (DE)
IPAT Assessment: Autobahn bei Leverkusen
Bernard Gyergyay introduces the Autobahn Bei Leverkusen project, which includes the expansion of a large junction between two of the main motorways in Germany.
Bernard Gyergyay explains that the IPAT Assessment can be perceived as a heavy instrument. However, it is rather a ‘health-check’ where the assessors have a discussion with the project team and give them advice on possible approaches to deal with issues.
The IPAT Assessment has led to interesting findings on how to make use of external stakeholders to gain support for the project. Additionally, the project team has been invited to visit the project of one of the assessors in Sweden to have an in-depth discussion on risk management.
Maiken Vium / Vejdirektoratet (DK)
IPAT Assessment: A New Railroad across Western Funen
Maiken Vium introduces the Ny Bane over Vestfyn project that establishes the new electrified double track railway line across Western Funen (in Danish: “Vestfyn”) for freight and passenger services. The project includes the relocation of power supply and a gas pipeline.
Because there is litle appetite for large projects, the project was cut into sections. Some of the subprojects are well on schedule, others have a very ambitious schedule. Vejdirektoratet acts as client for the project, but collaboration with Banedanmark and Energinet is necessary.
The IPAT Assessment helped to identify actions to improve the collaboration between the clients. The report also helped to gain more time to deliver the project, as it acts as a neutral but qualified 2nd opinion on the tight time schedule.
Sebastian Hock (DE) / The Autobahn GmbH IPAT Assessor Experiences
Sebastian Hock shares his experience of being an IPAT Assessor in the IPAT Assessments of the Zuidasdok Tunnel Project (NL) and the Autobahn Bei Leverkusen Project (DE).
Sebastian explains that in order to become an assessor, you will first have to succesfully take part in the IPAT Assessor Training course. The interactive course takes two days and learns you how to conduct a group interview. More importantly, it also gives you an understanding of how it feels to be interviewed yourself.
Taking part in an IPAT Assessment is also interesting for the assessors. You’re confronted with other approaches to deliver a project in a different context. By transferring your own experience to these contexts you can find consensus in discussions with the project team. Informal discussions (e.g. during dinner) can also help to gain better understanding of a project.
Sebastian Hock stresses the importance of the local assessor. It is crucial to have someone present that can explain the local context, legal boundaries, and conditions that a project has to take into account.
Block 4: Team & Personal Development
Martina Huemann / WU Wien (AT)
Ruth Lechler / WU Wien (CH)
Leadership reflection workshop
Martina Huemann and Ruth Lechler facilitated a leadership reflection workshop. They started with an introduction of their research findings, explaining the various motivators for project managers to do their work:
- Learn and Develop
- Relate and Connect
- Create and Deliver
- Work Autonomously
This was followed by a workshop in which the delegates reflected on what motivates them to work in projects and to pursue a career in project management. The delegates had to decide which of these motivators was most important for them, and reflect on how being aware of different motivators could influence their leadership style.
You can access the survey to find out your motivation through this link:
🚀Learn what motivates you
📋Receive a personalized report
🌟Compare your motivations with peers
Jan Thorén / Trafikverket (SE)
Trafikverket’s Trainee Programme for Starters
Jan Thorén introduces Trafikverket’s trainee programme for starters. Starters at Trafikverket can experience various roles within the organisation to get an idea which of the many possible career paths within Trafikverket suits them best before comitting to a single one.
Jurgen Klein / Rijkswaterstaat (NL)
Rijkswaterstaat’s Development Programme for Project Managers (TAPP)
Jurgen Klein introduces the TAPP Programme of Rijkswaterstaat. The programme is designed to fill the gap between the traineeship for starters and the Neerlands Diep programme for experienced project managers. The programme is focussed on learning by doing (master-apprentice set-up), personal development (coaching and intervision), and knowledge transfer (masterclasses and lectures from Sr. colleagues).
Dr. Jochen Eid / The Autobahn GmbH (DE)
Elisabeth Prechtl / The Autobahn GmbH (DE)
How to support the career of project managers?
In an interactive session, Elisabeth Prechtl and Jochen Eid gathered input, ideas and suggestions on what The Autobahn GmbH should consider when designing development programmes for project managers.
Eelco Negen / Rijkswaterstaat (NL)
Pekka Petäjäniemi / Väylä (FI)
Anna Tarhonen / Väylä (FI)
Team Coaching in Projects
Both Väylä and Rijkswaterstaat make use of team coaching in projects. By having a team coach present during the delivery of the project you can improve the collaboration significantly. As the coaching sessions take place on a regular basis, the people involved in the project get to know eachother on a personal basis. This helps to identify issues early on, and resolve disputes without affecting the relation between contractor and client.
View presentation Rijkswaterstaat
Closing Network Meeting
Alessio Parolari / VITALI SPA (ITA)
Announcement Spring 2024 Network Meeting – Bergamo Porta Sud
Alessio Parolari announces that the Bergamo Porta Sud project will host the Spring 2024 Network Meeting. The project involves the redevelopment of the Bergamo Station area into an modal interchange hub, and providing connections to the Genoa harbour, Milan, and Malpensa airport.
Hans Ruijter / Rijkswaterstaat (NL)
Closing Network Meeting
Hans Ruijter thanks The Autobahn GmbH for hosting the Network meeeting, and all the delegates for their contributions.
Photo´s
