West Midlands project takes home national construction award
Speller Metcalfe this week celebrated winning one of the construction industry’s top national awards, which follows a win in the West Midlands category earlier this year.
The 2018 national Constructing Excellence Awards celebrate the very best in construction, with Speller Metcalfe – as part of the Dudley College Advance II Alliance team – taking home the award for ‘Integration & Collaborative Working’.
The project, a Centre for Advanced Building Technologies – or Advance II as it is more commonly known – is not only the first centre of its kind in the FE sector to offer training in advanced building technologies, but is the first project in the UK to use a new form of procurement, Integrated Project Insurance (IPI).
This new type of contract encourages collaborative working at the highest levels, where the project team form an ‘Alliance’ that acts as one entity, with joint decisions made at every turn to ensure a ‘best for project’ basis rather than traditional contracts which can encourage a more self-motivated approach.
The awarding body, Constructing Excellence, has hailed the project as a ‘game changer’ for industry and following its trial Speller Metcalfe is now undertaking two other IPI projects with clients Derby Museums and a second Dudley College of Technology scheme.
The judges commented: “This entry is what this category is designed for. The IPI process was set up to demonstrate how the insurance industry could be used to change behaviours and reduce project risk via true collaboration. In that sense it is a resounding success and in my view a worthy winner.”
“We must recognise this as a joint effort by the whole Alliance and we are absolutely thrilled that the work by the Advance II team has been recognised nationally,” said Rob Lashford, Regional Director at Speller Metcalfe.
“Of course there were challenges – something we expected when trialling a never-before-seen approach to construction – but ultimately we have created a ground-breaking case study which clearly delivered on its promise of collaboration and benefit to the client, so much so that the College is already working with us on their second IPI scheme.”
As well as working on both the UK’s second and third IPI schemes, Speller Metcalfe is using their position to spread the word of IPI across industry, both through their CPD Knowledge Series events and engaging with decision-makers from across different sectors that wish to proactively support and lead on innovation.
The Advance II the project team is made up of Dudley College of Technology, IPInitiatives, Speller Metcalfe, Fulcro, Derry Building Services and Pick Everard.