Value for money in project alliances

This thesis describes research undertaken to determine the optimum configuration of a model that will assist all participants in a project alliance to both ensure and demonstrate the achievement of value for money (VfM) or best value. The research was focused on project alliances established to deliver infrastructure works in Australia. <br><br>Despite the increasing adoption of project alliancing as a procurement approach for infrastructure projects, the absence of a sound methodology for ensuring and demonstrating VfM for such a commercial arrangement has proven to be the ‘Achilles heel’ of alliance contracting and is likely to limit the further and broader acceptance of this relationship based procurement approach . <br>Further to a detailed review of the procurement literature, a preliminary model was devised which adopted the form of a lifecycle flowchart. The model sought to describe all of the primary activities involved in delivering a project, from inception to completion, through a project alliance procurement approach and identified milestones in the lifecycle, akin to gates in the Gateway© Review process, at which the VfM ‘health’ of the project should be monitored and addressed. <br><br>This preliminary model was then tested and refined through two data gathering phases. During the first phase the model was presented to 27 individuals involved in 5 alliances to seek ‘verification’ of the content by knowledgeable practitioners in the field. The model was amended to reflect the feedback received. <br>The second phase of the research involved obtaining feedback on the revised model, through a web based Delphi survey process, from a group of 12 recognised experts in the field of alliancing. Comments received though the Delphi process resulted in substantial changes being made to both the structure and content of the model. The responses obtained confirmed that the model was seen as offering a structured and disciplined approach to VfM for all participants at each stage of the lifecycle of a project. <br>