A strategic approach to procurement that develops effective benchmarks for improved safety and that benefits from feedback among team members will depend on collaboration that reaches beyond a single project. Longer-term collaboration on multiple projects fosters greater mutual trust and also facilitates the sharing of knowledge and information that generates and embeds improved approaches to safety and quality in the design, construction and operation of each project. There is greater scope for improved value to be achieved on multiple projects because they attract increased personal commitment and investment, because team members can plan with a clearer understanding of potential additional work, and because Clients can expect other team members to learn from project to project.
A 'framework alliance' is long-term relationship that links the award of contracts for a number of projects, so that a team can use lessons learned on one project to improve the delivery of other projects, and a 'term alliance' is a long-term relationship governing orders placed for agreed tasks, so that a team can use lessons learned on earlier tasks to improve the delivery of later tasks.
A procurement model and contract that creates and supports a framework alliance or term alliance should be able to answer the following questions:
■ How is the alliance created, who are the members and can additional members join?
■ Why is the alliance created, what are the measures and targets for its success and how is it ended if it does not succeed?
■ How is each stage of the agreed scope of works, services and supplies authorised, in what stages and by awards to which alliance members?
■ What will alliance members do together or individually to improve economic, social and environmental value, by means of what contributions and by what deadlines?
■ How will alliance members be rewarded for their work?
■ How will the alliance members reach decisions, manage risks and avoid disputes?
An effective framework alliance or term alliance will benefit from the integrated relationships and common understanding created by a multi-party contract entered into directly between all the alliance members. To rely on separate two-party contracts makes it difficult to create and sustain an alliance as there is no contractual integrator to support direct collaboration between team members and there are no direct channels through which to share information, solve problems and agree improvements.