Victoria Big Build gets a boost from Primavera Unifier
March 28, 2022 | 4 minute readThe Major Transport Infrastructure Authority in the southeast Australian state of Victoria has bold plans for the region’s future.
With the state’s population boom fueled by overseas migration and natural population growth projected to reach 10 million residents by 2051, including the vibrant city of Melbourne, Victoria's Big Build is delivering the rail and road projects that will keep Victorians moving in the decades to come.
Some $80 billion in transportation projects will be delivered over the next three decades. Victoria's Big Build is delivering 165 major road and rail projects while generating tens of thousands of local jobs for Victorians ranging from construction and engineering to human resources and administration.
Workplace diversity also is key to the initiative, as Victoria’s Big Build is assembling a workforce from groups that are traditionally underrepresented in transportation and construction, including women; Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people; refugees and asylum seekers; and people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Boldly building the Big Build with Oracle’s Primavera Unifier
Making bold plans to build a transportation system for the future is one thing; executing a massive undertaking like Victoria’s Big Build is quite another. The MTIA is the planning, construction, and delivery agency for the Victoria Department of Transport. The MTIA builds assets, and the DOT operates the assets when they’re completed.
Fulfilling the comprehensive transportation initiative required a program management support system with the flexibility to handle today’s needs as well as room to grow and expand for what’s to come over the program’s future years.
The agency, which was established in January 2019, outgrew its previous siloed systems and spreadsheet-based processes, says Ian Van Dyk, CIO for the MTIA. The volume of projects was too large in scope and complexity for the agency’s previous solutions.
Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP and MTIA’s cost control system were already in place. The MTIA needed to add a contract management solution that the agency could seamlessly integrate with both platforms.
Integration was imperative, and a cloud native solution with growth potential was important. The MTIA also sought a single vendor. The transportation agency already was using Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP and they felt confident that selecting another Oracle solution, with proven integrations to their ERP, would provide the functionality they were looking for and was a safe, secure decision.
As the MTIA conducted its global peer review, it was clear that one solution checked all their boxes. Oracle’s Primavera Unifier fits the bill.
Smooth implementation throughout the transportation agency
Primavera Unifier now is used at all levels of MTIA’s organization, Van Dyk says. The agency jointly solutioned the outcome with Oracle Consulting Services, which gave them a head start in implementation while still providing the flexibility to configure the system as needed to manage their entire project portfolio.
One big benefit of their software standardization is the vast increase in data structure alignment across the entire organization. The Oracle solution accommodates the requirements of multiple business and contracting models, including managing contractor, design and construct, alliances, and public-private partnerships.
“Unifier provides flexible capabilities for mega-project and diverse infrastructure delivery portfolio entities such as the MTIA,” Van Dyk says.
Integration breaks down productivity barriers
The agency conducted an extensive assessment of their processes and goals, which informed the system design. Their integration of Primavera Unifier proved to be key to breaking down departmental barriers and driving efficiency. Working with Oracle Consulting Services to scope and build, MTIA went live with the integrated solutions including Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP and Primavera Unifier.
The seamless integration quickly met MTIA’s goals. All parties are now using consistent data that flows securely and easily between Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP and Primavera Unifier, which is being used for contract management.
Boosting Victoria’s Big Build efficiency and productivity
By tailoring Primavera Unifier to meet their needs, the MTIA has optimized the solution and streamlined and elevated their process management capabilities to meet their current and future needs.
"Primavera Unifier enables everything to be done within a single system, eliminates risk of lost emails and manual errors, and is very flexible and configurable,” Van Dyk says. “The benefit is eliminating silos and the inconsistencies we had with manual entry. We’ve increased accuracy and productivity.”
Finance, procurement, cost controls, and contract management are the primary functional areas that have been impacted, and all are much more collaborative now. The information, systems, and activities are synchronized, leading to improved outcomes for the agency, the Department of Transport and the Victorian public.
Within two months of going live, MTIA achieved 22 of 24—that’s over 90 percent—of its targeted benefits.
Among the benefits:
- Increased control and efficiency over contract management.
- Insight into potential risks from supply chain.
- Reduced reliance on manual processes.
- Increased value and automation of reporting.
- Standardization across the agency for comparison and continuous improvement.
“The new system has fundamentally changed our ways of working,” Van Dyk says. “Processes are more efficient and controlled.”
By removing offline processes and having an integrated solution, MTIA also has gained higher-level organizational benefits such as having more holistic data to mine and to support ongoing operations.
Creating efficiency in Victoria’s Big Build processes
MTIA has also built a new level of efficiency in reporting accuracy and consistency using Primavera Unifier’s flexibility to meet the agency’s needs, supporting their various contracting models.
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