PROCUREMENT AND SUPPLY CHAIN
on the line slowing us down. I’m very pleased that we’re seeing more freight travelling by railway, 60% up in the last 10 years, that’s great news for the country, but we just don’t have the capacity to let that carrying on growing [without HS2].”
Whole system
Professor McNaughton was keen to stress in his interview with RTM that “HS2 is a complete system”.
HS2 will create a huge amount of new jobs, peaking in 2024 and then again in 2029.
But McLoughlin refused to be drawn on the role the supply chain could play in speeding up the project, saying only: “The speed of delivery will be something that David Higgins will want to look at when he comes in as chairman.”
He added: “We want [phase one] completed in 2026. Twelve years is not a long time for big infrastructure projects like this.”
In his speech, McLoughlin said that he believes that the cost of HS2 will ultimately come in ‘far lower’ than the new total budget, noting that having to be 95% confi dent has infl ated the fi gure. “We haven’t done anything as ambitious as HS2 for 50 years…Britain is doing infrastructure again,” he announced.
Answering questions from the audience afterwards, McLoughlin said no
decision
has been made yet on whether HS2 will have a single franchisee, multiple franchisees, be open access, or have some other operating arrangement.
HS2 timeline
End of 2014 – Government’s announcement of fi nal decision on the chosen route, station and depots for phase two; hybrid bill process for phase one continues 2015 – Start of engineering design, environmental impact assessment and preparation of hybrid bill for phase two; target date for royal assent to hybrid bill for phase one, containing legal powers to construct phase one Next Parliament – Deposit hybrid bill for phase two 2016/2017 – Construction on phase one starts 2026 – Phase one opens to passengers 2033 – Phase two opens to passengers
52 | rail technology magazine Dec/Jan 14
He said: “This means everybody who’s involved in it, the actions they take, the designs they make, the decisions about construction or technology, will affect all of the other parts of the system. Therefore a key behaviour for working with us is collaboration. That is one of those totally over-used words, but here you’ve got an engineering system, a people system, an environmental system, and so on, and if you change something on a bridge or a noise barrier or the train or the control system, you’ll change the balance of the system. You can’t just do that by itself; you have to work in collaboration with everybody else.
“We cannot control all of this – we want the people who will supply HS2 to work together. That’s the key message; ‘we give you permission to work together on our railway’.
“We set the framework, the minimum
requirements in terms of the environment, operations etc, and we have used existing, proven technology to develop our proposal to Parliament. But the supply chain
are
innovating all the time, so we’re confi dent they will come up with better, more advanced solutions, which will achieve the quality we need, the availability, reliability, capacity, connectivity, quicker journey times – and probably at lower cost. Those are the things we value, and what we’re prepared to pay for.
“We’re trying to encourage people to innovate, but we’re also listening and asking what are the barriers to working together. Are small fi rms worried that their IPR [intellectual property rights] will be pinched? If you do something specialist, are you the best people to look after it for its whole life? To not just give us a product that we have to maintain – can we have a relationship in which you maintain the product for its whole lifecycle?”
We asked Professor McNaughton about HS2’s relationship with Network Rail, and whether he expects that organisation to act as a supplier to HS2 at any point, or act as a partner or consultant, or indeed whether it could be a competitor in terms of siphoning off talented engineers and project managers.
He told us: “Network Rail have a huge amount of expertise in running the existing railway and we respect that, and we’re privileged that in our core team are embedded a number of Network Rail’s best people, providing absolutely essential skills and knowledge in specifi c areas. We’re building to a co-operation partnership with Network Rail, which respects our need to
A diagram taken from Beth West’s presentation setting out key themes and drivers.
Challenge, who wrote for RTM on design codes in the October/November 2013 edition; Adam Matthews of the BIM Task Group; Bob Thompson, executive director at Keller; and Darryl Stephenson, value engineer at HS2 Ltd.
After hearing about the government’s BIM strategy, some examples of the technology in practice and how HS2 will be a test-bed for innovation, the speakers also outlined the conditions required for innovation to occur – and how the project team intends to engage with the supply chain to share best practice.
Other seminars included sessions on sustainable construction methods, and on skills and capability, addressed by chief executive of the National Skills Academy for Railway Engineering (NSARE), Gil Howarth. The session heard how HS2 presents a “once in a generation skills opportunity”, and Howarth outlined the skills forecast for the rail industry over the coming years, and the vital need for the right education, qualifi cations,
apprenticeships
employment strategies to be in place to address a potential skills gap.
More supply chain conferences are to be organised by HS2 over the coming months and years.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
www.hs2.org.uk/events/ supplychainconference
build a new railway that in some places interacts with their network. When we’ve fi nished, the people using HS2 should have as seamless a journey as possible, so Network Rail is essential for helping us. As we have the opportunity to do new things, we can introduce new innovation to them that they can exploit on their network. It’s a strong and close relationship.”
A test-bed for innovation
Attendees on the day also attended seminars on key HS2 topics, such as the role of BIM and innovation, where they heard from Jon Kerbey, head of management systems at HS2 Ltd; Bill Grose of Arup and the HS2 Effi ciency
and
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