Singapore's first integrated construction park at Jurong Port aims to use collaborative procurement techniques to bring together different parts of the supply chain.
The island state’s national development minister, Desmond Lee, announced that the integrated construction park would be one of several initiatives forming a new Industry Transformation Map (ITM).
In a report Singapore’s Building and Construction Authority (BCA) outlined how the ITM would “nudge industry towards progressive procurement practices such as collaborative contracting and early contractor involvement”.
“As part of the built environment ITM, a key work area is to encourage the entire value chain to collaborate and enable better planning and execution of a project,” the report stated.
“A less adversarial contracting practice will help to achieve this, by overcoming the issues often observed in the current conventional approach.”
These issues – which include a lack of integration between the design and construction stages, and project team members guarding their respective contractual responsibilities and passing the risks to others – overshadow common goals of the project and are often left to be sorted out towards the end of the project, potentially leading to disputes.
Collaborative contracting seeks to overcome issues in traditional contracting by encouraging “a mindset shift towards working collaboratively for the shared project goals”, according to the report.
“It helps parties to proactively identify potential issues, resolve these issues early and better manage disruption and cost fluctuation, especially if the market is volatile,” the BCA said.
As part of the initiative, key supply chain players in the construction industry will be able to share resources and facilities such as storage yards and ready-mix concrete batching plants, Lee said.
The new facility at Jurong Port is set to open later this year, he added.
It will be the first of a series of integrated construction parks (ICPs) across Singapore.
“Construction facilities such as aggregate terminals, aggregate storage yards, ready-mix concrete (RMC) batching plants and precast plants will be co-located for greater synergy across the entire supply chain [at the ICPs],” Lee said.
“Those who have embarked on transformation efforts have seen the immense downstream benefits they can derive when they procure responsibly, which in turn ensures that their projects can be delivered quickly, at higher quality, and more sustainably,” he added.
Construction firms will be encouraged to integrate design and planning, as well as contracting, before integrating facilities, the BCA stated.
“Covid-19 and recent global disruptions have exacerbated many of the BE [built environment] sector’s vulnerabilities, particularly issues with supply chains and manpower,” added the BCA. “While we continue to monitor the situation and extend our support towards firms’ recovery, our conversations with industry partners reveal that firms have begun to recognise that collective transformation across the sector is crucial to emerge stronger.”
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