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Collaboration with Delivery in Mind: How Civil Project Partners Bring Practical Construction Thinking to the Planning Table
From concept to construction, the value of buildability in road infrastructure is clear, but too often, it’s left out of the early design process. That’s where Civil Project Partners come in. For Ryan O’Neill and the team, their role starts early and stays consistent throughout, ensuring what’s drawn on paper stands up to the challenges of the real world.
Smarter Options Through Early Input
“Starting at options analysis or concept stage, we collaborate with designers to price up different options and analyse the best way forward for a project,” explains O’Neill. “That pricing helps shape the direction projects take, not because cost is everything, but because it provides a framework for decision-making and against key criteria the client or asset owner will have set for project viability.”
By contributing constructability insights and indicative costings from the outset, the Civil Project Partners team helps clients and designers understand the trade-offs. These insights become particularly important when the data used to inform business cases is often years out of date by the time construction begins.
“The speed of projects from concept to delivery is too slow sometimes,” O’Neill adds. “You can price something in 2020 and be delivering it post-COVID a step-change increase in the cost. It’s not that the original estimate was wrong, it’s that the world has moved on, in a way that wasn’t predictable when the project was initially identified.”
Designing for Delivery
This emphasis on early involvement carries through the design and delivery lifecycle. Whether it’s advising on sequencing, materials, or methodology, Civil Project Partners operates as a bridge between what’s on the page and what happens on site.
“There’s always a bit of ‘fill in the gaps’ work,” O’Neill says. “Design might be 30% complete, but there’s enough there to start thinking about access, methodology, and staging. That’s where our experience comes in. We have seen countless projects from concept to hand over and from a client and contractor’s perspective, so we bring a wealth of knowledge that covers every aspect of a typical project lifecycle.”
It’s this practical lens that adds value — helping avoid costly redesigns, unrealistic delivery assumptions, and buildability headaches further down the track.
Rethinking Contracting for Collaboration
While the technical side of projects is critical, O’Neill is quick to point out that how projects are contracted and delivered plays a big role in success — especially as Brisbane gears up for a decade of infrastructure ahead of the 2032 Olympics.
“I think there’s always a place for collaborative contracting models like NEC (from the UK) or alliances,” he says. “Particularly where you’ve got multiple stakeholders, or where the design isn’t finished when you’re ready to get going.”
In contrast to traditional adversarial models, collaborative approaches bring designers, contractors, and asset owners together early to solve problems in real time, not fight over them after the fact.
“We’ve seen it work already on projects like the DRFA recovery jobs. That’s been priced and now they’re collaboratively managing the design as it evolves. If you’d done that adversarially, you’d be arguing over every change. Instead, it’s open book, and people are focused on collaborating to ensure the best delivery outcomes for all parties.”
Engineering Without the Argy Bargy
O’Neill reflects that most engineers didn’t enter the profession to argue over spreadsheets and spend time in legal disputes.
“People in this industry are problem solvers. So why put them in systems where they’re set up to butt heads?” he says. “No one wants to end up in court. And with the right contracting model, you don’t have to. Fundamentally, everyone who works on a project wants that project to succeed – we all want the ‘I built that’ moment, so providing the best conditions for collaboration and success is vitally important.”
That’s the philosophy Civil Project Partners brings to every engagement. Practical, collaborative, forward-thinking — with a clear focus on helping clients deliver projects that work, not just on paper, but in the field.