Supporting Australia’s largest water utility to transform its delivery of major programmes and projects
Sydney Water supplies water services to more than five million people across Sydney, the Blue Mountains, and the Illawarra coastal region. Over the next 10 years, Sydney Water’s capital works spending is circa AU$2bn per annum or more, with individual projects ranging from AU$100,000 renewals, to programmes costing AU$1bn plus.
Key information
- Location:
- Sydney, Australia
- Date started:
- 2021
- Completion date:
- Ongoing
- Client type:
- infrastructure
- Main services:
- advisory, controls and performance, programme management, programme strategy and set up, technology and data
Transforming performance to face future challenges
Sydney Water’s multibillion-dollar capital portfolio has expanded significantly due to Sydney’s increasing population, ageing infrastructure, and its commitment to a climate-resilient water supply. In 2021, we were appointed to develop a new Infrastructure Portfolio - Investment Management Office (IP-IMO) to enable Sydney Water to deliver its projects and major programmes more effectively.
First phase deliverables
The IP-IMO will improve governance, assurance, portfolio control and management functions across Sydney Water’s infrastructure investment portfolio, as well as tracking asset investments’ performance. Benefits achieved in the project’s first phase, completed in 18 months, include improved budgeting, forecasting, and investment allocation management, delivery of the fiscal year 2022-2023 10-year capital investment plan, plus enhanced risk, cost, and assurance reporting.
Evolving to meet strategic goals
Our work has also enabled Sydney Water to meet its regulatory and corporate commitments more effectively across its assets. Other key outputs delivered to date include a framework to identify and prioritize business critical projects, and the creation of a new assurance and business case process that integrates with Infrastructure NSW. A primary task of the IP-IMO is assuring delivery of portfolio benefits within time, risk, and expenditure forecasts. The full benefits of the IP-IMO will be realised in the coming years as Sydney Water accelerates its capital programme to meet strategic needs.
Louise Beer, Head of Business, Product and Infrastructure Performance, at Sydney Water, said:
The Sydney Water IP-IMO was awarded the Asia-Pacific Project Controls Expo 2023 Transformation Project of the Year award. Thank you to the whole team for all the hard work that happened over the last couple of years; the external recognition is a satisfying validation of how much progress we have made together.
