Project alliancing: The case of road infrastructure projects in New Zealand

In recent years, alliance contracting has emerged as a popular procurement route for large complex infrastructure developments. In New Zealand public sector applications, there are primarily two variants to the procurement of a project alliance, known as a pure alliance and a competitive alliance.  As part of a wider study to understand the extent of alliance contracting in the New Zealand construction industry, the basic features of an alliance, the alliance development process, the risk/reward compensation framework, and the governance structure of these two variants are discussed based on three case studies. The analysis revealed differences in the reasoning why a particular alliance approach was implemented, how the alliance selection process was conducted and what kind of structure was adopted for the governance of the alliances. Interestingly, a number of unique and innovative practices to alliancing were also highlighted, such as the construction phase starting during the interim project alliance agreement (iPAA) phase, alliance partners being chosen extremely early in the process and working as part of an interim alliance from the option development phase and, finally, the alliance manager not being from one of the consortium members but is instead an independent. The findings provide a basis and platform for discussion, especially for academics and practitioners, to gain more understanding in managing different alliance contracting projects in the construction industry.