Multiplying the Value of Knowledge Through Collaboration

The more knowledge is shared, the more its value multiplies.

It’s hard to disagree with that statement as a general principle, but what does it mean in a commercial environment like transport infrastructure with multiple and complex stakeholder relationships?

Projects aren’t delivered in isolation. Successful delivery always depends on our supply chain partners. And on frameworks we work alongside many organisations, some of which might be considered as competitors.

It’s in everyone’s interests for project delivery to be safer and more productive. So in critical areas such as our STOPThink! safety cultural awareness programme and our lean management journey we’re happy to share what we know.

Building a Safety Culture

The STOP Think! Programme was established to help people ‘Think Differently, Make Better Decisions and Change Lives’.

Over 1500 of our employees, customers and suppliers have been through the programme. Our cascade briefing reaches more than a thousand people across the industry each month. It has made a measurable impact on our safety performance.

Covid-19 prompted us to develop STOPThink! virtual training modules. These are now helping to share the learning with even more people. Both Highways England and Network Rail are rolling out the programme across parts of their organisations.

Sharing Our Lean Journey

Embedding lean management principles throughout the company has been a significant journey since early 2019. During that time our lean maturity has progressed from awareness to active implementation that has already generated over £4.4m of efficiencies.

Lean is a core feature of our business strategy. As well as training and supporting our own teams we’ve also engaged our supply chain partners through free lean training and support. We’re committed to helping them make the journey with us.

On the Connect Plus framework we are actively collaborating with Tarmac and other members of the framework community as part of a joint lean strategy. Achieving more commonality in processes and approach will inevitably deliver greater value and quality across the board so that everyone benefits – not least of all taxpayers and the people and businesses who rely on our transport infrastructure.

Osborne Infrastructure is dedicated to being a learning organisation. Knowledge sharing with whoever can benefit from it is a critical part of that commitment.

To learn more about OIL’s approach to project delivery visit our transport infrastructure resource centre or contact Mike Todd ([email protected]).