Martinus is valuing strong leadership as construction of major projects gets underway.
It has been a busy 2024 for Martinus with the civil construction company awarded, and starting construction, on a number of contracts.
The company began the year securing the design and construct enhancement works on the Stockinbingal to Parkes and Albury to Illabo sections of Inland Rail. This is a key section that will allow Inland Rail to be completed between Beveridge, in Victoria, and Parkes, in New South Wales, by 2027.
The Logan and Gold Coast Faster Rail project got underway with a contract awarded to the Martinus Degnan Joint Venture to deliver the Loganlea Station Relocation project.
This project includes a brand-new Loganlea station to be built at a new location directly opposite Logan Hospital and close to Loganlea TAFE and Loganlea State High School.
Martinus was also awarded the Sydney Metro Southwest Metro Conversion and Station Works (SWM4) package to convert the Bankstown line to metro standards.
A total of 15 bridges and 66 locations, including car parks and roads, adjacent to the railway corridor between Sydenham and Bankstown will be upgraded as part of the contract scope.
The scale of the work is an exciting proposition for the company as it aims to be a leader in the rail space.
The company has strengthened its internal leadership with the appointment of Brett Gregory as the new Group Chief Financial Officer (CFO). A high-calibre CFO and respected industry leader, Gregory’s appointment stands to enhance Martinus’ standing in the global railway industry.
With over 30 years of experience, including 18 at Lendlease where he served as CFO of Lendlease Building from 2017, Gregory brings a wealth of expertise in high performance, strategic growth, mergers and acquisitions, business structuring, and system transformations to his new role. His appointment comes at a dynamic time as Martinus continues to expand its reach across the railway sectors in Australia, the USA, New Zealand and Chile.
Gregory will join the executive team, alongside Chief Executive Officer Treaven Martinus and Chief Operating Officer Ryan Baden.
Treaven said Gregory’s financial acumen and transformational leadership style are well-aligned with the Martinus way.
“Gregory will be instrumental in Martinus’ continued leadership in the rail industry across Railway Development (InfraPay), Major Projects, Projects, Maintenance and Bulk Haulage,” he said.
“We also owe a big thanks to Tim Cocks in his role as acting CFO over the past year. We couldn’t have done it without him.”
Aligning diverse interests for success
Taking on a leadership role in rail is a complex concept that requires management of diverse stakeholders and clear communication. Zoë Cruice is one of the engineering managers at Martinus and works closely with numerous collaborators.
Cruice described most major projects as a series of sprints in an ultra-marathon –it takes a decisive and authoritative project leadership team to keep things moving along to the end.
She explained some of the key points she works through to ensure she is aligning the interests of all parties.
“We schedule regular and frequent meetings, with updates showing design drawings, to help get expectations aligned,” she said.
“Our regular meetings will include technical advisors from all parties, so that technical questions can be asked and answered on the spot instead of creating ambiguity.
“We then get agreed project specifications at the very beginning of the design process, to prevent costly rework and misalignment on expectations.”
Cruice said that all projects have competing and often conflicting constraints including community expectations, council requirements, state authority requirements, client’s budget and the contractor’s return brief.
“Scope should be agreed at the outset to ensure the contractor’s scope aligns with all these requirements,” she said.
“We make sure that the individuals we are working with understand their concerns have value and should not be dismissed if it does not align without scope or client’s budget,” she said.
“Valuing someone’s concerns often sets the project and teams up for a better compromise and ensures success.”
Maximising efficiency and innovation
Nicolas Jaramillo Arango is another engineering manager at Martinus. He explained the value engineering process the company uses to ensure it delivers on major projects.
“Value engineering is based on the premise that a project has a certain ‘value’, which is measured as the ratio of function to cost,” he said.
“If you increase the function, or lower the cost, the value is enhanced.
“Rail construction projects involve major capital investments, and changes in design could lead to significant changes in the total project cost. To achieve value for money outcomes it may be necessary to optimise the design, because change at the start of the project has far reaching effects.”
Arango explained that to incorporate value engineering it is important to define what constitutes value.
The questions to ask could be:
is it a reduction in time, or out-turn cost?
Is it enhancing system performance, operational and maintenance outcomes?
Is it staging the works so that impacts to existing operations or to communities are mitigated?
The answer is often all of the above,
Arango said.
“Value engineering seeks to deliver solutions at the lowest possible cost without compromising the quality, reliability, or safety of the project,” he said.
He said it is important to ensure that key project objectives are maintained and not sacrificed, such as:
- system capacity and operational flexibility amenity
- aesthetics
- durability
- structural integrity
- function
- user benefits
- health and safety during construction and operation
- environmental performance
- sustainable outcomes.
He explained it is important that the cost/ benefit analysis to decide on proceeding with a value engineering exercise considers these objectives, and measures against them.
“Value engineering is a collaborative and structured process that involves defining the project scope, objectives, and criteria, analysing functions and costs of the project, generating alternatives, assessing and comparing alternatives, selecting and implementing the best alternative, and monitoring the benefits,” Arango said.
“Using value engineering can help the project team to address project challenges and achieve the project objectives.
“Recent examples include the SWM4 project where Martinus worked collaboratively with the client – Sydney Metro – to develop various technical solutions for errant and hostile vehicle mitigation treatments on road bridges spanning over a live operating railway.”
Navigating complexity in rail projects
Delivering major rail projects can require complex management of many moving parts. Arango explained how Martinus achieves this.
“The importance of requirements management can be best understood by the fact that if it is missing, projects will cost more and fail more often,” he said.
“When done well, requirements management enables the project scope to be properly understood, assigned, processed, and addressed.”
Arango said requirements management allows effective scope control, aids in managing changes and controls scope expansion and ensuring project deliverables achieve the expected results.
“Often, stakeholders might not fully articulate their needs or might express them in vague terms,” he said.
“Incomplete requirements can lead to misunderstandings and discrepancies. To address this challenge, communication with stakeholders is essential.
“Poor change management can lead to disruptive project flow, errors in delivery, and lead to confusion and delay. Having a well-defined change management process is crucial, which includes procedures for requesting, evaluating, approving, and implementing changes.”
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