BRINGING TOGETHER INDUSTRY

The Infrastructure Owners Forum discusses the most important construction-related issues today

By Paul Adair

The Infrastructure Owners Forum was launched by the Edmonton Construction Association (ECA) in the spring of 2017 as a way to foster collaboration and build understanding between Alberta’s construction industry stakeholders.

Originally attended by 17 public owners from the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, as well as the University of Calgary and the City of Calgary, the Owners Forum has since expanded to represent over 25 regional public and private owners (public & private buyers of construction), more than 50 AEC firms (vendors of construction services), and six partner associations.

“The intent of the Owners Forum is to help both the public and private sector to become more engaged in the ECA, as well as to improve the construction industry as a whole,” says Jamey Singh, construction consultant. “The Owners Forum is a way for the association to broaden its connections by engaging with public and private developers, and the event provides an opportunity for collaboration greater than any one-off contract or relationship can provide, enabling everyone to have a better understanding of each other’s specific needs.”

In bringing everyone to the table, the ECA – through the Owners Forum’s presentations and break-out sessions –continues to help drive innovation and integration across Alberta’s construction industry, as well as deliver high-quality, successful outcomes for construction projects. Meeting bi-annually in April and October, the Owners Forum provides a platform for those in attendance to have in-depth and fruitful conversations around the myriad of common challenges impacting construction in Alberta today.

“We have to glean expertise from the leaders in this industry to have a stronger understanding about what will make our systems and supports perform better,” says Chris Wright, managing director, Edmonton Public School Board. “It just made sense to bring this group together to share best practices and talk about how we can all work better together for our public stakeholders because public infrastructure is a huge component of Alberta’s construction industry and, so far, it has paid a lot of good dividends.”

The response to the Owners Forum over the years has been nothing short of outstanding. The feedback from the event indicates that there is an increased mutual awareness and respect across the construction industry, and the sharing of perspectives, concerns, and challenges results in a stronger building community overall.

“The Owners Forum is a great place for discussion and testing ideas, and it’s become a bit of a petri dish for industry and owners to talk about specific topics,” says Wright. “Important conversations have happened because of the relationships that were established at the Owners Forum. I believe that the construction industry has come to value what this kind of event provides, not only at the bi-annual get-togethers, but also in the greater sense of community that has developed outside the meetings.”

April 2023 Owners Forum

On April 20, 2023, the ECA held its most recent Owners Forum and invited a variety of guest speakers and presenters to discuss some of today’s most important issues. The priority topics – or ‘buckets’ – at this year’s event covered a wide range of issues, including Industry Guidelines and Roles (formerly Priority 1 – Performance Management Systems); Project Delivery and Industry Collaboration (formerly Priority 2 –Common Delivery Method Assessment Tool); and Innovation, Industry Education, and Sustainability (formerly Priority 3 –BIM, Innovation, and Project Delivery).

“The Owners Forum is designed to be flexible and the topics we discuss tend to evolve in response to the construction industry’s most pressing needs,” says Wright. “Because of this, the individual buckets will change year over year, depending on the salient topics of the day. We also focus on few topics at a time, making sure the foundational work is being done so that we can build on over time.”

In support of Bucket 2 (Project Delivery and Industry Collaboration),

Shannon Fitzsimmons at the City of Edmonton was on hand to present a case study on the Edmonton EXPO Centre Rehabilitation Project and the use of an integrated project delivery (IPD) model. IPD is a delivery method in which the owner, design team, and construction team are committed to work in unison from the start of a project through to project delivery.

The City of Edmonton showcased the benefits of incorporating this IPD model (better communication and collaboration, more efficient processes, and the reduction of adversarial relationships), as well as to share project learnings and outcomes in hopes that those in attendance would be able to learn from the EXPO pilot project and use some of the IPD principles within their own projects.

“The EXPO presentation was very wellattended, and we all had an opportunity to hear from ownership and the contractor about their experiences and perspectives on IPD,” says Singh. “This was really good and valuable information for the consultants, contractors, and everybody else in the room to hear as we are all looking for ways to improve our ability to deliver projects on schedule and on budget, especially as costs have soared because of material and equipment increases.”

Another Owners Forum session focused on the sustainable side of construction and brought in Charles Ward from the Department of Energy at the Government of Alberta to speak at length about hydrogen technology and the impact of climate legislation on construction.

“We specifically had Charles come in to talk about energy knowing that, as things like the carbon tax and other legislation becomes growing issues, thinking about sustainability will be important going forward for many of our larger public owners, as well as how they might aggregate some of their costs when they’re looking at electricity or natural gas purchases,” says Jen Hancock, vicepresident of collaborative construction at Chandos.

The Owners Forum also heard from one of its partner associations, NAIOP Edmonton, a commercial real estate association focused on being the voice for the development industry. NAIOP’s presentation provided attendees with a snapshot of Edmonton’s commercial real estate industry, which provides $5.5 billion in GDP, produces half of Edmonton’s property taxes, and supplies 32,000 jobs.

Looking Ahead

The ECA will always seek to identify how it can best assist its members on what matters most to them, and then collaborate as a group on ways to move forward delivering projects and producing more successful outcomes on those issues that are front and centre. As part of this, the agenda for the upcoming October 2023 Owners Forum will be made available in upcoming months and many topics of discussion are being considered, such as labour shortages, inflation, supply chain, cost of ownership, and climate change, just to name a few.

“We haven’t yet nailed anything down specifically, but I would certainly not be surprised if we saw a topic based on zero carbon or something in that space because that is absolutely becoming of a topic that our owners are having to deal with,” says Hancock.

While the agenda may not be set, what is known is that the success of the Owners Forum going forward will depend on hearing from all construction owners and partners – both private and public/big and small. Only with the active participation from all in attendance will the Owners Forum be able to ensure the construction industry in Alberta is moving in a direction that benefits all, and not just towards the largest voices in the room.

“When folks come to the Owners Forum, we want them to lean into some of these discussions and become involved, and if they can step up to present or teach everybody else in the room about what their organization might be involved with – even better,” says Wright. “It’s imperative that we work together and all pull in the same direction if we hope to move the needle on how things are being done. We need to ensure that we have a diverse conversation that can generate ideas, and that only happens when everybody seizes the opportunity to get involved.”

ECA members can always keep informed of what happens at the event through the ECA website. And even though the Owners Forum is not open to the public (so that owners can have the space they need to speak openly and to move issues forward), the ECA is always open to hearing from its members about what kinds of issues they want raised at any upcoming forums. u

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