VIEW FROM THE TOP
DUTCH-MEXICAN CONSORTIUM COMBINES INTERNATIONAL, LOCAL EXPERIENCE MAXIME SION Director of Operations at Grupo TADCO and General Coordinator at TASANA Consortium
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Q: What are the main areas in which TASANA is focusing
with the exception of the terminal, air traffic control tower
for NAICM?
and control center. Our design is planned around the
A: The consortium was formed in 2014 in response to
several teams involved and includes runways, taxiways,
the bidding for the NAICM tenders. At the beginning,
aprons, AGL, navigation systems, administration and
we carried out important tasks distributed according to
maintenance buildings, aircraft rescue and firefighting
the capacities and expertise of each partner. Depending
facilities, fuel farms and all related utilities and roads. The
on those tasks, the Netherlands Airport Consultants
most challenging part was perhaps the commercial apron
(NACO) defined the conceptual part and translated it
due to all the interactions with the terminal building with
into a preliminary project or a design-level development
regard to the soil conditions. Other challenges, due to the
that Sacmag, as a company that is very experienced in
soil conditions are the runways and tunnels for internal
engineering in Mexico, transformed into construction-
communications to ensure vehicles do not interfere with
level development.
an airplane’s path. The technical aspects of the design were also highly detailed, given the level of specificity
Since the beginning, we have been a 50-person team in
they required.
the main office with other staff working from different locations. Today, we have other associates overseeing
Q: What challenges have you faced while working
technical aspects. For example, Sacmag still has about
together as a consortium?
100 employees working from its office in Del Valle, Mexico
A: Dutch and Mexican cultural differences represented
City, and NACO has approximately 50 people in the
a challenge at the beginning but we all learned how to
Netherlands. Each company has had its team involved
work together. We have a coordinating team comprised
at different stages of the project.
of about three people per company, which reaches consensus and then works independently with its own
Since the beginning, TASANA has been a 50-person team in the main office with other staff working from different locations
teams. This is the filter we have implemented for all the information to be properly communicated to the teams and the client. Also, we defined goals and duties at the outset to clarify which area is responsible for every task and implemented a specific time frame. We have been very strict with our planning and its corresponding deadlines, which we established before starting the project, and I believe this has been key to its success.
We are mainly in charge of the design. The companies working on NAICM are functioning as a complex chain
Q: What areas of opportunity have you found in NAICM’s
in which Arup defined the masterplan and the master
tender process?
architect and master civil engineer worked on the
A: An area of opportunity that I perceive two years later refers
designs. Based on this information, we developed most
to the fact that we were hired to work with certain concepts,
of what can be seen on NAICM’s current design plans,
including airstrips, platforms, electrical systems and so on. But afterward, we found that many of these are interlinked with other components. For example, it would be impossible
TASANA is a consortium formed by two Mexican companies –
to complete a tender for the runway without considering its
TADCO Group and Sacmag Group – as well as the Netherlands
sewage system. We had to integrate these concepts into our
Airport Consultants (NACO). It was formed specifically to work
tenders, which took a lot of time. We could have avoided this
on the NAICM project
delay by better defining the packages beforehand. I think
