Partnering, London Underground Signal Relacement 2005 John Reilly provided the initial Partnering implementaton for the replacement of London Underground’s signal system. The companies comprising the Team are London Underground, Metronet (see below) with contractors Bombardier (UK) Ltd. and Westinghouse Rail Signals Ltd. Metronet is a consortium made up of five companies. With the onset of the 30-year-old Public Private Partnership (PPP) contract, it is now responsible for upgrading, replacing and maintaining two-thirds of London Underground’s infrastructure – its trains, stations, signalling, track, tunnels and bridges. The consortium was established in June 1999 by five equal partners: Atkins, Balfour Beatty, Bombardier Transportation, EDF Energy and Thames Water. The London Underground lines being upgraded with the new signal system are: BCV – Bakerloo, Central, Victoria and Waterloo & City – all “deep Tube” lines running far below the streets of London SSL – Metropolitan, District, Circle, Hammersmith & City and East London – routes which were originally excavated as cuttings and subsequently covered to form tunnels (the oldest form of underground railway in the world). The scope of the work is immense. In the first seven and a half year term of the contract, Metronet will be spending around £7 billion on the upgrades to the BCV and SSL lines – that’s £2.5 million every day. Over the 30 year life of the contract £17 billion will be invested with the goal of providing a world-class, safe and reliable Metro for London. Partnering Sessions - Signal Replacement The initial session was held between Bombardier and Westinghouse to initiate partnering and focus on key actions necessary to execute the work. Task Teams were quickly formed to develop specific topics including Program Management, Organization, Systems and Design engineering and Commercial – working in a partnering mode. This partnering approach optimises process to focus on the required key actions – that’s “learning partnering by doing”. The second partnering session included Metronet, expanding the Partnering Team and advancing previously identified action items with the addition of high-level risk items (initial identification of technical risk items had already begun). Results of an extensive questionnaire on programme needs and issues were presented and the partnering process was advanced by agreement of the “Partnering Charter” document. The third partnering session included London Underground and set the stage for further full-team partnering sessions and partnering sessions to work out key issues and concerns.