“Partnering is another way ADOT shows its commitment to continuous improvement,” ADOT director John Halikowski says. “Through partnering, we constantly get and give feedback. This helps us improve on the next project, resulting in construction being on time and on budget, with the least amount of inconvenience for drivers.”
ADOT says its partnering has been formalized and begins with workshops with all entities involved in a project that help create a communication structure, goals and a processes for resolving issues.
These entities then hold regular meetings during a project to identify any issues and create action plans work through them, as well as carry on team-building exercises. Stakeholders then hold postmortems to review successes and failures.
The agency reports that prior to beginning its partnering program in 1991, 60 legal actions had to be resolved through mediation, arbitration or litigation costing it $39.8 million. Twenty-five years later, ADOT says it faces “almost no disagreements” regarding projects that require legal actions. This has led to the dismantling of an agency legal team once responsible for such events.
Because of this success, ADOT also presents Arizona Transportation Partnering Excellence Awards to recognize the contractors and other agencies and entities “that have partnering to foster successful relationships,” honoring them for “communication, commitment, cooperation and continuous improvement to successfully complete projects.”
“When using the ADOT partnering model, quality, safety, productivity, issue resolution and teamwork naturally operate at a very high level because everyone is working together to achieve the most successful outcome for the project,” says Jason Fann, co-owner of Fann Contracting Inc., a 2015 winner for its role in a project to improve 4.7 miles of State Route 89 in Chino Valley. “I applaud ADOT for setting the bar high for other projects in Arizona to follow a similar process that makes building projects more enjoyable and with a better overall outcome.”
