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SWG and Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships (CCPPP) look into successful P3 projects in Canada

A public-private partnership (PPP or P3) is a mature model for delivering infrastructure, with countries like Canada and Australia setting a precedent for success. Using private sector finance and expertise in the design, construction and operational phase transfers the risk away from cash-strapped governments, allowing them to pay by instalment and enforce penalties for any sub-par performance. By and large, P3s in such countries have delivered value for money compared to fully government-managed procurements, but still the future of the P3 market is not without it challenges.

One fundamental challenge is that infrastructure construction and operations are responsible for approximately 70% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, according to PPP World Bank. Investment in innovation and new technology is required to improve carbon emissions and energy efficiency – something the P3 community is ideally placed to tackle. While it’s true that the looming threat of climate change means public services and projects must adhere to increasingly stringent environmental standards and net zero targets, we’re also seeing sustainability pitched as a competitive advantage within Canadian P3s. For established projects, it’s still possible to improve sustainability through technology, which has the added bonus of offering energy and maintenance cost reductions.

Back to basics

Before delving into more ‘innovative’ methods, P3 service providers must ensure they have the means to deliver an effective asset management strategy, using a computerized maintenance management system, or CMMS. Most extensively used for managing help desk and reactive maintenance, a good system also makes it easy to set up PPMs for each asset, capturing whole lifecycle costs and identifying performance issues with an asset or group of assets (often an impossible task when dealing with maintenance in isolation).

Sensing the future

The price of industrial sensors continues to fall, making predictive maintenance more accessible. Sensors can identify potential problems before a breakage happens via anomalous or out-of-range readings, allowing for better maintained assets that draw less energy. And, more reliable assets means easier adherence to contract KPIs, mitigating some risk on deductions. Sensors can also be used for energy management. SWG’s IoT platform Senslinc, for example, graphically shows which assets, work areas or floors are drawing the most energy, or falling outside expected levels, so that action can be taken. Using a variety of IoT sources allows FM teams supreme insight into performance management. For example, taking into account footfall, run time and a weather forecast can forewarn of mechanical failure of an escalator due to grit trampled in from snowy conditions outside. By knowing what is likely to happen, FMs can juggle their priorities to ensure resources and parts are available, and combine works to reduce trips. And for large countries with vast open spaces, the more that can be achieved in one trip the better.

Virtual assets and infrastructure

Transforming the infrastructure into a digital twin (read more about this in our previous blog on growing a smart building and digital twin) is an initial expense, but provides the opportunity to be at the forefront of sustainability – both environmentally and operationally. A digital twin is a virtual replica of the project, mirroring its condition, environment and usage in real time. They can be used to test different scenarios, like the impact on air quality of a new asset, or how cooling systems would cope with more people in the building. This reduces the impact of disruption or dips in performance of the ‘live’ environment. Furthermore, all information about the project and all its assets and contained within, allowing for smooth handback at the end of the contract term.

Operational sustainability

While P3s must start investing more heavily in environmental sustainability, working across such a long and complicated contract term means they need to have a strong foundation for their operational sustainability. For the service provider, certainly a CMMS (computerised maintenance management system) with an integrated payment mechanism is a must. The paymech maps each contract term exactly into the software, providing visibility of potential failures and allowing for rectification. It also calculates deductions based on all work carried out over the month (or given period), including ratchets for sustained or multiple areas of failure or unavailability. The CMMS manages resources to ensure maintenance plans are created in line with available resource, and the paymech tracks what and when is due. For P3s with multiple contracts, this can quickly become a minefield. For service provider Mitie, for example, many of the KPI service levels are associated with the facility opening hours. The main areas of a 24-hour healthcare centre could trigger a failure or deduction for an inadequate response time, but within the premises there might be offices or administration areas which are only open during standard business hours. A school may have a swimming pool with year-round public access, classrooms accessible during term time only, offices in use during school holidays but not bank holidays. Having such contract intricacies in the systems underpins high performance service and strengthens the partnership.

Service Works Global will be discussing sustainability in P3s, together with a more in depth look at how AI and IoT are transforming contract delivery, in a webinar hosted with the Canadian Council for Public Private Partnerships (CCPPP).  Read more and register here: https://www.swg.com/can/how-are-iot-and-ai-reinventing-the-operational-phase-of-p3s/

How AI and IoT is Reinvesting the Operational Phase of P3s
Wednesday November 13, 12 noon -1pm EST.