Terminal 5, Heathrow Airport 

Effective integration and partnering delivered T5 on time, on budget

EC Harris was right at the heart of successfully delivering this new £4.3 billion programme. Working closely with BAA and its suppliers across all 16 interconnecting projects, we played an important role in delivering T5 on time and on budget.

Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5 was one of the largest infrastructure and construction projects in Europe. It comprised a complex web of 16 major interconnecting projects and 140 sub-projects.

The scope of the project included the 270,000m² main terminal building, two satellite buildings (each the size of Terminal 4) and a new 87 meter high control tower to serve all of Heathrow.

Supporting infrastructure works included a major tunnelling programme to connect T5 with existing terminals, a new transport interchange, the extension of Heathrow Express and Piccadilly lines, two river diversions and a dedicated spur off the M25.

We integrated a number of our services to deliver the right solutions to meet T5’s objectives. This included risk, opportunity, value and change management, consultancy and benchmarking, as well as cost management, project management and project controls management.

Creating solutions

Delivering T5 on time and on budget, and to high quality and safety standards, were BAA’s key objectives. Designed in the 1990’s, industry norms suggested that this project would be over budget, late, to a low quality standard and have safety issues during construction.

At the cornerstone of thinking differently was the T5 Agreement. This was a groundbreaking contractual and behavioural framework between BAA and each of their 1st tier suppliers. Unique in the construction industry, it created an environment for success through BAA holding all of the risks throughout the project. This allowed integrated teams of suppliers to act as one, focusing on solving problems rather than allocating blame. It valued behavioural and cultural issues of equal importance to technical competencies. EC Harris was a key part in creating, promoting, implementing and influencing the successful delivery of the T5 Agreement.

As an integrated team with BAA, EC Harris supported the establishment and implementation of a comprehensive time and cost project controls solution across all of the 16 major projects. This allowed each project and sub-project to have real time reporting on cost and schedule performance which enabled timely and accurate decision making.

Our cost and commercial managers worked with BAA’s project leaders and their integrated teams during the planning and construction of works to ensure it remained within budget. They also rigorously managed change and converted potential savings into the anticipated final cost.

Adding value

Through leading integrated teams in recovery planning, value management and risk management techniques EC Harris generated over £200 million savings for BAA. Our consultancy team’s value mapping techniques also generated a further cost saving of over £100 million.

EC Harris was recognised as an invaluable support to BAA’s management team. Through partnering BAA on T5 for over 10 years, we developed a unique sphere of influence. EC Harris held key roles within the T5 Programme Office including Head of Cost Management and Head of Performance Measurement.

The integral role EC Harris played was reflected by Andrew Hill, BAA’s Finance Director at T5, as consistently being a significant influence in supporting and delivering the right behaviours and competencies to ensure objectives were met to deliver T5 on time and on budget.

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