Carillion ‘Best Contractor Performance’ in 2003 says Asda

08/06/2004

Business and construction services company Carillion has received Asda’s coveted ‘Best Contractor Performance of 2003’ Brick Award for their Oldbury Superstore project. This is a significant achievement in a very competitive market and was recognised at an awards dinner attended by over 600 Asda staff and retail sector professionals.

The award was given in recognition of Carillion’s customer focus and commitment to continuous improvement and marks their 30^th anniversary of working with Asda. The partnership began in 1974 when Carillion (then Tarmac) built a £380K store in Dunfermline. Since then Carillion has carried out 70 contracts with a total value of £400m. Works include new build stores, refurbishments, extensions and term contract works.

Carillion’s Retail Director, Paul Kelly says, “Due to our partnering arrangement with Asda, all work is allocated on a negotiated basis. We try to understand what Asda’s real business needs are and how their estate must be delivered to meet this need. Traditionally our strength has been on new build projects where we have seen typical programme times slashed from 34 to 16 weeks, as there is an imperative to maximise the estate’s earning potential as soon as possible.

”As a group we are now able to offer a wider range of customer solutions and regularly work with Asda to investigate alternative delivery proposals.”

Recently Carillion has undertaken a number of smaller refurbishment projects of around £300K to £1.1m and a programme of term contract works which vary in value from £3K to £300K. Carillion sees the latter as a move towards aligning Asda’s activity with its corporate goal to provide total customer solutions (ie design through to construction and FM).

Through a combination of carefully-set KPIs and Continuous Improvement Groups, Asda continues to realise significant cost and programme benefits. All Carillion’s projects are assessed against KPIs for Safety, Quality, Cost, Predictability and Programme with project teams assessed on softer issues such as team play, customer care, communications skills, visibility, organisational ability, innovation and enthusiasm.

Carillion employees are also involved in Continuous Improvement Groups, covering a wide variety of both technical and customer/community issues. The organisation has made significant contributions to Best Practice documents that are used by all the Asda Partnered Contractors to help deliver a consistent ‘Asda Way’ of working.

Carillion’s latest project for Asda is the £14m construction of a new superstore in Boston, Lincolnshire, which is scheduled for completion in November this year.