Paving the way: innovative procurement for Muriwai upgrade
This case study looks at how Gisborne District Council (GDC) encouraged local, small businesses to tender for recent works, what they did differently throughout the procurement process, and the lessons learned along the way.
The GDC has been actively working on improving the wellbeing of smaller communities through township upgrades. These initiatives focus on working with communities to achieve their priorities; that may include enhancing local infrastructure, outdoor spaces, and the overall environment in rural towns within the district.
In 2023, having listened to the needs of the community about what would have the biggest impact on them, GDC set about achieving Muriwai’s medium term priority of installing a footpath on Muriwai Beach Road from the intersection with Waieri Road, through to the train tracks, so that local children could walk safely to school.
Engaging local businesses
For Lillian Ward, GDC’s Rural Area Liaison Manager, it made sense to encourage local businesses to get involved.
“It can be really onerous on small businesses to tender for large contracts. This is about testing new ways of procurement to minimise those barriers.” – Lillian Ward, Rual Area Liaison Manager at GDC.
As always, there are pre-requisites - not limited to Public Liability Insurance and Health & Safety requirements, which are a must - but in this case, there needed to be a better way to successfully engage and support small suppliers from communities such as Muriwai.
“The Township Upgrade Project team have experienced challenges engaging our ‘normal’ contractors due to their work commitments post Cyclone Gabrielle, therefore it made sense to actively encourage and support small suppliers to get involved, when perhaps they would normally shy away from tendering for large projects like this”, says Lillian.
Each rural community have resident contractors that are always looking for work to sustain their business, employees, families and most importantly small rural communities.
“It was also an opportunity to look at broader outcomes with our procurement process - how we can upskill our rural communities that includes providing workplace experience for resident Yr 12 and 13 students whilst also seeking out new potential partners to work with and build our supply chains.”
To support this approach, Amotai’s Supplier Diversity Lead Tui Babbington was able to suggest local suppliers from their supplier database and provide advice to GDC on how best to engage with them throughout the procurement process.
“Amotai’s point of difference is supporting organisations to think differently about their procurement so that they can start to engage with a supply chain that they may not otherwise have access to,” says Tui.
Improving performance across the procurement process
As part of encouraging new suppliers for this project, GDC were keen to simplify what can be a lengthy procurement process, by doing a few things differently.
Examples included hosting one-hour supplier briefings during the registration of interest process, where businesses could come along and hear about the work required and ask questions. GDC offered an option of doing a verbal tender where businesses could present their application verbally and using video evidence. And they included a ‘post-completion debrief’, so that both sides could discuss learnings and further improvements.
For Lillian, these changes are about making procurement more accessible and encouraging more local supplier participation.
“It can be really onerous on small businesses to tender for large contracts,” says Lillian.
“They might be highly capable of doing the work but lack the confidence or experience to write applications - this is about testing new ways of procurement to minimise those barriers.
This is the first time we’ve run a process like this, and whilst we’re continuing to refine it and make improvements, we can see the early benefits in encouraging local businesses to get involved.”
Amotai supplier collaborates to success
The procurement process started in August 2023, with a consortium of Amotai suppliers being successful. This consortium was led by Dwayne Pomana of Pomana Contracting Ltd, and included JT Contracting and Concreatures, three local businesses with whakapapa to Muriwai.
For Dwayne Pomana, it made sense to join forces with these two strong local businesses to deliver the Muriwai Township Upgrade, offering a range of expertise from traffic management and concreting, through to project management.
“Rather than competing with each other, and everyone potentially missing out, we decided to work together using the main strengths from each of our operations as well as community relationships and connectedness,” says Dwayne.
Local supplier, local insights
For GDC, the benefits of engaging local suppliers to complete the project were huge, including less council enquiries as locals felt comfortable approaching the team on site to ask questions and express any concerns. They were also able to provide insights that ultimately changed where the location of the ‘crossing point’ would go so that children would be more likely to use it.
“They know their community better than we do. It was great that they felt confident enough to question the plans and we were able to listen and adjust accordingly,” says Lillian.
“This design change led to a reduction in the social procurement outcomes which included less travel to and from site and the amount of concrete required, but for them it wasn’t about money in the pocket, it was about what was best for their community.”
“They also suggested that it would be safer to complete the works during the school term whilst children were in class, rather than our initial suggestion of completing it during school holidays.”
Lessons learned along the way
With the footpath completed and only a few small works remaining on the job, Dwayne Pomana is grateful for the opportunity to work in his hometown of Muriwai.
“The kids out here are used to walking on the grass to school - for a rural community like ours, adding a new footpath is actually a big deal,” says Dwayne.
“This experience has been an eye-opener for us to understand the Council’s procurement process and gain exposure to what’s required when tendering for these kinds of projects.”
For GDC it has been an opportunity to work with new local suppliers and they are happy with the results.
“Dwayne and the crew have done a great job, and we hope to see them go on from here feeling more comfortable dealing with the council in the future,” says Lillian.
“We’ll continue to refine our procurement processes to break down barriers and my advice to businesses like Pomana Constructing is to register with Amotai so that you have exposure to opportunities like these.”