SGP celebrates new IPI Practitioner status for key staff

James Blood, Digital Director, and Joe Marlow, Associate, have been awarded IPI Practitioner status for the Integrated Project Insurance (IPI) Model at IPInitiatives’ “Opening up” IPI Conference hosted by Dudley College of Technology.

Trialled as one of the three innovative procurement routes in the government’s 2011 Construction Strategy, the IPI Model aims to create a fully collaborative, no blame way of designing and building projects that will help reduce waste, deliver innovation and provide better, more cost effective solutions.

Explains James: “Under the IPI Model, the project team is assembled from Day One. This sets the foundations for a no blame, completely transparent, truly collaborative design and build process. To become IPI Practitioners, Joe and I have been trained on the management and operation of the IPI Contract and Model, as well as showing we have the right mindset to keep the process true to its core values.”

IPI (Integrated Project Insurance) is a model based on IP Alliancing, which is popular in Australia and New Zealand, and is beginning to gain momentum in the UK. In the IPI Model, the whole team from client, through consultants, architects and contractors, is assembled in an Alliance Board. They act as a virtual company, being insured differently across the whole alliance negating the need for Professional Indemnity Insurance underpinned by the contract itself.

In 2017, Dudley College commissioned the first IPI project, the design and construction of a further education facility called “Advance ll”. This was followed by a second project in 2018, a new £26m Institute of Transformational Technologies and a third, Health Innovation Dudley (HID) is underway.

Continues Joe: “After submitting a Supplier Questionnaire, we progressed to an interview followed by a behavioural and workshop sessions. We have submitted a written bid for the Digital Coordinator and BIM Information Manager lot for the HID project and are delighted to have been successful. Becoming an IPI Practitioner is becoming part of a very exciting new way of thinking, focusing on the project as a whole rather than your own little piece and knowing the whole team will be focused on the opportunities and risks together. The whole concept of sharing the pain / sharing the gain without any pressure to affix blame is exhilarating and liberating.”

Concludes James: “The IPI Model is a hugely innovative concept that   delivers great benefits to the UK’s construction sector. The challenge at the moment is a lack of understanding about the process and its benefits. Apart from the Dudley College projects 3 in number and the current Dudley Council project, there is one other IPI project, The Museum of Making at Derby Silk Mill, completed in the country. The more projects being delivered successfully will lead, I think, to a better understanding and higher take-up and that will become a positive cycle that will deliver quality buildings across the UK.”