2018 was a time of procurement for the Länsimetro project. Contractors for five metro stations, rail lines, and a total of 24 side projects will be tendered in the project.
“The bids will be received during the Spring for the rail line as well as the Soukka and Kivenlahti stations. The tenders for all the stations will be made by October, but the last side projects will still be tendered in the Spring of 2019,” said project director Aku Kallio.
The acquisitions for building can be started when the excavations have been finished and the construction planning has advanced sufficiently. The excavations of the Kaitaa and Soukka stations are ready already, and the excavations at the rest of the stations are being finished.
The station contracts will be tendered by a negotiation method – in it the contractors send participation applications after their preliminary acquisitions notifications, which will be evaluated according to the set requirements. After this negotiations will be held with the contractors and they can present development ideas, on the basis of which the tenders may be supplemented. Only after the negotiations the tender is shaped into the final tender.
A limited procurement method is used mainly for the side projects, in which no separate negotiation phase is included with the contractors. The side projects are mainly different technical systems and devices, such as elevators and escalators, which will be realized with similar basic solutions over the whole Länsimetro phase two area. The deliveries requiring a long production or delivery time will be acquired first.
The starting point in the building of the Länsimetro is a quality end product starting from acquisitions. In the acquisitions of building contracts quality is weighted 30 percent and price 70 percent.
“We want to have knowledgeable and trustworthy actors involved. The providers must have sufficient resources and experience from similar contracts or deliveries. In addition the providers must be financially stable,” acquisitions engineer Samuli Silvast said.
The acquisitions strategy is now entirely different than on the Länsimetro Ruoholahti-Matinkylä portion. The greatest change is that for construction work, unit price contracts have been transferred to project management (PJU) contracts, where interaction and collaboration with contractors are emphasized.
“The practice of interactive partnerships for acquisitions began already in the last year with market dialogues. We consult actors in the industry and collect the latest information from the market even before we publish the acquisition announcements, we actively sought interaction, ideas and knowledge from contractors. This idea will continue with the chosen form of implementation, as we work together in project management contracting. Working together in a big room spirit, by working out and developing plans, and we utilize the expertise of the contractors from the start,” says Kallio.