We help major infrastructure and resource projects procure, upskill and employ locally in regions

Since 2008, Hughes et al (HEA) have provided major project owners, developers, and contractors with local content advice, plans, processes, and systems, to implement local content strategies.

We’ve also worked with regional economic development organisations, industry associations, councils, State and Australian governments, to build an understanding of the strategies to leverage community benefit through collaboration with infrastructure and resources projects.

We respectfully partner and collaborate with Indigenous groups, organisations, and practitioners to support Indigenous economic participation, and employment advancement.

Our Clients

10

Project owners

20+

Tender involvements

8

Delivery contractors

6

Economic bodies

2

Community ecosystems

Our Services

  • Building local content practices during design, approvals, early works, and construction phases, across the supply chain, and establish platforms for economic impact and legacy.

    We bolster procurement, employment, and engagement teams with resources, systems and practices that define, enable and support the delivery of collaborative local content.

  • Writing Local and Australian industry and employment plans, that cover procurement, employment, and Indigenous participation, and align to stakeholder engagement objectives.

    Developing collaborative frameworks that link plans and initiatives, together with functions and resources, and align with stakeholders from project and community alike.

  • Item descriptionIdentify government, industry, and community policy requirements and targets, and ensure implementation, process management and reporting are in place.

    Developing key performance indicators and undertaking target analysis, along with benchmarking against our local content database of hundreds of projects.

  • Managing market testing campaigns for procurement processes, that involve the use or software, EOI development, and question and data frameworks.

    Processing market testing data and providing analysis and insight into local market capability and capacity, and the subsequent opportunities for engagement and market development.

  • Working alongside procurement specialists to provide assurance and support in the procurement of significant and/or sensitive procurement packages.

    Undertake detailed package research including market testing, data analysis, capability and capacity assessment, and stakeholder engagement and analysis.

  • Helping clients understand the roles of systems such as ICN Gateway, BenchOn, Felix, Social Pro, VendorPanel, and the enterprise systems they connect with.

    Supporting clients to design system approaches to local content including the development of inhouse tools, systems interfaces, and an engagement and participation strategy.

  • Developing client systems to engage, evaluate, and report on local supply chains, workforces, to ensure compliance, performance and stakeholder reporting is undertaken.

    Consolidating multiple data sources to identify risks, opportunities, needs, and trends, and developing and implementing tools for governance reporting and public statements.

  • Helping projects and economic advocates to implement and manage their own strategies through our supportive frameworks, systems, and networks.

    Mentoring project teams and people on how to deliver local content strategies and/or undertake specific elements of their role to deliver tailored local content outcomes.

  • Crafting tender documentation and evaluation frameworks for project proponents to help  drive competitive and pragmatic tender submissions, and assessable local value.

    Undertaking tender evaluations, writing feedback on submissions, and providing reports on which tenderer will likely create the best local content outcomes.

  • Working within tender teams to facilitate local content discussion, clarification, and practices, to develop win theme responses.

    Writing submission responses and plans, preparing questions for clarification, modelling commitment targets, and supporting workshops and interactives.

  • Enabling communities with the knowledge and the systems to build their own capability and capacity to leverage community benefits from major project local content.

    Establishing or supporting frameworks of collaboration between major projects operating across one region to identify and progress cumulative strategies.

  • Working with both projects and communities to establish uWorkin Talent Communities, that increase local workforce and subcontractor participation and development.

    Embedding technology and practices that support key stakeholders facilitate collaboration across their community on the basis of insight provided by reliable systems and data.

Our difference

  • We understand the operating environment of both project owners and contractors.

  • Create customised digital environments for active client participation and co-design.

  • Form collaborative frameworks that tackle shared resourcing challenges.

  • Exclusively focused on regional projects and community benefits.

Meet the Team

  • Ben Hughes - Industry Participation Local Content Specialists

    Ben Hughes

    Managing Director and Principal

  • Chantelle Roberts - Industry Participation Local Content Specialist

    Chantelle Roberts

    Project Manager - Solutions

  • Kevin Alley

    Kevin Alley

    Local Industry Participation Advisor

  • Jacqueline Lawton

    Jacqueline Lawton

    Local Industry Participation Officer

  • Juliette Williamson

    Juliette Williamson

    Marketing and Engagement Advisor

  • Tilly Hughes

    Tilly Hughes

    Team Administrator and Support

Case Studies

Want to learn more about local content?

Download our Local Content Guidance Note here. This Guidance note is referenced in the 2022 Commonwealth Government Procurement report as best practice