1. Testing areas of known industry weakness, even when the answer is known, provides huge insight into opportunities for feedback into supply chain market opportunities for Australian suppliers and workers.

2. Local market testing is a smart way of keeping competitive tension into the tendering of large-scale equipment and supporting optimum onshore investment.

3. Collaborating appropriately with relevant industry bodies can provide first strategy validation and support in planning engagement with the local industry in early project planning phases.

4. There are always opportunities in any project, no matter how big or how small, to engage the local market. The larger packages, by definition have more economic impact for regions and industry, if only to better understand the aftermarket.

5. Given the onset of COVID 19 at the end of the local market test, having a detailed understanding of the Australian steel market.

Given a lack of major electro-transmission projects in recent years, the Australian market has several capability and capacity supply chain gaps in manufacturing key componentry for the construction of infrastructure, such as PEC. Furthermore, at the time of the case study, global steel prices were high and overseas competition was very high.

However, through fifteen years of working on major infrastructure projects, HEA have learnt that there are always opportunities in any project, no matter how big or small, to engage the local market. With the support of a procurement manager who was interested and committed to Australian supply chain opportunities, that was identified for procurement package unbundling was the Transmission Tower Steel package.

Given the volumes of steel required SecureEnergy was already holding quotes from overseas companies, however, the SecureEnergy procurement manager and package lead were both actively involved in determining whether there were ways to unbundle the transmission steel package for Australian competition.

The unbundling exercise role played different scenarios that applied to the package and the potential to have separable portions of varying balances to meet the established procurement criteria. Several scenarios were considered to facilitate optimum opportunity for Australian competition. While the fundamental procurement objective of cost was never forgotten, the net industrial and economic benefits of having a package of that size procured onshore was modelled as part of a local value setting exercise.

Ultimately and inevitably, the package was procured overseas, however the process supported opportunities to focus on industry collaboration, eliminate Australian supply chain inefficiency, potentially construct small separable portions in support of environmental disasters, and probably most importantly, how to unbundle the logistics elements from the procurement package to identify the creation of Australian jobs in STEM related areas such as inventory logistics and assembly co-ordination.

Creating ecosystem synergies is another way of saying collaborating productively. Working within teams and stakeholder networks to target and achieve shared outcomes based on shared needs. Using technology to make engagement efficient, effective and smart.

The initial collaboration between SecureEnergy, the ASI and a group of Australian suppliers provided real insight into the risks and opportunities for the procurement of the package, and the development of the market. The suppliers particularly were able to look at the challenge as a whole of supply chain challenge and gain that perspective from SecureEnergy. It was encouraging to see Government support packages available and there were a number of potential opportunities to develop this further had the world not been impacted by COVID-19.

Some of the unbundling work completed on the transmission tower steel had uncovered other opportunities for local supplier participation and SecureEnergy was able to use their ICN Gateway project page to publish a range of Expressions of Interest (EOI) that related to the use of steel on the project. Utilising the ICN Gateway for supplier and subcontractor engagement for this project was the best way to reach the local market and provide both an accurate marketing sounding, and a fair and unbiased opportunity, to all entities looking to become involved. There will be opportunities for local fabricators to tender to produce structural steel such as the substation support structures and buildings (e.g., hold-down bolts and footings).

SecureEnergy and ICN NSW held meetings to define areas of opportunity and the subsequent levels of capability, certification and licencing required. In addition, undertook joint supplier briefings with both ICN NSW and also Regional Development Australia (RDA) Riverina to promote awareness of opportunities on the project.

Finally, SecureEnergy are delivery works with the RDA Riverina and RDA Murray regions meaning they are also connected into the JobsRiverinaMurray (JRM) employment ecosystem: www.jobsriverinamurray.com.au

Creating synergies and the delivery of ecosystems enables HEA clients to draw upon the collaborative relationships built within regions, industry and government to streamline knowledge and share lessons learnt.

With the procurement unbundling exercise completed by November 2020, HEA engaged the New South Wales (NSW) representative for the ASI to obtain guidance and advice on how the Australian steel market and broader supply chain could cost effectively deliver the tonnes of steel needed for the transmission towers.

By December 2020, the ASI had provided initial guidance on the varying levels of capability and capacity within the Australian market. This information and insight led to SecureEnergy undertaking a formal local market test utilising a Request for Proposal (RFP) process. At that stage the ASI stepped away from the process to ensure that the local market testing was managed entirely by the SecureEnergy procurement team.

Throughout January 2021, the SecureEnergy procurement team undertook a series of meetings with local subcontractors to confirm their ability to provide a staged delivery of the towers aligned with the construction schedule, and further would be able to do full scale destructive load testing of five of the tower types.

This consultation process also enabled SecureEnergy to establish that there would be no price impact from supplying local steel versus overseas steel and that both the standalone towers, and the tower bolts produced in Australia needed for the tower construction, would be to international standards.

In this instance collaboration enabled SecureEnergy to not only uphold Australian Industry Participation Plan (AIP Plan) requirements but also develop a well-rounded and detailed picture of the local and Australian market capability and capacity, and the subsequent local content opportunities for the PEC project. This sovereign information later proving useful when the full effects of COVID 19 began impacting global steel markets.