Transforming design process in a “Giga” infrastructure project: case study in Australia

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate and measure stakeholder engagement and interorganisational relationships involved in the project design process. Design/methodology/approach: A mixed-methods design, which combined action study, focus group meetings and a survey with project stakeholders who were employees in this project to express their comments on current design processes in different sub-projects. Findings: The transformation of the design process in the selected project can be categorised into three distinct areas: (1) people, (2) practices and (3) internal infrastructure. These three categories were a straightforward way to review, analyse and discuss this transformation. The findings revealed the major goals of the improvement process as summarised are reliability, efficiency and quality. Recommendations and future study directions were suggested by the end of the paper. Research limitations/implications: Although the project selected in this research was limited to Australia, the results could be interpreted on the design process in many other construction projects with similar size all over the world. Practical implications: This research was very practical, with all data collected from the project in Australia. It summarised the difficulties met in the project and provided methods for stakeholders and industry practitioners to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the design process. Originality/value: This research provided lessons learnt on the design process from a “Giga” project and provided sustainable methods to facilitate future projects into flexible and effective communication among stakeholders.