How the Aurecon-Jacobs Joint Venture improved worksharing and collaboration on WestConnex

The Challenge

WestConnex was a major infrastructure project involving 9 kilometres of new motorway tunnels, the widening and realignment of the existing M5 at King George’s Road, a large interchange at St Peters, and 14 kilometres of shared pedestrian and bike paths with connections to future projects.

To support delivery across a project of this scale, the joint venture structured the work so that busier offices could support quieter design centres. This required a worksharing solution that could connect a dispersed 12d team across 8 key locations: Mascot, Neutral Bay, St Leonards, South Brisbane, Melbourne, Hobart, Auckland and Bangkok.

The wider Sydney Transport team also included 9 road designers, 5 surveyors, 6 water engineers and 3 civil designers, while collaborating with other offices in Newcastle, Brisbane, Thailand, Vietnam and South Africa. With this many disciplines and locations involved, the project needed a more effective way to manage shared data and maintain alignment across teams.

The Solutions

12d Synergy was adopted to provide a flexible worksharing and data management environment for the Aurecon-Jacobs team. It enabled project data to be shared more effectively across offices and allowed staff to contribute from a wider range of locations without relying on constant travel or relocation.

The platform supported collaboration across the wider design team and helped the joint venture balance workloads more effectively between busy and quieter offices. It also provided a more connected environment for managing a wide range of geospatial data, including 12d Model data, SWMM data, GIS data and project tasks.

The Result

• Supported worksharing across 8 key locations.
• Enabled collaboration across Australia, New Zealand and Asia.
• Helped deliver a major motorway project involving 9km of tunnels and 14km of shared pedestrian and bike paths.
• Reduced the need for long commutes, flights and time spent in hotels and taxis.
• Helped coordinate a multidisciplinary team including 9 road designers, 5 surveyors, 6 water engineers and 3 civil designers.
• Improved user adoption through a simple interface and straightforward training.
• Enabled busier offices to support quieter design centres through shared work.

Spotlight Project: WestConnex

With staff based primarily in Mascot near Sydney Airport, but also contributing from multiple interstate and international offices, 12d Synergy helped connect teams across locations and support more continuous delivery across the project.

Managing the data minefield across disciplines and locations

Beyond worksharing, the project also demanded better management of complex design data across multiple disciplines. The team needed to coordinate road design, surveying, water engineering and civil design inputs while working across a dispersed office network.

12d Synergy helped Aurecon manage and share a broad range of geospatial project data, including 12d Model data, SWMM data, GIS data and project tasks. This gave the team a more connected environment for collaboration and reduced the friction of trying to keep multiple offices and disciplines aligned through manual processes.

Improving worksharing across a dispersed team

One of the main reasons the joint venture adopted 12d Synergy was the flexibility it provided. The team needed to share and balance workloads across offices while reducing the lifestyle impact of long commutes, fly-in fly-out work and unnecessary travel.

Ed Wilson noted that many users on WestConnex were especially positive about being able to avoid long commutes and wasted time in airports, hotels and taxis. With 12d Synergy in place, staff in remote locations such as Far North Queensland and New Zealand could contribute more easily to project delivery, giving the joint venture greater flexibility in how it allocated work.

Supporting adoption and long-term flexibility

Aurecon-Jacobs found that once the initial adoption phase passed, users responded positively to the platform. The simplicity of 12d Synergy made training straightforward, helping it become part of the team’s normal way of working rather than an additional burden.

For the business, this meant worksharing became easier to scale and more sustainable over time. It also helped position the organisation to offer a more flexible working environment, supporting both delivery efficiency and employee wellbeing.