John Holland was formed in Australia in 1949 by Sir John Holland. Since that time, the company has grown into one of Australia’s leading and most diversified contracting, engineering and services provider, working predominantly in Australia, but also throughout various parts of Asia, executing all manner of engineering, services and construction projects. 

The company’s recent history has seen significant corporate re-structuring and growth as a result of that. “In 1991, the company became part of Janet Holmes à Court’s company Heytesbury Pty Ltd (HP Holdings),” Mr Russell Cuttler explains. “The company was under HP Holdings ownership until 2000, when Leighton Holdings acquired 70 percent of the company and put a new management team in place.

“In 2000, John Holland was turning over about 400 million dollars per annum and today our turnover is 3.5 billion dollars per annum with current work in hand approaching $6 billion. So, the business has been increasing quite rapidly,” he comments. “The Managing Director that Leighton put in place when they took over, Mr Bill Wild, embarked on a number of strategic acquisitions, the most notable one being the purchase of Transfield Construction, in 2003. Transfield is another major, privately-owned construction organisation in Australia, and it was the acquisition of Transfield that led to the development of our current business model, which sets John Holland apart from its competitors.”

A collaborative model

Prior to making these acquisitions, John Holland operated predominantly as a regionally-based company, tackling a diverse range of projects. The company’s new business model has a strong regional focus, complemented by a number of specialist business units, namely – water, tunnelling, rail, telecommunications, structural and mechanical processes and power. “Those specialist businesses work nationally and in tunnelling they also work internationally,” Mr Cuttler remarks. “The model works in terms of these specialist businesses working in collaboration with regional businesses. So, in this way, we can offer a strong regional focus and understanding of local affairs: from clients, suppliers, industrial relations and safety, while our specialist businesses can bring in technical expertise and specialist knowledge.”

This method allows John Holland to work across a range of market sectors, with a high level of skill. Even the specialist businesses can be called upon to work together: “In the water sector, for example,” Mr Cuttler tells us, “water solutions often involve a tunnelling component. So we can involve the tunnelling business in the project, for dealing with those specific elements. Bringing specialist business know-how together with regional knowledge and understanding is really at the heart of John Holland’s collaborative business model,” he comments.

The style of contracts that the company runs has also changed to better accommodate its more collaborative model. “Relationship or alliance style contracts have increased significantly over the past 10 years,” Mr Cuttler continues. “Today, they account for around 50 percent of our annual turnover.”

As a Leighton Group company, John Holland has also capitalised on that, extending its business model to work internationally. For example, on the KSL (Kowloon Southern Link) project in Hong Kong, John Holland worked with Leighton Asia, making the most of their local knowledge whilst contributing a depth of tunnelling experience to the joint team.

In overview, John Holland has four regional businesses in Australia: in the east, west, south and north of the country, and specialist businesses in tunnelling, water, rail, structural and mechanical processes, telecommunications and power. The company also has a services business which includes aviation services, as well as a separate mining business. 

Specific projects

Going back in time, John Holland was involved in the construction of the iconic Australian Federal Parliament House in Canberra and the Adelaide/Darwin Railway Line – two very significant projects in Australia’s history. “In more recent times, the company worked in a joint venture with Thiess to deliver EastLink, which was a 42 kilometre toll roadway project in Victoria, completed in mid-2008 – about five months early. That was an AU$ 2.5 billion project that involved two 1.6 kilometre, three lane road tunnels, and numerous interchanges with the existing network, and was certainly a very significant recent project,” Mr Cuttler tells us.

A project of this size and complexity involved a plethora of individual and collective challenges. “On a project of that magnitude, one of the key challenges was resourcing,” he states, “and it certainly put our collaborative model to the test. The group came up with a strategy for working whereby we were able to draw all of our business units together – regional and specialist – so that all of the business units became a resource pool for the project, not just those that were directly involved.

“This meant that instead of trying to recruit 50 people locally, we had 10 business units each recruiting five people from a wide spectrum,” he explains. “That element ended up being key to the successful delivery of the entire project.”

Delivering the project five months early was another major achievement. This was made possible, Mr Cuttler tells us, by “the flexibility of the industrial agreements and industrial relations we were able to negotiate. This broke a lot of traditions that had previously been imposed, and allowed us to be a lot more productive and organise the workforce more effectively.” 

Another very significant project that the company is working on at the moment is the Northern Sewerage project for Melbourne Water, which is an upgrade or an addition to their sewage systems, to reduce the number of wet weather overflows and allow for the further development of the north-west of Melbourne. The project is being delivered under a relationship-style contract, with both Melbourne Water and Yarra Valley Water. “So, we have two different clients and there are two different stages to the project,” he says. “We currently have three tunnel boring machines in operation to cater for the varied ground conditions and the project is challenging in a number of interesting ways.” 

Focus on people

John Holland’s diversity approach is largely allied to its corporate culture, which is very much focused on people. “The culture that we try to instil in the organisation is very focused upon the recruitment and retention of key people. By giving them the chance to develop – through targeted training programs and a wide variety of challenging work opportunities – we hope to be considered not just an employer of choice, but a contractor of choice. We value long-term partnerships with our clients,” he says. “Rather than tackle just any kind of project; it has got to be one where we can add value to the client, with specific advantages. We look at our clients and the opportunities that they have, and we build relationships with them.”

Quality control and safety are two aspects of its business that John Holland always promotes. The company is very outspoken when it comes to its stated “desire to be an industry leader”. Certainly, Mr Cuttler reports, “Our ‘no harm’ vision has been readily embraced. In fact, we are probably the leading contractor in Australia in terms of focussing on safety innovation and constant improvement.” 

John Holland initiated a programme called the Passport to Safety Excellence Programme (PSEP), which everyone, from the Chairman, right through to the supervisors, has to attend. “Engineering and supervisory staff are obviously more heavily involved in it, but this programme, developed by John Holland, has actually been picked up by other parts of the industry.

“It is a programme that we are more than happy to share with our competitors because it is something that can improve standards across the entire construction industry, which has a dual benefit for us,” he explains. “We invariably rely on subcontractors for certain parts of our business, so it is important that they have access to the same knowledge as us. So, in effect, it is the elevation of the whole approach to safety, with modules that cover everything from management and leadership, to task risk assessment and job safety analysis. It is all focused upon improving the management style and leadership of our people, through equipping them with practical investigation tools and effective communication skills,” Mr Cuttler informs.

Minimising disruption

With regard to environmental considerations, Mr Cuttler explains: “We have a particular focus on the environmental impact of our business. We focus on minimising waste and implementing sustainable engineering practices wherever practical. Similarly, we have to ensure that we have appropriately skilled and knowledgeable people in the field, and that they are able to convey best practice to the wider work force. 

“Proper reporting and reviewing of issues or incidents is also essential, and we have a system whereby those are actually communicated up the line to the company board, so that they understand what is happening on the ground when they are determining strategy,” he says.

As a contracting company , most of these issues come under ‘business as usual’ – but in terms of a specific example: “The Lane Cove Tunnel, which is a road tunnel in Sydney, was a particularly sensitive site. So, in order to ensure better community relations and environmental performance, we developed an underground solution for trucking soil, therefore alleviating issues of dust, noise, and traffic management.”

“That level of awareness and accommodation of community issues is something that we pride ourselves on,” Mr Cuttler reports. “We always look at the environmental controls that are available to us and apply those in order to minimise disruption.”

Project innovation

“John Holland always seeks new initiatives and new ways of working,” Mr Cuttler remarks. This happens on a project level and often goes hand in hand with introducing new technology, “partially through necessity in order to ensure that we comply with our environmental objectives, and commitments to preserving health, safety and community relations.”

“The result of which is often an innovative solution,” he continues. “For example, at the Lane Cove Tunnel project, or more recently on the Melbourne Main Sewer Replacement – we had quite a few bored piles to construct, where you traditionally end up breaking the concrete at the top in order to rebar. We actually came up with a new way of doing that, which was quite novel and highly successful, eliminating a lot of the handwork.”

A major focus for the company as a whole is to only work on projects where it can add value. Indeed, the tunnelling business is recognised as one of the market leaders in Australia and Hong Kong. John Holland prides itself on the innovation initiatives it has brought to the Australian market. The company has actually been responsible for a number of market firsts. “We brought the first Earth Pressure Balance machine into Australia and the first slurry Tunnel Boring Machine to Australia and Hong Kong. Being innovative is often the only way to meet client needs on high-value projects,” Mr Cuttler comments.

Building Australian infrastructure

The company’s plans for the future are simple and clear, as Mr Cuttler outlines: “Our plan is to continue focussing and delivering on our reputation as a leading and diverse contractor, predominantly in Australia, although the possibility for some of our specialist business units – the rail group and the tunnelling group, specifically – are starting to look at other geographical markets. We are certainly very interested in the some of the major projects coming up in Hong Kong – the MTR Corporation has a programme of rail projects that will run for the next four or five years.” Out of curiosity, I also asked about the company’s interest in Australia’s proposed new, US$ 32 billion, internet infrastructure. Mr Cuttler says, “Our services business focuses on communications. As such, the national broadband roll out is certainly of interest to this organisation.”

He continues: “We think that we are well positioned to continue our growth in Australia. We are all facing the changed global economic conditions at the moment, but certainly, there is a huge demand for infrastructure projects in Australia – a large number of which will involve tunnelling solutions.” In relation to current and emerging trends, Mr Cuttler says, “The flexibility of the organisation and its ability to draw upon specialist resources from within, means that we can adapt to the changing dynamics and diverse needs of our clients. Our collaborative model will certainly help us through the current economic downturn because, rather than be restricted by any regional boundaries, we are structured to provide the needed infrastructure across Australia, in the coming years.”

So, with this in mind, John Holland’s focus on innovation, and the unique business model which makes it ideally suited to working on diversified projects – the company is undoubtedly in a strong position to continue building on its success long into the future.