Sunwater’s Hydraulic Laboratory Upgrade

Project Overview

The Sunwater Hydraulics Laboratory provides support for major water infrastructure projects by testing impacts of current and planned works on scale models of the infrastructure in a controlled environment. The physical space and flow rates available within the existing facility is not adequate to meet the modelling demand from Sunwater and other parties.

A project has been proposed to upgrade the facility to increase its physical size and hydraulic testing capacity, which would allow larger models to be built to reduce the scale errors in the modelling process, and provide a level of service which is unavailable in Australia.

TBH’s Role

TBH was engaged to develop the detailed business case for this project in accordance with the Sunwater guidelines and Queensland Government’s Business Case Development Framework (BCDF).

This included:

• Review of the existing documentation such as the preliminary business case, demand for testing services, options analysis and other relevant inputs received from Sunwater.
• Documentation of the project need, scope, benefits and risks. Development of the inputs to the financial and economic analysis including capital and operational costs, revenues through consultation with the stakeholders.
• Development of detailed Cost Estimates and Construction Schedules based on the available designs at the preferred and alternative sites.
• Financial and economic analysis to assess the viability of the project including the preferred and alternative options.
• Drafting and finalising the detailed business case in accordance with QLD Government and Sunwater Business Case Development Frameworks and processes.
• Support approval of the detailed business case through the Gateway Assurance process by preparation of additional deliverables such as benefit, stakeholder and project management plans, and presentations for the Sunwater governance forums.

The TBH Difference

The experienced and multi-disciplinary TBH team comprising of business analysts, quantity surveyors, schedulers and technical writers worked collaboratively with various Sunwater stakeholders including the Executive Sponsor, Project Manager, PHM Laboratory Manager, Financial Analysts and Governance team to develop a comprehensive business case, supported by robust analysis that ensured it met all the Sunwater and QLD government approval requirements.