Working toward a common goal

Auckland Motorway Alliance - A shared belief in excellence.

This year the Supreme Business Excellence winner for South was Auckland Motorway Alliance.

On 1 October 2008, the Auckland Motorway Alliance (AMA), publicly known as Auckland Motorways, began a 10-year agreement to operate and maintain the Auckland motorway network. The AMA is a formal Alliance between Fulton Hogan, Opus International Consultants, Beca Infrastructure, Resolve Group and Armitage Systems.

"We're made up of six different organisations in four different locations in Auckland. We're here to help New Zealand grow by keeping Auckland moving and that means maintaining and operating the Auckland motorway network, so the motorway remains safe, resilient, and efficient for all our customers," says Steve Mutton, Alliance Director.

With so much growth and development in the city, it's a huge undertaking to keep Auckland moving. There is also the challenge of working with the many building and construction projects happening around the city and along Auckland's motorways.

"We're a 24/7 operation because we've got to do a lot of our work at night when Auckland sleeps. We have 100 people out on the network doing maintenance every night," explains Steve. "It's about working together as a high performing team to deliver our objectives. We all work together. There's no blame. There's no finger pointing. We share in the gain, and we share in the pain," says Steve Mutton.

Auckland Motorway Alliance were also category winners of Excellence in Innovation and Excellence in Strategy & Planning.

"Everyone that works in our organisation understands their purpose. They have a belief. They know why they get up every morning, and why they go to work every night. And that is one common goal - to help New Zealand grow by keeping Auckland moving," says Steve Mutton.

Making sure an organisation measures its success relative to its strategy is where the rubber hits the road as Steve Mutton explains. "We have success measures for each one of our five priorities. For example, on customer satisfaction we've hit 100 percent, three months in a row. That means we're listening to our customers and changing our business needs to respond to their needs," notes Steve.

"We're also about continuous improvement and providing better outcomes to our customers and we do that through innovation. It starts right from the guys in the field through to our Board. During my term we've had 700 innovations which have been approved by our Board and are ideas that we've taken forward."