Who has a crystal ball, anyone ? anyone ?…

We’ll leave the forecasting to the experts, but at JCA we’re slowly starting to see some signs of life returning to our little market sector, and anecdotally, we are hearing of alot of upside from our client body.

At JCA we are gearing ourselves to service this potential upswing, whilst being cautiously mindfull that talk doesn’t automatically equate to actual work in hand. All the same we are ready to provide our expert planning services to our clients. Our Forensic team last year welcomed Mr Anders Axelson, a skilled planning profesional with a legal background, who was instrumental (with others) in setting up the Australian Chapter of the Society of Construction Law.

Our Building and Engineering Planning consultants have also been busy honing their skills, and are ready for action.

We look forward to a busy year.

The above video in no way is meant to insult any consultants or govt departments working on the Education Revolution Stimulus Package projects, and is not a claim that these projects have been poorly managed.

Well the most anticipated announcement on the West Australian and National agenda finally occurred.

The worst hidden secret (will they or won’t they give the green light) was announced to fan-fare on Monday 14th September 2009. So the Gorgon Team have finally confirmed the speculation that the project (valued at A$43billion) will proceed.

Although for WA contracting businesses much of the value of works likely to be committed locally has already been committed or about to be. By far the biggest value of contract awards will be to overseas supplier/contractor/designers. Having said that some big contracts are still to be let (and open to local contractor’s - we wish them luck).

We at JCA have already had the pleasure of being involved in the project for local civil contractors for forward work contracts, and like many other local consulting firms will be looking to assist on the project throughout the construction life.

Well after a lull in aquiring new work, JCA, in recent days, have been able to secure some new assignments. We wonder if this is a reflection of our industry returning to some form of growth, or just a small blip, or maybe we are just really good at what we do, and our clients are returning to us. Below we list the new assignments:
Project Planning:
* Building Education Revolution - Midland District schools package (Jaxon Construction)
* Pluto Civil Works Site B Package (Georgiou)
* Brockman 4 Amonium Nitrate Facility (SWG)
* Sino Iron Ore Ball Mill (Civmec)

Forensic Planning & Claims Management:
* Lowrie v Schneider, Boddington Gold Mine Switchrooms - Independant Delay & Disruption Assessment (Jackson McDonald)
* Sunday Times East Perth - Expert Witness Reporting (Arccon)
* SWG v Seaport - Expert Witness Report (Hotchkin Hanly)

With capacity to carry out other assignments, call JCA today and let us add value to yor project !

With a recession currently in play, and the credit squeeze still in effect, new project developments are far and few between. Whether it’s mining, civil or building, it seems most private project developments are either being canned, reviewed or placed in indefinite hold…or are they.

At the begining of this year, most businesses (small and big) got nervous, and decided to cut costs, pull on the brakes, cancel expansion plans, sit tight, ready to wait out the downturn..in turn this worsened the downturn. In our opinion (based on anecdotal evidence only) business is starting to realise that although we may not have seen the worst of this downturn, our reaction was maybe an “over-reaction”.

For instance, Clients we work for, stripped down to a leaner business operating model, which mostly meant reducion in “non-core” project staff. That meant a lot of planners/engineers lost there jobs. 18 months ago our clients came to us because they could not find staff to carry out these roles, now it seems they are starting to come back to us because they no longer have these people, but still have the work to be done (but maybe not at the same quantity).

As there are now some signs of improvement in the U.S. economy, and subsequently improvements in credit availability globally, feasible developments are likely to go ahead again (albeit some maybe not as grande).

In Western Australia, with the likely go ahead of some existing planned Major projects (eg Pluto, Gorgon, RPG6, Perth Arena, Fiona Hospital), we wonder whether by the end of this year we may experience a mini boom..will we be ready for it, or will we have stripped down business models too much.

Of course there are many other factors governing how our local economy recovers from this downturn. eg government fiscal policy. Although not responsible for the global fiscal meltdown, the federal government by dishing out cash to the punters in order to manipulate quarterly growth figures, attempting to temporarily fend off a technical recession (which did not work in anycase), will not help return real growth in business, investment and jobs. Most ecomomists (I expect also Rudd/Swan’s own ecomomic advisors) seem to agree the best way forward is to use this money (and any further stimulus funds) on infrastructure spending.

In summary, although things are slowed (and may get slower) there seems to be a small silver lining in W.A. (although not necessarily for the local housing values), and maybe if the Federal and state goverments get there fiscal acts together, we may bounce back from this U.S. created mess sooner than later.

JCA are pleased to confirm that it has this month started project planning consulting on the expansion of Perth’s International Airport directly for “Westralia Airports Corporation” (WAC).

The project includes the creation of a new airside services, a new Regional Airport Terminal (Terminal WA), and relocation of all interstate domestic travel through a new domestic terminals connected to the existing International Terminal, and multideck carparks.

JCA will also be involved in the initial planning of a potential rail link to the new amalgamated airport facilities.

JCA’s Andrew Johnson has been at the forefront of the planning for the first phase of this exciting project.

JCA have worked closely with WAC over the last couple of years on their business park and retail facilities, including the new Remote Operations Centre for Rio Tinto. This appointment cements the strong relationship between JCA, WAC and it’s tennants.

JCA have been chosen to execute the planing and controls for construction of the proposed multi-fuel cogeneration power plant at Worsley’s expanded Alumina refinery.

Built and owned by Griffin Energy and Operated by Worsley Alumina, the power plant is approximately a $500million dollar project with in the $2.5billion expansion project. Part of the site’s “Efficiency and Growth Expansion Project”, it’s due for completion near the end of 2010, with commissioning scheduled for 2011.

JCA is excited to continue it’s involvement on the Worsley site, having worked in various expansion works on the site since early in 2000.

Well it’s that time of the year, and some of jca’s social group are again running a tipping competition through the AFL’s NAB footytips website.

Administered online by our “Princess Sparkles”, the competition is open to all staff, clients and associates.

To join the JCA competition it costs $2 per round, payable upfront as a lump sum or week by week (contact Kilee for payment details on kg@jcalogic.com). Remember if you aren’t financial the jca social group will not payout any JCA prizes.

There will be a weekly prize as well as end of year prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd with last place getting their money back. Also by joining, you may be up for $45,000 worth of prises from NAB as the competition host.

click to join the JCA competition -

JCA are please to confirm that it has commenced Project planning/controls services on the expansion of the Bluewaters Power station just outside Collie in WA, directly for Griffin Energy.

A team of planners lead by JCA Project Planning has today started the process of building Griffin’s Energy’s project schedule and project controls reporting system.

Griffin had recently approached JCA, after being convinced of our expertise and abilities (though other JCA clients).

JCA is exicted to be involved in this project, and extremely happy to be working with Griffin Energy direct.

JCA have teamed up with Logic Recruitment to build the team to support this projects expansion.

It is with a very heavy heart that we write this blog.

Seeing the news reports of the scale of destruction and witnessing the human emotion resulting from the bushfire disaster toll over the last days, has provided a sobering reality check of the value of life.

The fires have been so far spread and so vicious, that it is not surprising that there been 173 reported deaths to date. This truly is a tragedy.

As our country’s most devastating disaster, we can only hope that the survivors (especially those who have lost family members) can re-assemble their lives at some point. No doubt there will be many angry people who wish to pass on their own judgement to those offenders who lit these fires (assuming they are caught and proven guilty).

The emotional outpour and support is like nothing I’ve seen in this country (and we are pretty good at helping our own in need). I even heard one of our staff say they are willing to donate their $950 from Mr Rudd to the bushfire appeal.

JCA’s staff have decided to pool a donation of cash for the fund. Those interested in joining us please call us on (08) 9322 4873.