A s f e A t u r e d i n A u s t r A l i A n c o n s t r u c t i o n f o c u s

THE FUNDAMENTALSOF SUCCESS

PritcHArd frAncis

2 PRITCHARD FRANCIS

Written by Aleisha Parr

As a civil and structural engineering consultancy, Pritchard Francis works across a broad range of sec-tors, including health, education, aged care, industrial, mining and resource, retail commercial, multi-storey commercial and residential, site remediation, civil in-frastructure, land development, and more.

While this seemingly is exactly what your average, run-of-the-mill engineering consultancy will do, Pritchard Francis sets itself apart in the industry by approaching each project innovatively, working to provide not only excellence in engineering skills, but also an unrivaled focus on what the company calls “the right solution.”

“The fundamentals of engineering are all the same,” explains Arthur Psaltis, Managing Director, “whether

it’s for an office building or a high school, and I suppose that’s what we focus on.”

Mr Psaltis says that unlike many other firms, his company does not train its staff prescriptively, but rather holistical-ly. “Sometimes when you get trained prescriptively you tend to limit your range of abilities, whereas we train peo-ple so they learn the fundamentals and always rely back on basic engineering principles. That allows you to use those basic engineering principles in a whole variety of different ways, applying them into different situations.”

In this way, the company has developed a stellar reputa-tion for bringing to each project an innovative approach whilst working across such a broad range of sectors.

“I think some lay people would probably see it in a very pigeon-hole way – you design either steel or you design concrete or you design schools or shopping centers,

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PRITCHARD FRANCIS

Pritchard Francis works across a broad range of sectors, including health, education, aged care, industrial, mining and resource, retail commercial, multi-storey commercial and residential, site remediation, civil infrastructure, land development, and more.

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but you don’t cross over, but it’s very different to that. As long as you’ve got the basic engineering principles, right then you can design any of the things and just adapt those principles into what you’re doing. We like to think that people come to us for our technical excel-lence and our innovation.”

“When we use the word innovation, it’s not necessar-ily breaking new ground every time,” he explains, “It’s really about taking an approach where we can see the opportunities to be innovative and acting on them. It doesn’t mean you necessarily have to come up with a different concept each time, just that you’re aware of the options and choose the right one every time.”

The philosophy behind this approach to innovation, explains Mr Psaltis, is to imbue each member of the Pritchard Francis team with a mindset of providing that “right” approach and the “right” answer. This usually

is defined by carefully balancing the customer’s de-mands and the ultimate requirements of the project itself – innovation within Pritchard Francis is never about the company showing off, but rather, showing up and delivering each and every time.

“We have to maintain excellence in engineering,” says Mr Psaltis, “but also maintain a high level of ser-vice because you must do both together. Client satis-faction is a very strong part of our culture, and really that comes down to listening to and understanding your client and appreciating what they want out of the project, what results they’re anticipating or hop-ing for.” This, obviously, is different on every job, tak-ing into consideration the broad range of areas of specialty undertaken by the fundamentals-focused company. Mr Psaltis credits his team’s ability to be adaptable enough to understand each client’s needs

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and expectations, individually on a project by project basis. The team members behind this success, says Mr Psaltis, are second to none in terms of their calibre of talent as well as their dedication to the company.

In support of this, Pritchard Francis has developed a strong relationship with the UWA engineering depart-ment, including participation in bi-annual graduate stu-dent training modules, guest lectures, joint research programs, and perhaps most notably – the Pritchard Francis Scholarship Program. This program, which has been in place now for nearly a decade, assists senior level students through financial sponsorship. While the students in receipt of this award are under no obli-gation to join the Pritchard Francis team after gradua-tion, Mr Psaltis boasts that all of the last nine scholar-ship winners are currently employed by the company. “We’ve had almost an un-blotched copy book when it comes to graduate recruitment. They tend to join us and once they start with us, they stay with us.”

“The company does not train its

staff prescriptively, but rather

holistically – ‘we train people

so they learn the fundamentals

and always rely back on basic

engineering principles.’”

Another initiative which Pritchard Francis has adopted for its employees is a partnership with a number of like businesses along the east coast, providing select staff members the opportunity to work together or on skills-exchange with those companies.

“It can help with a few of those financial ebbs and flows,” says Mr Psaltis, “but it also allows us the oppor-tunity to broaden individuals’ experiences internally without necessarily having them leave the company.”

In everything the company does, Mr Psaltis says the fo-cus is always on maintaining excellence in engineering work and providing the highest level of service. In addi-tion, the company places emphasis on three key words which help provide the necessary guidance to achieve those goals – professionalism, integrity and innovation.

“If we believe that we’re being compromised on what we’re ultimately trying to achieve then we’ll question that and try adding value to the process. This means not just looking after your own little domain, but as-sessing the input of others and making sure that holis-tically, everyone is providing the right input that pro-

duces the right results at the end.”

Although this approach is often touted by similar firms, Mr Psaltis assures us that Pritchard Francis is about more than simply playing lip service – the com-pany is all about taking the “right” actions. “If we feel it’s appropriate and warranted then we’re not afraid to go out and do some research or get an independent review done or even do some specific testing. In cases where we have gone off and done project testing be-cause we weren’t comfortable with answers that we were getting following the more traditional approach, it has led to significant savings on projects worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

As testament to this, Harry Xydas, Managing Director of Doric Group, had this to say of Pritchard Francis, “I was impressed with their lateral thinking and eco-nomic design adopted for the project, but most im-portant, for their genuine commitment to achieve the best result for the client.”

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Clients John Edgar of EIW Architects, and Jim Li-tis of Primewest Management concurred, saying respectively, “[Pritchard Francis’] thinking and de-sign of structural matters is current and innova-tive, yet sensible and cost effective,” and “Their so-lution to the potentially costly ground conditions was unique and a major saving.”

“Over many years we’ve built a good reputation, and we’re very focused now on maintaining that and im-proving on that if we can,” says Mr Psaltis. “Other work is being done to make sure that our firm stays dynamic and is not stagnant.” By this, Mr Psaltis means not nec-essarily that the company will be seeing more signs of growth, but rather, that it is developing dynamically, carrying out its business in new ways that are more ap-propriate and successful for each project undertaken.

“Even though we’re a very young firm as far as di-rectorship goes,” he continues, “we’re very focused on succession planning and ensuring that the busi-ness has a strong future. It all fundamentally comes down to employing the highest calibre people, which we’ve always done.”

Looking ahead, Mr Psaltis says he would like to con-tinue to grow the company profile. “We’re now work-ing with a lot of national and international clients, and I think that will provide opportunities for us to grow our profile.” As the company has grown it has simultane-ously worked to broaden its work profile.

“The resource industry and civil

infrastructure are ‘the two

areas we see as real growth

potential areas .’”

“We’ve seen some real opportunities in the resource in-dustry,” says Mr Psaltis, “in which we’re currently work-ing. I can see some growth opportunities there for us and also within large civil infrastructure work – they’re the two areas we see as real growth potential areas, in being able to broaden our work profile. We’d also like to broaden our expertise, whether it’s through sustainabil-ity or otherwise, so we need to continue to develop our skills in those areas to make the most of opportunities when they come past our door.”

PritcHArd frAncis

1/430 roberts road subiaco WA 6008

Phone: (08) 9382 5111

www.pfeng.com.au

675 Victoria Street | Abbotsford VIC 3067

Phone: 02 8412 8119 | ABN 93 143 238 126