BAA is to invite bids for major projects from companies outside the construction industry as part of a wide-ranging overhaul of its procurement system

Steven Morgan, the airport operator’s capital projects director, said he would be looking to attract international firms from the oil and gas, nuclear, defence and logistics industries to the supply chain.

Last month Building revealed that BAA had decided to scrap its £6.6bn construction framework for projects worth more than £25m, on which nine contractors had spent more than a year winning a place. This work will be let using competitive tenders.

He said: “I want companies who don’t usually do business with us to enter. Whether or not they will be tier one firms yet, I don’t know.”

Morgan said he was looking for firms with experience of “pulling together a number of subcontractors and delivering on major capital programmes”.

The overhaul will also involve bundling projects worth less than £25m into larger projects, which could result in fewer projects being issued under the framework. He said: “It’s expensive having hundreds of contracts to manage. I don’t want to have lots of six-month projects. I want them to last two or three years. We might integrate all the airport terminals into one project. These are massive changes.”

In the past BAA has taken an active role in project managing large schemes such as Heathrow Terminal 5. Morgan said he now wanted to distance BAA from the operational side of construction projects, and was banning the title project manager for his team. He said: “I don’t want to be a construction company. There needs to be a customer. I am the customer and the contractor is not.”

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