Managing Subcontracts Procurement in an Era of AI

Subcontract procurement is critical to successful project delivery, influencing cost, time, quality, compliance and risk across the construction supply chain. While subcontract agreements define key responsibilities and risk allocations, their effective management remains a challenge for clients, consultants, contractors, subcontractors and suppliers.

Digital platforms are already changing how subcontractors are procured, and contracts are managed. Artificial Intelligence (AI) creates further opportunities to support procurement decisions, identify contractual risks, interpret obligations and improve access to complex project and regulatory information.

Through presentations, industry case studies and collaborative discussion, participants will explore how existing and emerging technologies can increase the practical value of subcontract agreements, strengthen risk management and support better procurement and project delivery decisions.

Questions each project stakeholder organisation needs to ask include:

• How is technology changing subcontract procurement today?

• Where can AI add real value?

• What new risks may emerge?

• And could AI transform the subcontract agreement from a static contractual document into a more active tool for managing delivery, compliance and risk?

The workshop will enable participants to consider these questions in a collegial approach, using the contexts of their own organisations.

A/Prof. Dr Paulo Vaz-Serra is a civil engineer with over twenty years of industry experience in construction management, operations, and R&D. He has been responsible for understanding contracts between contractors and subcontractors across different procurement methods. He has an MSc degree in Construction and a PhD in Civil Engineering. Paulo is the author and co-author of several publications and is currently an Associate Professor in construction management at the University of Melbourne, coordinating the subject of Procurement Methods in Construction. Paulo is a Chartered Member of IEAust, of the ICE (UK) and of the Portuguese Order of Engineers.

Professor Phillip Greenham has practised construction, engineering and infrastructure law for over 30 years. He has extensive experience in contract drafting, contract administration advice and construction dispute resolution. Phillip often presents seminars to professional associations, universities and government bodies, on a variety of topics, including effective contract management, improving contractor and consultant performance, insurance law for the construction industry and dispute avoidance. Phillip teaches as a Senior Fellow in Construction Law in the Melbourne Law Masters and is an Enterprise Fellow in the Melbourne Law School.

Chris Coyle is Co-Founder of SubSync AI, an Australian platform that reviews subcontract and tender documents, flags non-standard and commercially onerous clauses, benchmarks terms against industry practice, and automates contract administration for subcontractors. He is also Director of Vettex, a development and project management consultancy working across commercial, residential and mixed-use projects on Australia's east coast. Chris's background spans development management, project management and construction delivery. He built SubSync after seeing how much commercial exposure subcontractors carry when signing bespoke subcontracts they have limited ability to negotiate.

Dr Sachith Seneviratne is an AI Specialist with a PhD in Machine Learning and 14+ years of hands-on modelling across traditional ML, deep learning, natural language processing, generative AI and agentic systems. His work involves the design of end-to-end AI solutions, from data acquisition and model selection through evaluation and generalisation at global scale, and collaborating on multidisciplinary, grant-funded programs spanning multiple organizations. Sachith has published over 50 papers in AI, including at top Q1 and A* venues, including CVPR, ECCV and AAAI.

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