The Spinnaker Tower and St Pancras Station - Essay Example

The Spinnaker Tower and St Pancras Station The Spinnaker Tower and London’s St. Pancreas Station are both notable examples construction that are unique and stand out from the ordinary run of the mill buildings. The Spinnaker Tower is the tallest building in the U.K, towering over the London Eye, Blackpool Tower and the Big Ben, while the St Pancras international station is the new high tech terminus for Eurostar services. Both of these are notable construction examples, and project management techniques utilized in the development of both these edifices were efficient and were geared towards achieving the desired objectives. The notable difference between these two projects is that the development of the St. Pancras project was an example of a lean construction while the development of the Spinnaker Tower went through several obstacles before the project reached completion. The Spinnaker Tower stands at a height of 170 metres, towering over Portsmouth harbour. The notable aspect of the construction is its representation as a sail blowing in the wind, and this objective was achieved by using two steel arcs. The construction material used was a composite mixture of steel and concrete, and there are three different viewing levels. It is built upon a 3m thick pile cap and 84 piles, with two steel cross bows rising from the ground and connecting with the central structure, comprising two inclined, hexagonal concrete shafts. Two cross bows rise elegantly from the ground, cross between the shafts and connect at the top of the tower, with aerofoil shaped ribs spanning between the bows to give it the distinctive look of the spinnaker sail. The Spinnaker Tower is situated on the Gunwharf Quays and offers 350 degree views of Portsmouth harbour, the South Coast and the Isle of Wight. The Tower was opened up to the public on 18th October 2005 and has received over 600,000 visitors within the first year of its opening. The concrete that has been used to build the tower is of an amount sufficient to fill five and a half Olympic sized swimming pools. Project management has been defined as the process by which projects are defined, planned, monitored, controlled and delivered in order to achieve the desired benefits (www.apm.org.uk). The Spinnaker Tower project was initiated in September 1995, when the proposal to erect a millennium tower was mooted for the renaissance of Portsmouth harbour and approved by the Millennium Commission. There were several problems associated with the development of this project that cost 23 million pounds. At the outset, there were problems in managing procurement for the project, because there were three false starts before Mott McDonald took over the project and got involved in the year 2002. The scope of the project was set out as being a public amenity that was specifically geared towards celebrating the new millennium and it had to be such that it could accommodate public facilities, an educational facility and some commercial facilities that could go hand in hand with the other attractions of a historic dockyard (www.apm.org.uk). Before the project actually commenced, three different kinds of designs were proposed for the tower – the globe, the spinnaker and the triple tower. These three options were presented to the public through the Portsmouth City Council magazine that canvassed public opinion. Out of the nearly 13,000 people who offered their opinion, 60% supported the spinnaker option. A Planning application was submitted in the summer of 1998 on behalf of the Portsmouth City Council. This application sought permission to set up two viewing platforms with access being afforded via lifts and internal stairs. An environmental statement was also attached to the application, which stated that no adverse environmental consequences appeared to exist, which could not be brought down to an acceptable level. The examination of the environmental aspects has already commenced with a carbon audit and the Company is in the process of producing a Company wide energy policy. The construction of the St. Pancras station is an example of lean construction, geared towards developing products and/or facilities that demonstrate high levels of quality and are managed at an optimum level of cost (Koerckel, 2005). As Koerckel et al (2005) argue, projects are the fundament aspect of any production system; whether they are unique or mass produced, products or constructions are made and developed for the first time. Restoration of the exterior of St Pancras station was commenced in the 1990s and extensive refurbishment work is being carried out with the objective of converting it into St. Pancras International, a modern, high tech terminus for Eurostar Services(www.urban75.org). The Channel Tunnel Rail Link contract is a 23,000m extension to accommodate the terminus and the project involves fabricating and constructing over 26,001 m of steelwork, most of which is tubular (Anonymous, 2003). The design of the roof consists of 170 Vierendeel trusses, 33m in width and designed in such a manner that it has a light and open appearance. The main structure is comprised of stainless steel rainwater pipes which are enclosed with large diameter tubes 25mm thick (www.urban75.org). The project construction was managed in two structured phases and completed in 2008. The supply of switch and crossing track layouts on the Northfleet sidings area are being managed by specialist rail businesses within the Corus organization (Anonymous, 2003). Design services are being provided by Corus Rail Consultancy and these include services such as structures assessment and platform design and well as civil engineering and M&E. Corus Rail Modular systems also installed a new platform extension within a weekend. The station is the most technologically advanced railway station in the world, with digital desks located in front of glass screens displaying customer information, echoed at customer information points located all around the station (Muir, 2008) The St. Pancras station restorations were finally completed in November 2007 after an investment of 800 million pounds (Muir, 2008). Additional retail and leisure services were added, such as Europe’s longest champagne bar, 67 independent boutiques and shops, a daily farmers market and a world class brasserie. One of the important aspects of this project has been to provide customer services at the St. Pancras station of a level of quality that is superior enough to match the quality of its facilities. This was achieved by Echeleon Learning Services, which set up a four stage process to manage the recruitment of highly skilled customer service officers. In achieving the desired critical construction milestones, lean construction was integrated with Six Sigma. Applying the lean construction method, projects are temporary production systems which include product development, aerospace and software engineering among others (Koerckel et al, 2005). A Production Control System that was implemented by Strategic Project Solutions which used 3D prototyping in the ThamesLink box, an underground metro stop, in order to demonstrate how it could contribute towards performance improvement (Koerckel, 2005). The Production Control System utilized the Last Planner System (Ballard, 2000), which seeks to achieve the following lean and modern business principles: (a) Limiting master schedules to milestones (b) Producing phase schedules with the working team, to make the time buffers explicit (c) Transferring activities from the phase schedules into three to six week look ahead plans and screening for constraints; allowing the activities to proceed only if the constraints can be removed. (d) Learning to plan for and keeping the commitment to tasks which are sound and well defined and advance the task forward (e) Track the percentage of tasks completed and derive the reasons for plan failure (Koerckel et al, 2005). Three critical success factors were set out, i.e., (a) ensuring the use of the right materials and plants in right quantities (b) ensuring the best approach to product and processes and (c) ensuring reliability of the workflow. The SPS Production manager was also introduced in order to enable effective scheduling and measurement of workflows throughout the production process. Technical training and support were provided, with the facilitation of team building in order to ensure that all the team members were able to achieve an effective level of performance. The number of teams has been increased until it is now 37 teams, comprised of 293 users (Koerckel et al, 2005). In terms of managing costs, Koerckel et al (2005) have also set out a list of improvements with the savings achieved and the total estimated savings against a cost of $947,105 is about $6,067,154, hence the net savings achieved is $5,120,409. Furthermore, certain initiatives have been undertaken against which further savings are expected and there could be indirect benefits in safety areas. Other benefits that have been achieved include transparency in process, collaborative planning, stakeholder involvement, integration of product and process design as well as the facility for analysis and action to be taken on the reasons for plan failures. In terms of the capping beam work, the project was completed according to the pre-set time schedules. The cost savings in actual labor costs achieved between performance of the pre-SPS production manager and the completed work was about $2,221,908, while the total labor value was $3,220,157, excluding the benefits accrued from non-productive overtime or late completion of critical works. The potential for change has also been well addressed through the project specific version of the Formal Systems Model, which can be used both by project managers as well as other professionals in order to identify any weakness, whether actually existing or only a potential for change. This is the model that has been applied in the management of both these projects. White and Fortune (2009) have recently examined a project specific version of the Formal Systems Model and have shown that those not fluent in the language of systems thinking do have utility. The application of this model may be very useful in ensuring that project managers are able to avoid failure and ensure that projects are not only completed on time but that any changes occurring in the interim are also efficiently managed. Where the Spinnaker Tower is concerned, a fast track operator option involved a short term operator arrangement in order to prevent lengthy periods of negotiation with operators. Moreover, the process also involved decisions about what elements, systems and manuals are to be retained in order to help new operators. Conclusions: It may be concluded that the project management at both the Spinnaker Tower and St. Pancras station have been efficient, although it is only the latter that can be categorized as an example of lean construction. The Spinnaker Tower did not proceed exactly on schedule because it had a couple of false starts which delayed it for a few years before it was able to get off the ground. The Pancras Station has however been moving along smoothly. By defining the scope of the projects beforehand, the project development for both the constructions was able to proceed more smoothly, especially in the case of the Spinnaker Tower, where necessary planning permission had also been obtained well in advance. Costs were maintained under control, especially in the St Pancras project where in fact, savings were also achieved. Through the application of lean and modern business principles, the progress of the projects was achieved at a minimum cost and with savings in other aspects as well, such as administrative costs, collaborative planning and stakeholder investment, among others. References: Anonymous, 2003. “Eurostar terminus takes shape”, Ironmaking and Steelmaking, 30(4): 257 “Definitions”, Retrieved November 8, 2009 from: http://www.apm.org.uk/Definitions.asp “History of the Tower”, Retrieved November 8, 2009 from: http://www.spinnakertower.co.uk/About_The_Tower/History_Of_The_Tower/index.php Koerckel, Andre, Ballard, Glenn and Espana, Fernando, 2005. “Channel tunnel rail link – a lean construction implementation case study”, ASQ World Conference on Quality and Improvement Proceedings, 59, 111:121. Muir, Peter, 2008. “The rebirth of St. Pancras: Matching service to facilities; recruitment and induction of customer-service officers have the ‘wow’ factor”, Human resource Management International Digest, 16(2): 11. “The Midland Grand Hotel St Pancras”, Retrieved November 8, 2009 from: http://www.urban75.org/london/st_pancras1.html White, Diana and Fortune, Joyce, 2009. “The project-specific Formal system model”, International Journal of managing projects in business, 2(1): 36-52 Read More