Proposals Presented For the Rectification of the Anomalies of Building an Olympic Arena - Assignment Example

TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents TABLE OF CONTENTS 0 Table of Contents 0 CASE STUDY OF OLYMPICS ARENA 1 Introduction 1 Analysis of the Proposals 1 Other Factors apart from Cost 4 Avoiding the Problem 5 Other Proposals 6 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 7 APPENDICES 10 APPENDIX I: EXPLANATION OF THE PROJECT 10 APPENDIX II: PROJECT TIMESCALE 10 APPENDIX III: ARISING ISSUES 10 CASE STUDY OF OLYMPICS ARENA Introduction After the awarding, of the contract to build an Olympic Arena in Glasgow; Fairbank Construction Company embarked on a mission to beat the 15th March, 2011 by commencing the work on January 31, 2010. Nine and a half months into the construction some anomalies were observed that posed a considerable challenge to the effective conclusion of the project as stipulated. A large fracture was detected in a primary water main running alongside the arena site. This posed two major risks one; the leaking water would undermine the arena foundations rendering it unsafe and secondly, the arena’s water sprinklers would not operate in case of fire if the fracture is not repaired. With the challenges above, this report aims at evaluating and analysing the proposals presented for the rectification of the anomalies. This is in the company’s quest to beat the deadline so as to evade the penalty accompanying late completion of the project. Further, factors that would contribute to effective decision making towards the realisation of outright solution will be discussed and give way to suggestions on other ways to evade the problem. Finally, the report would be concluded by giving recommendations on the efficient organization of the project at hand to achieve conclusion at the set date. Analysis of the Proposals Table showing extra cost, probably to be encountered due to the arising crisis Task charged Amount in £ Penalty per week for late completion of the project. 100,000 Acceleration of pouring seat gallery support. 130,000 Seat gallery acceleration and double shift on floor arena. 195,000 Delay work, and then hasten it after cold weather is over. 20,000 The following diagram shows an illustration of the work plan on a network diagram from week one to week 57. This helps in the analysing of the undertakings in the company. Network Diagram for the work Schedule at Fairbank Construction Company The first proposal calls for the acceleration in the pouring of seat gallery supports at an extra cost of £130,000 but reduce the period by six weeks. This is highly critical and crucial in the sense that project management aims at finishing the project in the required time to safeguard the dignity of the company (Heerkens 2001). The reduction in operation time would see the provision for time to repair the fracture while the workers are deployed to the infrastructure project to alleviate any labour cost loss. The second proposal takes into consideration proposal one with the inclusion of placing a double shift on the arena’s floor foundation task. A total cost of £195,000 would be incurred with a relief of 9 weeks duration that would go a long way in ascertaining for the necessary time to repair the fracture, and complete the project in time. Regarding the importance of the roof in the sense that many activities cannot commence until the roof is done, the use of three shifts, as well as overtime work, will mainly heighten the pace of roofing. This will see the roofing completion six weeks than scheduled at an extra cost of £60,000. The option for overtime and shifts clearly shows the increase of the cost of production but in the real sense, it is safeguarding the company’s commitment to delivering its project undertaking on time. This would see it go a notch higher in improvement of quality delivery and certainty. From the weather forecast report, the chances for a cold weather are 33% percent implying that there o.3 probability of the cold occurrence. Waiting for 1st December to ascertain the change of weather is unprofessional as there are almost eleven weeks to wait; this proposal seems not the best for a project that is geared towards maintaining the time set and getting a project of desired quality. On the other hand, if the utility company directs the halting of the construction, this now brings out the issue of waiting till the repair of the fracture is done and then the time to ascertain the weather change would be near. Then, work’s pace should be hastened to reduce the timeframe but not to less than one third; this would call for an extra cost of £20,000 per week. According to Walker (2007) the key aspect to management of construction projects is the way in which the contributors are organized in order for their skills to be used effectively and utilise right time for the maximum benefit of the client. The fifth proposal of taking no action and proceeding as earlier planned leaves many uncertainties not looked into which may befall the project later when there is no time to resolve on the immediate task to correct the same. Other Factors apart from Cost Though the cost is being assessed as the main factor in this case, other aspects that need critical consideration include; creating awareness among the workers to effectively utilize the resources available, to essentially spend the working time doing the project work, and coordinating work with each other, though the managers have the obligation of overseeing the workers whether they are doing their assigned works. This can be regarded to as ascertaining the outright ethical behavior of the workers (Kemp 2004). Without ethic attributes amongst the workers, the reputation of the company will dwindle down; thereby, rendering the company’s reputation in the future a disaster. Secondly, the extent of skills within the workforce comes in handy in the quest for preparing for any eventual counter crisis effects orchestrated by the state at hand. Without effective skills, to tackle arising issues would render the whole process inefficient due to improper tackling of arising crisis. According to Neal (1979), various systemic problems affect the process of construction. There is a crucial need for the management to avoid any systemic problems emanating from the workers due to labour and resource scarcity (Reis 1996; Kerzner 2009). Poor weather can be a disaster regarding any construction project, and therefore, this calls for clear understanding of the future trends in weather changes. This is crucial in ascertaining the relevance of the planning and budgeting undertaken by the management team. Avoiding the Problem According to Reiss (2007), the road to success in project management has got many twists and turns, with some being exceedingly surprising. Quick thinking is imperative to overcome these scenarios. Therefore, a project management team cannot just sit and wait whenever a problem has been detected; rather, immediate actions should be undertaken to alleviate the problem. Walker (2007) argues that, with project managers who work on the diverse range of projects with different complexities and challenges, the main emphasis ought to lie with the fact of construction management service in augmenting clients’ inner capabilities and meeting the objectives set by the client. This helps in capturing relevant information at an early stage and getting equipped with robust and well analysed solutions that would render the project successful. Further, there is a need for creating a clear budget and construction schedule (Armstrong and Wallace 2001). The creation of a tentative budget and coming up with a construction schedule calls for flexibility in managing the risks that can affect both the cost and schedule (Hendrickson 2008). There is a greater need for keeping some extra cash aside for unexpected costs or extra necessities and modifications. Proper planning of a project is crucial in the sense that the levels of resources and capabilities necessary for accomplishing a project are well defined. This finds its relevance with any eventual crises as the management team gets down to work and re-assess the plan and risks determiners and proposed strategies for solution (Lock 2007). This comes out clearly with the project delivery strategy and the organisation and management structure. A project plan provides a roadmap to the way out in realising a successful project. This is supported by Neal (1979) that the plan and engineering characteristic of the project is crucial, and the architects’ nature matters a lot in ascertaining the reality on the ground. It requires that the personnel coming up with the designs be clearly aware of the state and conditions of the projected area critically. Lastly, it is imperative that, effective preclusion and organizational mechanisms to alleviate the incidence of such a state in the future are devised; this would see the rectification of such mistake or be in a position to tackle such crises with future key projects. Other Proposals From the case study under consideration, it is critical to explain that the problems being encountered are as a result of poor planning. The following strategic moves would do more good for the project. First, it would imperative to devise a team of experts to look into the technical problems experienced and come up with viable solutions that would ease the burden of incurring large losses in the company (Hendrickson 2008). This would save time to the construction team of concentrating on other technical issues like looking into the hastening the deliberations of the project by devising ways to work overtime or adjacent shifts to beat the deadline. A taskforce must to be set in place to look into the effectiveness of the workers in the quest to effectively utilize the resources available effectively and ascertain their effectual completion of the project without overuse (Armstrong and Wallace 2001). This would see the company alleviate impending losses due to poor, working conditions. On the same note, there is the need to incorporate the expertise of a design consultant based on the project under consideration (Kerzner 2009). This will be crucial in ascertaining the scope of the work for conceptual design, preliminary engineering conceptual framework and the outright final design. Consequently, something to be noted and instilled is the scope of work must be consistent with the Project Management Plan; this ought to be updated prior to the beginning of the design phase under consideration (Reis 2007; Walker 2007). There is a crucial need to maintain a review process into the project design criteria at stage instants. This is crucial in ensuring that the project progresses well and reaches completion without serious hitches. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The project undertaken by Fairbank Construction Company is a critical one, and the fracture poses a serious challenge towards the project management team. It is clear that, with the taskforce under consideration; taking into concern the intensity of the crisis, they ought to consider the immediate commencement of the fracture repair. This will ensure that the project is not delayed for longer than expected by uncertainties arising due to the crisis. The proposals presented clearly shows that an extra cost will have to incur with the hiring for extra labour to compensate for the time delay during the fracture repair. Further, there is the risk of cold weather occurrence which would call for extra charges due to heating. All these are geared towards realizing the set deadline of completing the project on 15th March, 2011. The report outlines the expected extra costs and projected time delays and recompense of the same. Thereby, it is crucial to note that, no project that can go on without crisis, but, the manner in which they are tackled ascertains the level of success to be achieved (Heerkens 2001). The following recommendations should see the project come to completion without complicated hitches and realise the set deadline. Taking into consideration the decision of setting out task force to ensure the best strategy is followed, this is in the halting of the project and conducting the repair of the fracture. Further, the delay would be compensated with incorporating extra works and several shifts to maximise on the efficiency of work completion. Consequently, planning is a crucial undertaking in the project and management. Walker (2007) ascertains that the planning in [project management can save considerable hitches in the future. Planning should incorporate the assessing of possible risks in the course of the project and devise rectification measures. This would lessen the effects of the incidence of the risk as it will have been anticipated. Therefore, for the above project and future cases, critical planning and decisive thinking is crucial. REFERENCE LIST Armstrong, W. and Wallace, R., 2001. A case Study of Construction Management on the Boston Harbour project, Reflections at Project Completion, CM eJournal. Construction Management Association of America. < Heerkens, G., 2001. Project Management. New York: McGraw-Hill. Hendrickson, C., 2008. Project management for construction: Fundamenat concepts for Owners, Engineers and Builders. 2nd ed. Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-731266-0. Kemp, S., 2004. Project; Management Demystified: A Self Teaching Guide. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. Kerzner, H., 2009. Project Management: A System Approach to Planning, and Controlling. 10th ed. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Lock, D., 2007. Project Management. 9th ed. Hampshire: Gower Publishing Company. Neal, J., 1979. Construction Cost Estimating Concepts and their Applications. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Englewood’s Cliffs. Reiss G., 1996. Programme Management Demystified; Managing Multiple Projects Successively. London: E &FN Spon Reiss, G., 2007. Programme Management Demystified. London: E & N Spon. Walker, A., 2007. Project Management in Construction. 5ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. APPENDICES APPENDIX I: EXPLANATION OF THE PROJECT The main task involve- building of a new Olympic Arena in Glasgow to host sports like basketball and table tennis; stage rock concerts and put on conferences and mid sized exhibitions. The Olympic Arena- will be an indoor structure with a seating capacity of 20,000 Bonus: Profit before tax = £ 2,000,000 if the project is completed as scheduled. APPENDIX II: PROJECT TIMESCALE Commencement date- January 31, 2010 Deadline - 15th March, 2011 APPENDIX III: ARISING ISSUES Fracture in water main alongside the Arena requiring immediate repair before resumption of construction work, thus extra cost. The fracture ensues the following: Leaking water would undermine the foundations of the Arena, making it unsafe. The arena could not open if the fracture was not repaired because a fall in water pressure would mean the hundreds of water sprinklers in the Arena would not operate in case of fire. Extra cost due to delayed work resulting to a penalty of £100,000 per week of delay Bad weather projected to increase the construction cost if experienced at a rate of £3,000 per week. Read More