Panama Canal Expansion Project - Case Study Example

The paper ''Panama Canal Expansion Project'' is a great example of Management case study.
This paper seeks to identify issues on international governance and management that have arisen with the proposal to expand the Panama Canal. It has also analyzed issues of human resources and procurement and project monitoring procedures. Workers in the project are subject to international labor laws. Moreover, there has been a reevaluation of the procurement policies in Panama thereby allowing the government to give adequate consideration to international bidders. The project has been rocked with a strike which could threaten the completion of work as scheduled. 

Many infrastructural megaprojects are prone to suffer from cost overruns, delays, poor performance, or inability to give customer satisfaction. Interaction of several factors can cause complexities that can either promote success or inhibit it depending on how they are approached. It is crucial for project managers to thus critically analyze a megaproject before undertaking it. One such project is the Panama Canal expansion project. Panama Canal is one of the busiest waterways globally. Opened in 1914, Panama Canal is a critical prop of international trade (Gagne, 2011, p. 1267). Nevertheless, the growth of international shipping in the last century and in the present times continues to be hampered by the Canal’s capacity (Gagne, 2011, p. 1267). This necessitated Panama Canal Authority to embark on an ambitious project of expanding the canal. Currently, the canal accommodates vessels of not more than 965 feet (294.1m) in length, 39.5 feet in depth, and a bandwidth 106 feet (Sayre, 2010, p. 16). Vessels that can navigate in this canal are known as Panamax and have the ability of can carrying 4000-4500 Twenty-Four Equivalent Units. Vessels larger than Panama to navigate in other trade canals which and therefore Panama Canal Expansion project seeks to position the harbor as an international trade channel able to attract bigger ships and therefore enhance international trade and increase profitability. The expanded canal will be able to handle vessels of up to 1200feet in length, 160 feet beam, and a draft of 49 feet (Sayre, 2010, p. 16).