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Introduction
For my assignment, I have chosen the Mass Transit Railway (MTR), a Hong Kong-based company. Out of the various ongoing projects, I plan to do the Project Management Report on the West Island Line (WIL) project. The length of the route will be about 3 km, and the capacity and frequency of the train shall be 85,000 passengers per hour per direction.
Principles of Project Management
Background and Principles of Project Management
Gray & Larson (2008) define a project as a unique entity that aims at a previously defined goal, consisting of complex, interrelated tasks, and is limited by time, costs and its scope. Both the contractor and the client aim for the goal in pursuance of strategic targets. The goal of the MTR West Island line is to provide a fast, efficient and reliable commuter service to residents of the Western District of Hong Kong Island (MTR, 2013).
Gray & Larson (2008, 26) state that each project is unique, as it has never been done before and is unlikely to be repeated. Project objectives are determined by the parameters of time, cost, and quality (also referred to as performance). The time scheduled for the completion of the WIL project is just under five years, from July 2009, which marks the beginning of construction, until the end of 2014, when the project is to be completed in its entirety (MTR, 2013). They are also limited by costs, as resources are limited, which restricts each project to a limited budget. The cost of the entire WIL Project is estimated to be HK$ 15.4 billion, and by the date of its completion, it is estimated that it will have employed 6,600 people (MTR, 2013).
Time, cost and quality/performance have to be balanced for the most favourable outcome. Thus, time, cost, and quality/performance are a triangle of objectives, referred to as the magic triangle of project management . If one is affected, the two other objectives will also be affected. However, the quality/performance objective is often considered paramount (Lock 1996, 9). The government intends the West Island Line to provide a dependable railway service to Hong Kong Island. It will serve a population of 200,000 people in the Western District, by offering them access to Sai Ying Pun Station within 8 minutes, and seamless access to Tsim Sha Tsui station in Kowloon (on the Hong Kong-mainland) within 14 minutes. Furthermore, the majority of the residents of the Western District will walk to access the WIL.
Viability of Projects
The West Island Line is a viable project, and this assertion is supported by the results of several studies, based on successful projects in Hong Kong, which used the tunnel excavation methods that are currently being used in the construction of the West Island Line. An example of such a viable project is the Island West Transfer Station, which is an underground waste transfer facility on Hong Kong Island. At the time of its completion, it was the largest ever excavated rock cavern in Hong Kong, with a length of 60 metres, a width of 27 metres and a height of 12 metres (CEDD 2009, 9). The construction of such a large cavern on Hong Kong Island, near the site of the West Island Line, proved that it would be viable to excavate railway tunnels on Hong Kong Island.
Project Viability is assessed through the process of Project Viability Screening, which is a merit-based analysis, which ranks projects using a set of project viability criteria (Orr & Tchou, 2009, 19). It consists of seven steps, as stated below:
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Establish an Integrated Team
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Develop Project Viability Criteria
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Deal-Breaker Screening
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Project Viability Screening
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Prepare Project Short-List
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Prepare Feasibility/Business Case
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Obtain Board Approval (Orr & Tchou, 2009, 20).
The West Island Line (WIL) was viable at its inception in 2009. This is attested to by the endorsement by the Hong Kong Executive Council of the funding schedule for the WIL Project (HK$15.4 billion over five years) in May 2009, and the subsequent funding approval given by the Legislative Council in July of the same year (MTR, 2009). Therefore, the relevant authorities were confident that the project could be built within its scheduled cost right from the start. In terms of meeting the projects performance/quality specifications, it was anticipated that the West Island Line would be capable of transporting 85,000 passengers per hour per direction. As the West Island, Line would be an extension of the MTR Island Line, and as Mass Transit Railway (MTR) would operate it, the performance/quality aspects of the project were also considered viable from the start (MTR, 2013).
Systems and Procedures
The systems and procedures used in the project are set out below.
Initially, the Project Agreement was signed between MTR and the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) in 2009 (MTR, 2013). The determination of project milestones followed this. The appendix outlines the process of selecting key events, titles, definitions, deadlines, and decision points that framed the project. These milestones are set out in Appendix 1. In collaboration with the associate project manager and the control account manager, the project manager, identified the intermediate (short-term) milestones, which are shown in Appendix 3. From this point, the control account manager developed a detailed schedule for each control account. The Project Manager gives details work and milestones related to specific work packages and allocates them to sub-contractors. They were then integrated into the project milestones. The project manager then approved the project detail schedule, and the project schedule baseline was drawn up and integrated into the activity schedule in the schedule baseline to form the project Time-Phased Cost Profile, in conformance with AGCA (2003, 11).
Key Elements
The construction of the tunnel from Sheung Wan Station via Sai Ying Pun Station and Kennedy Town was managed in two phases. A consortium of firms, Dragages, Maeda and BSG, did the tunnel between Sheung Wan and Sai Ying Pun Stations. The section of tunnel between Sai Ying Pun and Kennedy Town Stations, including the construction of Hong Kong University Station, is a joint venture between Gammon Construction Ltd, Nishimatsu and WIL. Gammon Construction Ltd. is constructing Kennedy Town Station. These sub-projects are ongoing and nearing completion (MTR, 2013). The termination of these parts of the project should follow a laid down procedure. Once the project manager considers the work completed, but before workers leave the project, he should prepare a list of items requiring correction or completion. Subcontractors should promptly satisfy such requirements and arrange for any contractually required tests (AGCA, 2003, 55). Thus, each of the subcontractors and or joint ventures working on different sections of the tunnel should be prepared to conduct these tests and to do any other work, which the project manager considers necessary before the project, can be said to be complete (Schwalbe, 2013).
Once each subcontractor has substantially completed the work or designated portion thereof as listed, the project manager should verify that each subcontractors work is substantially complete and then request a prompt substantial completion inspection by the project client (in this case, MTR) as contractually required. The project manager should be present during the inspection process, along with the project representative(s) of the subcontractor(s) whose work is being inspected (AGCA, 2003, 55).
Once the completion inspection has been done, the project manager should carry out a Post-project appraisal. Post-project appraisals (PPAs) are evaluations of the effectiveness of projects based on systematic data collection. Specifically, PPA represents an opportunity to determine if the project was completed well, and how to improve future restoration design (Skinner 1999, adapted from Sadler 1988). The PPA allows the project manager to assess whether the sections of the project performed by different sub-contractors work together as an efficient, harmonious whole.
Project Organization
Organizational structure
The organization chart of the MTR-WIL is appropriate for WIL as it is specifically designed for the WIL project. MTR is the parent organization, and WIL has been established to build the Western Island Line. Some of the project participants are permanent employees of MTR, while others are experts who have been hired for the WIL project. The organization chart is shown in Appendix 2 (Kay, 1993).
The CEO of MTR is the head of the Executive directorate. Other members of the Executive directorate are the heads of different divisions of the project. Senior managers in supervising the project and apprising the board (of MTR) of the progress and performance assist the heads of such departments. Following is the management team at WIL:
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Mr Rod Hockin: General Manager WIL/SIL, who has overall responsibility for the completion of WIL. Reports to the Executive Office.
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Mr Brenden Reilly: Project Manager WIL Civil, in charge of civil engineering aspects of the WIL project. Reports to General Manager.
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Mr Dono Tong: Project Manager WIL/SIL E&M. He coordinates the project objectives (time, cost and performance/quality). Reports to General Manager
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Mr Stephen Hamill: Construction Manager WIL. Supervises construction and reports to Project Manager.
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Mr David Salisbury: Construction Manager WIL. Supervises construction and reports to Project Manager.
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Mr Herbert Leung: Construction Manager WIL/SIL Control System. Supervises installation of the control system and reports to the Project Manager.
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Mr K. M. Lock: Construction Manager WIL/SIL Building Services. Supervises construction and reports to Project Manager.
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Mr P. W. Lau: Design Manager WIL. Is responsible for designing and implementing the final appearance of the WIL. Reports to Project Manager.
Following is the list of engineers from various departments within WIL:
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Mr Tom Barret: Senior Construction Manager Tunnels
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Mr Ashley Calvert: Senior Construction Manager Tunnels
The two Senior Construction Managers/Engineers above are responsible for the supervision of all tunnelling aspects of the project. As the project has been divided into sections under different subcontractors, who use different methods of tunnelling, each construction manager will have separate responsibilities. They report to the Construction Managers.
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Mr Patrick Cheng: Senior Construction Manager Civil
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Mr Walter Lam: Senior Construction Manager Civil
The two Senior Construction Managers/Engineers for Civil Engineering will oversee all civil engineering work on the project. Similar to their superiors, they supervise different subcontractors who are performing different sections of the project. They report to the Construction Managers.
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Mr James Ho: Senior Construction Manager Comms & Radio
He implements and supervises the work of installing and testing the communication and radio systems for the WIL. He reports to the Construction Manager WIL/SIL Control System.
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Mr Kenneth Lo: Senior Construction Manager BS
He and his team are tasked with the construction (building services) that takes place after the tunnelling has been completed. He reports to the Construction Manager WIL/SIL Building Services.
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Mr Rodney Ng: Senior Construction Manager MCS
He and his team are responsible for the installation and operation of the WIL Main Control System (MCS). He reports to the Construction Manager WIL/SIL Control System.
Project Implementation Control
The project manager at WIL controls and coordinates the project through the managerial actions of planning, organizing, and leading, among others. Project managers actions are constantly aimed at change, while other managers jobs involve maintaining a stable working environment (Brown 1998, 13.)
Thus the WIL project manager has to be a team manager, by interacting with project members, from the General Manager, Construction Managers and Engineers to the builders, drillers and technicians at the site. As the WIL project involves international expertise, the project manager has to build team ethos in a multicultural and multilingual group of project staff. Earning the respect of the team is crucial for the project manager; therefore, he/she must be a person of utmost honesty, integrity and vision. (Lockyer & Gordon 1996, 17). The project manager shall control the project constraints to ensure that everything goes as planned. The constraints are time constraint, quality constraint, cost constraint, and scope constraint. The manager will do this by checking project specifications, schedule, and budget allocations. The project manager will use the tools outlined below for that purpose (Chase & Aquilano, 2006).
Control Point Identification Chart
The chart below will be useful for tracking areas that may go wrong and anticipating ways in which the project manager will solve the problems to avoid nasty surprises. Table 1 shows some of the problems that may occur during the WIL project, how to identify the problem, and the possible solutions.
Table 1 Control Point Identification Chart
Milestone Charts
This powerful implementation tool summarizes the status of a project by highlighting key events. Milestone charts state what events in the projects life have been completed. Also, the chart states the duration it took to complete the events, and, whether this is the duration, the project manager had scheduled for the event (Chase & Aquilano, 2006). Hence, the manager continually records the variance between the actual and scheduled times. Also, it outlines the remaining events and the project managers anticipated completion time. Table 2 below shows the Milestone chart for the WIL Project. The project is at its fourth year and as the table indicates, the actual completion times for the remaining milestones have not yet been determined.
Table 2: Milestone Chart
Project and Budget Control Chart
Project and budget control charts record cost, schedule performances to ascertain actual and planned performances of the project. Normally these are based on the nature of the work breakdown structure (Chase & Aquilano, 2006). It makes use of the work packages. In this project, this may not be as applicable but may be useful. The project manager will obtain cumulative amounts for the actual and scheduled performances and drawbar graphs for comparison, as shown in Table 3 below. The above analysis may act as an early indicator as to whether the project manager will meet the parameters of the project (Reiss, 2007). Hence, it may be used as an effective tool to source for additional time or resources from management. If it is a strict-schedule project, this parameter may offer a way for the manager to organize for overtime and to crash the network diagram for a scheduled finish (Chase & Aquilano, 2006).
Table 3: Project and Budget Control Chart
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
Work Breakdown Structure
The project manager will subdivide the project scope into manageable segments, assign them to the respective individuals, and document that information. The project manager shall specify the specific requirements of each subunit. This includes approximate budgetary allocation, performance standards, and durations. The project manager will aggregate this information into a clear format for ease of reference. Figure 1 below is a representation of WILs Work Breakdown Structure.
Project Leadership Requirements
According to Lockyer & Gordon (1996, 17), requisite skills of a project manager include technological understanding, being well versed in project economics, skill in man management, competence in systems design, maintenance, planning and control, financial competence, procurement competence, and good interpersonal communication skills. Their character traits ought to include drive, enthusiasm, dedication and humour, and a willingness to support their staff when things go wrong (Lockyer & Gordon, 1996, 17).
At WIL, Project leaders are selected based on their leadership qualities. For instance, the project manager organized a press conference to spread the awareness of noise pollution and how MTR will reduce this kind of pollution (MTR 2012, 1). He also arranged with renowned people from society for a similar purpose. This shows his communication skills. Whenever the workers have any technical problem, they always take advice from the project manager. This shows his expertise in technical matters as well. The project manager is an efficient leader as well, and he can keep unity among the workers. This develops a feeling of teamwork, and the work is accomplished with ease.
To keep the work going on smoothly, it is very crucial to maintain an organized workforce. The project manager is an expert in leadership qualities. He knows how to handle such a huge workforce. At weekends, after the duty hours, he gathers all the workers and arranges tea and snacks for them. He addresses them sympathetically and asks for any problems that they might have. This behaviour of the project manager garners honour and respect for him. The workers come forward and express their problems, and in turn, the project manager tries his level best to find solutions (Johnson, Whittington & Scholes, 2011).
Communications Matrix
Risk Matrix
Human resources and requirements for MTR project
At the start of the MTR West Island Line Project in 2009, it was anticipated that the project would create a total of 6,600 jobs over the five year period of line construction, with peak employment numbers of 3,000 employees maximum (MTR, 2009). However, the vast majority of the jobs created during the construction phase are temporary, with permanent operational staff to be engaged once the West Island Line is complete. The temporary construction employees include 1,500 people who were hired in October 2011 (MTR, 2011, 2). As regards operational staff, MTR has not yet released figures for the number of people to be employed, but it is anticipated that they will do so once they are prepared to hire them.
Project Process and Procedures
Project Plan
The WIL project is scheduled for completion by 2014. A project plan of MTR is tabled at Appendix 1. A detailed schedule is at Appendix 3.
The WIL project plan can be described in terms of the six project phases developed by Brown (1998, 10.) namely initiation, specification, designing, building, installation and operation. The gazettal of the WIL project under the Railways Ordinance falls under the initiation stage, in which the terms of reference and objectives of the project are set up, and budgets are approved.
The scheme authorization of the WIL project under the Railways Ordinance, which occurred in 2009, is part of the specification phase.
This is followed by the design phase, where the project stakeholders (architects, construction managers, engineers) explain how the project will meet the commuter needs stated in the specification phase. The next phase is building. WIL entered this phase in July 2009, with the commencement of West Island Line construction. Although the prior phases were carried out over nearly two years, Brown (1998, 12) insists that projects should not rush directly into the building, as poor specification and design may result in delays and budget overlaps. The construction phase included some civil work in neighbourhoods that have been affected by the WIL, such as the re-provisioning of David Trench Rehabilitation Centre, and the re-provisioning of Kennedy Town Swimming Pool (Phase I) which were completed in April and May 2011, respectively. The laying of the railway track began in June 2012, while the mechanical and electrical work started in September 2012. The breakthrough of railway tunnel from Sheung Wan station to Kennedy Town station occurred in November 2012 (MTR, 2012). The track laying, mechanical, and electrical work is ongoing.
The government expects that WILs installation phase will be complete by 2014. The final phase is operation and review. It can be said to be a continuation of testing. Once the project is operational, there should be reports at periodic intervals detailing how the project is running and any flaws that need to be corrected.
Project scheduling, estimating and cost control techniques
Project scheduling, estimating and cost controls are the main factors of a project management system. For companies engaged in future construction, the right forecast of the future project cost is very significant (Manfredonia et al., 2010).
The WIL Project Plan, mentioned above, is the basis of the project scheduling and cost control in WIL. Once the prospective subcontractors have been informed of the deadline for completion of their subcontracts, they submit their bids. Those, which fit within the WIL project plan parameters of time cost and quality, are selected and permitted to proceed. This is carried out at the specification phase. However, this is an ongoing process, as a subcontractor may go over budget. This is the responsibility of the particular subcontractor involved, who will cover all extra costs (MTR, 2013).
Scheduling often begins tentatively, with more detailed schedules being developed as the process proceeds. This requires consistent communication between the project manager and project stakeholders, as they will need to be informed of scheduling changes or delays in implementation. It is due to the tentative nature of scheduling that cost control is also a dynamic process. The initial schedule and cost estimates need to be revised in the light of new information acquired during the project lifespan. This means that scheduling and cost control will fluctuate during the project, as the project manager adjusts to changing circumstances.
Network Diagrams
There are two types of network diagrams. These are very useful tools in project control. There are two types of network diagrams: Project Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) and Critical Path Analysis (CPM). They are complex decision-making tools that enable project managers to organize work and plan workflows. They provide necessary information that is vital in scheduling and budgeting. This information includes the earliest start times of a project, the latest completion times, time floats, and the critical path. The critical path is the longest route in a network diagram that indicates the time the project will take. It is hard to construct a network diagram for a project with complex times and huge budgets, but the availability of software for that purpose makes it easy. In this project, the techniques may be useful to the project manager in evaluating the progress of the project.
Use of a Gantt chart
This projects project manager may find it quite useful to engage the use of a Gantt chart in managing complexity in cost and time. A Gantt chart is an intricate tool used for the management of interrelated tasks with different durations. When using a Gantt chart, the project manager assumes that the tasks are linear, and their durations can be determined beforehand with a high degree of precision (Reiss, 2007). However, management should have duration estimates with the relevant possible contingencies.
A Gantt chart has several benefits to the project manager. First, diagrammatically represents the whole project. This makes it easy for the project manager to identify the activities to complete first and clearly, shows the relationships between tasks. Second, it shows the duration of a project. However, in as much as it may show the tasks clearly, it does not indicate dependencies among tasks and the project manager may not know from the Gantt chart how the delay of one task may affect another. For this purpose, the project manager will have to use the network diagrams (Chase & Aquilano, 2006). Figure 2 below shows the Gantt Chart for the WIL project. It indicates the start times and durations for each activity. However, it does indicate the costs. The durations are indicated in months.
Table 4: Activity Durations for Gannt Chart