Project Management Techniques For Case Project Delivery System: A Case Study Of Melbourne Metro Tunnel

Literature Review

Project management is one of the crucial aspects that defines the success of the project. The subject of the paper is project management, that defines the measures that should be adopted to ensure that the all the operations are done with utmost attention. The attention is also cited to the components that ensures the success of the operations. The components in discussion are the resources, techniques, tools and others. However, the project management techniques differ in nature according to the need for the project. Several project management approaches have been made available by the scholars who have devoted their time to the project management. Another one of the crucial aspects of a project management tools and techniques is a project delivery system which is a collection of decision making, service providing and operations for the delivery of the project.

The discussed paper aims at presenting a methodology for case project delivery system. The case that had been selected for the project delivery system is the Melbourne Metro Tunnel. A brief introduction of the project, current status of the project and the needs of the project has been defined to pursue with the paper. Literature review of the past scholarly work has been done to identify the current status of knowledge that is available in context to the project management in construction industry. Following the review, the paper has offered a methodology that will assist in successful delivery of the project. Furthermore, attention has also been cited on the implementation of the proposed methodology along with the results and the outcome that is expected of the system before summarising the paper to conclude on the findings.

The Victorian Government along with the Metro Tunnel Project is aimed at initiating the project “Turn up and Go” train service. This is generally considered to be one of the prominent feature that most of the major cities all across the globe are having. This is generally considered to be one of the largest rail infrastructure that Melbourne is having since it was introduced in the CBD’s rail capacity which was a part of the city loop almost 30 years ago (Metrotunnel.vic.gov.au, 2018). This tunnel was aimed at providing a 9KM rail tunnel which connected the Kensington and the South Yarra which would be the part of the Sunshine-Dnadenong line (Metrotunnel.vic.gov.au, 2018). This was also aimed at establishing a new underground metro station at North Melbourne Arden, Parkville, State library, Toen hall and Anzac. Besides this the stations situated underground would also be associated with connecting the pedestrian with the major stations that includes the Town hall with the Finders Street Station and the State Library with the Melbourne Central Station.

Case Project

Till date no general definition has been provided for the project delivery system. According to some researchers the project delivery system is generally defined as the sequence of the project phases, parties that are involved in the project and the implicit responsibilities that are provided to the project parties. Besides this the associated general contractors are associated with defining the various project deliverable methods as the comprehensive process associated with assigning of the contractual responsibilities so as to design methods as the “the comprehensive process of assigning the contractual responsibilities for designing and constructing a project. A delivery method identifies the primary parties taking contractual responsibility for the performance of the work” (Zhou & Ke, 2013). All this documented definition is not associated with complying one with another and besides this the minor as well as the major differences can be identified as well. The situation becomes more complex whenever the authors are associated with combining the various kind of payment modes, procurement methods and the management methods with the project development methods (Sullivan et al., 2017).  In this the concept of procurement method is also sometimes equal to the method of delivery which is often referred to as the method of selecting the contractor or the architect. According to some of the recent references a comparison has been depicted in the table provided below:

According to the table provided above there exists different type of project delivery methods which are available in today’s world. According to the PDMs which are closely related with each other makes the process of classifying the PDM very difficult. According to the CII or the Construction Industry Institution there exists three major fundamental PDMs and this mainly includes the DBB or design-bid-build, DB or design-build and CMR or the construction-manager-at-risk. Rwelamila and Edries, (2017), was associated with proposing an amalgam of the different classifications from the perspective that different countries are having. Besides this they were also associated with classifying the PDM into three categories and this mainly includes the following:

• Separate and cooperative system which also included the conventional systems and the variants as well
• Integrated systems which includes the DB and their variants
• Lastly, the management oriented systems which also includes management contracting and the construction management as well.

According to Wang et al., (2017), the depth of the design is to be maintained along with the implementation stage of the various delivery systems which are entirely different from one another. So it is essential to structure the delivery system spectrum by depending upon the depth of the design and the stages involved during construction. This has been depicted in the figure provided below:

Project Deliverable System

                   Figure 1: PDM spectrum. The scope of each PDM is from the left point of the coordinate PDM.

In a similar way the figure 2 provided below also depicts the various kind of project delivery approach, which are generally combined with the different phases of the PLC or the Project Life Cycle. It is often seen that most of the project delivery approaches generally extend far beyond the scope of the DB contracting by placing of the increasing functional responsibilities.

Despite of the categorization of the PDM that are found in the various literature, this paper has been associated with supporting the opinion regarding the relationship that exists between the design and the construction is perceived. This is perceived in order to have the most bearing regarding the evolution of the various consequent choices related to the project delivery system. For this reason, the figure depicted below is associated with classifying the PDM in a simple way (Pakkala, 2012). This is generally proposed by depending upon the fact that if the design and the construction are integrated and achieved by making a single contract without taking into account the financing, operations and many more. Along with this the paper is also associated with distinguishing the concept of the delivery system and the method which has been provided in table 1. For this reason, the method like the CM agency or the CMA are in essence management methods and are not included in the project delivery system. All this reason leads to the essential need of two fundamental project delivery method that is DBB and DB. There exist various names for the PDMs throughout the construction industry amongst which most of them are hybrids or are the modified versions of these two methods.

Figure 3: Classification of PDMs. EPC may predate DB, but DB is always taken as one fundamental project, so here we take EPC as one variant of DB

Amongst the studies which are existing right now regarding the performance comparisons of the various PDMs, DBB, DB and construction management at risk or the CRM acts as most important ones which are studied mostly. PDMs are having advantages as well as disadvantages which has been demonstrated by the various researchers. Konchar and Sanvido, (2013) has been associated with empirically comparing the costs, schedule and the performance quality of the three major project delivery methods that is the DDB, DB and the CMR. This has been done by making use of the project-specific data that is collected from the 351 U.S building projects.

According to the study of Cheng et al., (2011), was associated with employing the random effects that the meta-analysis model is having so as to statistically integrate the results in previous studies. Besides this the meta-analysis results also verified by the robust test which showed that the DB project is associated with achieving the significant lower cost growth on an average rate. Along with this the meta-analysis on different groups of studies also reflected the fact that the DB system is associated with performing worse in the public projects. The DBB is seen to be more conducive towards the control of cost growth under complex project conditions (Rwelamila & Edries, 2017). The cost growth that is induced by the DB system is associated with experiencing an initial growth which is followed by the shrinkage because of the changes occurring in the policies. This is turn is associated with reminding the owners about the fact that the PDM is to be selected in accordance to the specific conditions of the project. Due to the reason that each of the projects are unique in which the performance of the projects are influences by various factors except the PDM. This in turn helps in understanding the fact that the results obtained from the performance comparison is difficult to rely upon.

The study conducted by Rojas and Kell (2018), was associated with comparing the cost growth performance that the CMR and the DBB methods are having in an empirical way by the Pacific Northwest public school project. According to the results there is significant difference between the CMR and the DBB in construction change order costs.

The performance of the project is greatly impacted by the project delivery method along with having a huge impact upon the construction as well. There exists no such project delivery option which is perfect as one of the option might be better than another which is dependent upon the unique requirements of projects. There exists number of objectives of the owners in terms of cost, schedule, quality and he level of control while deciding the project delivery method (Park et al., 2015). PDM is generally considered to be problem with multiple objectives which is generally not an easy task. Most of the researchers have been associated with exploring the problems related to PDM selection by determination of the selection factors first without the usage of the results from the study related to the performance of the comparison that has been stated above. After this various kind of decision analysis technology has been adopted that includes the AHP, Fuzzy and the weighted matrix as well so as to select the PDM that is most appropriate.

Article by Ghavamifar (2015), has been associated with providing a comprehensive solution for the common challenges faced by the selection process of delivery method. The DSS or the decision support system that has been developed in this research is associated with providing a useful information along with the introduction of the advantages and the limitations that each of the PDM is having for the decision makers (Liu et al., 2015). Besides this the requisite well-structures decision making process is embedded with the proposed framework of this decision aid tool which is reliable and sufficient in order to solve the problem related to the appropriate selection process of the PDM. Four type of PDMs are discussed in this and this includes the DBB, PPP, CMR and lastly DB.

Xia et al. (2011), was associated with establishing a fuzzy multi criteria decision-making (FMCDM) model so as to select the DB operation variation that is most suitable. Besides this a three-round Delphi questionnaire survey was conducted for the purpose of identifying the appropriate selection criteria and the importance that they are having. Besides this a fuzzy set theory approach, known as the modified horizontal approach is used along with the bisector error method (Park & Kwak, 2017). This was done so as to establish the fuzzy membership functions that is associated with enabling the clients to perform a quantitative calculations regarding the performance of each DB operational variation. Development of the FMCDM was done by making use of the weighted-mean method so as to aggregate the overall performance of DB operational variations regarding the criteria needed for selecting.

Wang et al., (2017), was associated with considering the project delivery system, contract, and transaction management as a project transaction element consideration. Besides this they have also been associated with putting the same model and along with this they also made a decision about the selection through system science. The research has also been associated with selecting the project delivery systems to some extent, however this is still dependent upon the various selection factors. In a Similar way, Anderson and Oyetunji, (2013), was associated with combining the project delivery method with contract strategy. Which was followed by the development of the decision support tool so as to select the project delivery and contract strategy (PDCS).

The case of the paper is Melbourne Metro Tunnel where the project owner is the Victorian State Government’s Rail Projects Victoria (RPV) and CPB contractors along with John Holland are responsible for successful completion of the project (Metrotunnel.vic.gov.au, 2018). The requirements of the Melbourne Metro Tunnel have been collected through the secondary means that includes reviewing of the scholarly works and the Melbourne Metro Tunnel project summary. The key requirements and the process of identification has been listed as follows:

1. Technology Scanning was done based on the needs of the case project and the secondary literature. The scan reflected the need for ICT (Information Communication & Technology) solutions, tunnel layouts, acoustic design and others.
2. Construction Team was also surveyed based on their past works, tools and techniques, project management approach and others.
3. Project management approaches such as the Critical path, Critical Chain Project Management and others also needs to be accounted for (Taniguchi & Agemi, 2018). Furthermore, the different project delivery systems also demand attention. The most prominent project delivery approaches are DBB (design bid build), DBB with CM (Design bid build with construction management), DB (Design Build) and similar others delivery approaches.
4. Identification of the constraints and enablers are also a requirement that needs to be offered the attention of the potential delivery system.
5. Site Investigation is also a notable concern that needed to be accounted to ensure the feasibility of the project delivery system.
6. Work package requirement: the table below cites the requirements

The following measures will be adopted to deliver the Melbourne Metro Tunnel with desirable quality and within the allocated budget and time.

1. In-source: The project owner will administer the construction contracts and will be supported by the bid on & build the project.

2. Alternative delivery program: Ass part of the discussed step, the resources will be integrated with the project delivery system that will increase the capacity for delivery of a quality project. The discussed program will be a combination of three delivery models that includes

a. Design Bid Build: Entire contract will be contracted and the construction work will be bided and contracted separately.

b. Design Build: It will account for combining the engineering design and the construction within one solicitation which will enable CPB contractors and John Holland along with other contractors to work together and deliver the project. It will further assist in carrying concurrent activities further accelerating the project work.

c. Program Management will assist the firm in providing day to day directions, implementation and case’s operational management.

3. Local Bodies Projects will be capable of delivering

a. Consultants that can be retained by the RPV or on behalf of the local entities to deliver the project within budget and time.

b. Qualified agencies will sign in an agreement with the RPV for developing, bidding, letting and awarding the project along with awarding the construction engineering.

The discussed measures could be adopted to ensure that the development for the Melbourne metro tunnel project delivery system is considered. Hence, the project delivery system should include four phases namely preparatory, planning, contract procurement and contract execution phase. Preparatory and planning phase is to be undertaken at the organisational level while contract procurement and contract execution needs to be undertaken at the project level. Furthermore, it should include three process for a sustainable delivery of the project that includes knowledge building process, implementation process and implementation assessment process.

The tables below discuss the implementation processes based on the phases and the concurrent processes.

The discussed section is aimed at detailing the PDs against various factors of thee business case and that includes

1. Project Objectives: Melbourne Metro is developed based on the Urban Design Strategy and hence one of its primary objective is sustainability along with other project objectives that includes within budget and time. So, the delivery system is compatible with the project objective because it offers a well-defined budget scope, fast-track scheduling and also considers directly involvement of the project owner. As the project owner in this scenario is Victorian State Government’s RPV, hence, the development of project will obey by Urban Design Strategy and offer sustainability.
2. Risk and constraints: The risk and constraints in the discussed scenario are the construction risk such as noise & vibration, land stability and others. The proposed delivery model is able to cope up with the risks and constraints of the construction due to high involvement of the technology. Most of the system such as dust flyers, HVAC system, construction equipment and others are mechanical in nature which will also mitigate the threat of cyber-attack. However, it should be noted that if systems are automated through cloud based IoT then appropriate cloud safety and monitoring tools should be adopted.

The discussion above has cited the project delivery system for the Melbourne Metro Tunnel and it is expected to assist the project associates in decision making and other core prominent needs. Furthermore, it will also assist the RPV and the contractors of the project to select sub-contractors who will ensure that the delivery of the system is effective and efficient. Furthermore, it will also support the project owner and the team to adopt adequate measures that will ensure that the delivery of the project is of quality and effort, resource and time saving.

Conclusion:

Hence, the report in discussion could be summarised to state that the project delivery system is one of the core needs of the project delivery and should be provided with adequate attention. The report has discussed the case of Melbourne Metro Tunnel that is under the ownership of RPV and the contractors of the project are John Holland and CPB contractors. The project is one of the major projects that will define the progress of Victorian state and is in need of adequate project management and project delivery system. Hence, the report in discussion has discussed an overview of the case, followed by the literature review on the subject to understand the current knowledge that is available about the subject. The development of methodology for the case project delivery and the implementation strategy for the same has also been considered as part of the paper. Different processes and phases of the implementation strategy has been discussed in the paper before discussing the expected outcome and the concluding on the paper. Hence, in conclusion, it would be justified to state that project delivery system is one of the most crucial needs for the successful delivery of the project. However, more prominent that the project delivery system is the selection of the most appropriate delivery model that is compatible with the nature of project work and even ensures successful delivery of the project within time and budget.

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