Investing in construction project

Large-scale expenditures like construction projects necessitate both significant financial commitments and the deployment of technical know-how. One of the initiatives is SWDP. It had a start-up cost of more than $60 million and a 42-month completion deadline. Construction of a drainage system with two drainage systems was the goal of the project. Despite having approximately 20 years of operating expertise, the Hsub Business, a construction company, was responsible for the construction work as the Pmain's subcontractor because of tendering constraints. The company had an agreement to with the Pmain Company to take full responsibility of the construction while Pmain facilitates the collaboration with the client and the consultants as well as designing the project (Ren, Shen, & Xue, 2013).

The construction started with the chief engineer of the Hsub Company who had more than 35 years of experience investigating the site and coming up with the following findings. First, the pipeline routes were to pass through densely populated narrow roads which made it impossible to store construction materials. The situation would force the closure of some streets to facilitate the smooth running of the construction process. There was also a finding that the site had fine sand with water levels of 0.5-1m. The trench constructed along the roads made the buildings very weak which could lead to the collapse of these structures. The excavation and drilling of the channel were associated with a lot of disturbance such as noise pollution as well as vibration and disposal of mud to the nearby residents. According to Ren et al., (2013), the construction has also exposed the public to severe risks such as high voltage cables which are buried almost on the surface of the roads. The building also led to massive traffics especially during the peak hours due to congestion of vehicles in a lane estimated to be 3 meters wide. There was a new type of pipe know as corrugated PE, and it was the first time for it to be used in the country and lastly, the projected was a continuation from another contractor who had done only 3% of the total project within 18 months.

Having identified the above shortcomings associated with the project, the Hsub Company through the Pmain Contractor successfully passed the technical evaluation. The project was divided into several phases and commenced with the Hsub Company developing a construction method that guided the team all through the three stages. The project encountered many problems during that three phases that led to the failure. According to Ren et al., (2013), the three phases recorded various challenges with the first phase experiencing a technical hiccup that emanated from the selection of the project team. The project manager recruited a group of new graduates since they provided cheap labor although they lacked the necessary expertise to run the project.

The selected team did not have any experience of drainage system construction which according to my opinion was a step that exposed the whole project into a significant risk. The team failed to examine the potential technical difficulties but rather concentrated much on the designs, specifications, and the method statement with intentions of amassing the required resources. The project manager also failed to train the projects staffs claiming that they were supposed to learn as the project progressed. According to Ren et al., (2013), the foreman and the technical officers were left to learn on their own, which led them to make severe mistakes which caused the foundation of the road to collapse.

The site was also exposed to problems to low productivity, and lack of high-capacity pumps to drain the water (Ren et al. 2013). The inability to remove water from the trench caused the sandy soil to slip off the plates which led to the collapse of the banks. The situation cost the company $ 11,000 a fee paid for the damage caused to a house. At the other sites, the filled trenches collapsed endangering a nearby road. In all these scenarios, the management still took the matter lightly and claimed they were just ordinary resource-based problems.

During the second phase, the project team realized that the problems were causing an alarm since they had received complaints from the client and Pmain Company. Through brainstorming and internal discussions, the management tried to contain the situation. Even after hiring specialist subcontractors to rectify the problems, they were still unsuccessful. In the third phase, more severe problems were discovered as a significant portion of laid pipes were found to have substantial deformations which led to leakages, cracks, and joint displacements. The discovery was made at the last phase of the project which brought controversy as the pipeline could not be handed over to the client or even paid for with such defects (Ren et al., 2013).

After the project team did a review, the following were found to be the cause of the defect. The CPE pipes were of low quality, and the supplier confirmed that the pipes were not suitable for an environment with high water levels. There was a disturbance to the backfilled soil due to the extraction of the steel sheet piles, and live loads were applied to the surface of the trench right after backfilling. The Hsub Company came up with other new strategies to rectify the situation, but after so many efforts, there were still reports of broken pipes. Eventually, the company gave up on finding solutions since the project was in its latter stages.

Through this failure, the Hsub Company learned various lessons. First, the firm needed to evaluate its expertise and resources before taking responsibility for such a project. Secondly, companies should consider tender prices since cheaper tenders tend to attract affordable CMs. The Hsub Company took an inexpensive project which forced it to hire cheap labor and expertise to realize profits. Thirdly, Hsub should be open to new technologies but at the same time do thorough research before employing them. The organization used CPE pipes which were entirely new to them and assumed they would function the same way as UPVC.

A lesson about team formation and training was learned. The project manager was supposed to train the fresh graduates before giving them any task. The review of the CMs was very critical as Hsub was required to study the designs as well as the specifications to get a comprehensive report of the required materials. The other lesson was that the project team was supposed to find solutions to the main problems at the early stages of the project rather than letting run through the execution of the project (Ren et al., 2013).

References

Ren, Z., Shen, G. Q., & Xue, X.L. (2013). Failure caused by inappropriate construction methods: An expression lesson. Journal of Management in Engineering, 29(1), 25-34. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)ME.1943-5479.0000117.