Saturday, September 5, 2009
Planning Infrastructure projects
In continuation to the discussion we had with regard to the planning problems pertaining to the Montreal olympic complex Case study, I would like to make a point regarding the time duration allocated to a project. Usually when we bid for a project, the successful bidder is the one who quotes the lowest. So, its basically the cost (or the expertise of the bidding company in certain cases) that we are looking into and the time constraints are not given emphasis while awarding a project. The contractor is basically bound to accept the time line given to him to execute the project. With so many projects going off track, isnt it high time we gave enough emphasis on time constraints too while bidding? Should we not give due importance to submitting the tentaive schedule for the project too while bidding.. which could probably throw light onto whetehr the contractor has done his Home work well enough..??
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2 comments:
You have said - "the contractor is basically bound to accept the time line given to him to execute the project".
And then you say - "isn't it high time we gave enough emphasis on time constraints too while bidding".
I don't understand what you mean by enough emphasis here. To me, the first quoted line in itself shows that "enough emphasis" is indeed given when governments bid for projects.
Let me further quote you - "should we not give due importance to submitting the tentative schedule for the project too while bidding.. which could probably throw light onto whether the contractor has done his Home work well enough..?? " - the answer is - this already happens.
There are standard projects like highway projects and then there are stand alone huge projects like this Mumbai-Bandra Sea link one. For standard projects, government usually knows the average timelines. So the bidder simply has to meet them or else pay penalty provided a maximum allowable delay (the Agreement takes care of all this).
For once in a while huge stand alone projects, government usually divides the entire project in phases and only fixes tentative timeline for each phase. The bidder is almost always asked to submit a "Project implementation plan" which should indicate the detailed break-up of timeline for each phase and other necessary details - the idea is pretty much to gauge if the bidder has done his homework right.
I hope this answers you. Have fun in class. :)
Bhagya & Amrit!
I want add few more points on your thoughts. As amrit said, the submission of tentative schedule happens; but not with detailed breakups. But the enddate is certainly a fixed one in this case and the contractor is very well aware of that fact. So, is it not the reposibility of the contractor to finish it on time? Certainly it is.
The contractor has done homework on the matter/conditions which he
was not exposed to, and the work done by him didnt yielded expected results.Hence he couln't control the project initially. But,then after starting the project, he should have done much more homework to understand the problems and improve the situation.
It didnt happen may be because of his limited expertise or mindset.
"Everything is possible in this world" and lot of Construction Projects including infrastructure projects have proved this statement.Instead of complaining about the design and using all his time to blame on design and weather, he should have thought of improving the efficiency of his resources to achieve the targeted dates.
The contractor didnt focus on the resources with him which he can control the way he wants. He should have focussed on developing the motivation and skills of workmen by proper training. There should be attempts for some kind of mock ups before taking up the work. The successful completion of mockups certainly would have given much confidence to the workmen. The layout of cranes should have been planned better so that there is no overlapping and loss of productivity.
Conclusively,
The schedule which is prepared at the initial stages may not be the opt means of appraising contractor's homework since the detail level is pretty low with that and the assumptions are too high. Instead his homeworks should have been periodically verified by someone who exclusively keeps track of the same.
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