PPMP20010 - Assessment 2 – Part 1

Assessment 2 – Part 1

Project Audit Report

 

Project Audit Report

Project name:                   Sydney NorthConnex Project             

Project ownership:             Transurban

Report prepared by:          Student name, Director of Operations.            

Report date:                     Date   

Distribution list:                    Transurban, Australian government, Board of directors, Project Manager, Project Leader and Engineers.

 

1          List two (2) issues you identified from the case study resources publicly available or discovered in the audit reports conducted for the case study (200-300 words)

Issue 1

Delays in project completion: In larger projects, one of the most common issue is the delays in the completion of the project from the expected date. The NorthConnex project which is planned to be opened by the December 2019 has been delayed due to various reasons. It is identified from the study that the tunnelling works has been completed within the scheduled data, but the paving and electrical installations were to be completed. It is expected to the delay from six to nine months depending upon the completion of the project (Matt O'Sullivan, 2019). The chief of Transurban reviewed the project and he said the data of opening could not be estimated. This delay will be causing various consequences to the project that may be either brand name, cost and others.

Issue 2

Budget blowouts: As like delays, the cost overrun is also normal in the large infrastructure projects. This may be due to various reasons. The budget that has been planned for the project is A$ 3 billion. The project has faced several challenges in the construction while at the final stage due to the coronavirus pandemic. Due to the issues in the delays in the project, the costs of the projects are also becoming increased. The project delays could be cost more workers and exceeding the time costs to put more efforts to complete the project as soon as possible (Timna Jacks, 2019). The project blowouts in the cost should be delivered to the responsible person in order to make the right decisions. The challenges should be studied and should be avoided in the future projects. The amount of budget increase is about $350 million.

 

2          Provide two (2) reasons for each issue (400-500 words)

Issue 1	Reason 1	Poor planning: The planning of the project will be the first and foremost issue for any problem that might be occurred while working with the project. In this project, due to the poor planning for some of the tasks, there occurs delays in the project. The poor planning here will be causing the workers to be confused or causing miscommunication between the plan and the actual working. The actual plan of the project could not be worked out in the project and hence this caused delays. Due to the continuous delays, the entire project is delayed up (Lorko, et al., 2021). The failure in the project plan causes the project delay.
	Reason 2	Execution: Due to the improper execution in the project, there occurs delays in the project. The execution of the project is the work of the project manager as the workers are not involved in it. There are several challenges faced because, if there occurs an issue while working with a task, it should be resolved immediately. This has caused the project delays. The time for resolving each and every tasks are delayed and hence this caused to delay the project. There are also reasons that are causing issues of delays like the time taken for excavation, levelling and others before making the tunnel of the project.
Issue 2	Reason 1	Delays in construction: Due to the delays in the construction, the costs of the project are also increased. This is because that once when the project is delayed, then it has to be tackled with more number of workers to complete the project. Allocating more employees to complete the project will be costing more wages to them (Jenny Wiggins, 2018). The other option is to provide overtime to the workers which may also be costing more. Also, employing more machines and their working in the site will be causing more budget which will increasing the project budget. The delays are thus the prime reason for the increase in the cost of the project.
	Reason 2	Unexpected problems: The unexpected problems and the tasks will be costing more in the project. There occurs several problems in the project like the failure of the opted plan, electricity, machine issues, etc. The most important problem that caused here is the pandemic situation due to the COVID-19. This also delayed the project and make the project workers idle for months. No project tasks has been done in the time, but the wages for the employees has provided as per the contract. Also, the machines and vehicles that are idle are required to be repaired due to the idle condition.

 

3          Provide two (2) recommendations for each issue (400-500 words)

Issue 1	Recommendation 1	Revising the project plan: The project plan should be revised in order to effectively overcome the issues in the plan. It is identified that the plan of the project was poor and are causing issues in the project. If this occurs, there are chances of project failure. Hence considering this, the project plan should be revised by consulting the various stakeholders involved in the project like project managers, board of directors, project head etc. Revising the plan with effective measures helps in overcoming the issues that occurred in the project. The tasks that are already completed should also be revised to learn the lessons for the delays and should be used in the revised plan.
	Recommendation 2	Proper execution of planning: Once the plan that has issues is revised, then it should be properly executed in order to overcome the failures that are caused already. The project managers should be highly cautious regarding the project in order to effectively execute the project without any further delays. The delays that are caused in the past should be considered now and they should not be repeated again. The challenges and risks in the execution should be identified with proper risk management and risks should be managed effectively. Also, the management of the project should be revised by the team of managers so that there will not further delays continued in the project.
Issue 2	Recommendation 1	Revising the cost and plan: The project plan has been revised due to the longer delays that occurred in the project. The plan once revised should also include the costs that are involved with the tasks that are remaining. The tasks and the costs should be revised with the current trends and the number of resources available in the project. The important thing that has to be considered here is that to revise the costs that are essentially required and not required due to the budget overrun. The available resources should also be revised in order to reduce the cost and the plan of the project.
	Recommendation 2	Making right decisions: It is highly recommended to make the right decisions at this time in order to overcome the issues that occurred in the project. The managers should be taking the right decisions in order to avoid the issues that might be causing. Since the risk management plan has been made at the earlier stages, it should be executed to overcome them. The right decisions here involved of utilizing only the required number of human and materials resources in the project. The wastes that may be causing in the project should be reduced by continuously monitoring the project tasks.

 

4          Describe how the above issues affected meeting the specified objectives of the project (400-500 words)

Completion of the project for public transport Due to the issues that are discussed in the above sections, the first thing that is affected is the schedule completion of the project. As per the plan, it has been scheduled that project should be completed on December 2019. But due to the issues, the project could not be effectively completed on the stipulated tome. The main aim of providing the public transport with the construction of the tunnel could not be achieved here. Thus, the brand name and the reputation will be affected for Transurban as well as the Australian government (Auditoffice, 2019). The public transport that is expected will thus be postponed for several months. Several other objectives like the plans for collecting the toll costs from the time has affected which might cost several millions of dollars for the company. The revenue might get affected for both the company as well as the Australian government. Reducing the traffic The aim of reducing the traffics in the roads between M1 and M2 could not be completed as per the plan. The traffic is not resolved as the construction of the tunnel is not completed. Also it is identified that there are challenges in the project that causes the increase in traffic in the nearby roads. Since the project causes the road traffic at the construction sites, it increased the traffic nearby which is not expected. This traffic will be continued for some more months due to incompletion of the project on time. The other objectives of the project like the agreement that is made with the Australian government on the completion date could not be satisfied. This might cause serious issues and bad impacts towards the company. The plan for the project has been failed which causes to drop some of the plans to enhancing the look of the tunnels and the other facilities of the project.         Meeting the planned budget The budget of the project that has planned here is about $3 billion and thus has exceeded due to the various reasons. The actual project time and the budget could not be satisfied and hence this caused to increase the budget for the company. It has been identified that there is about $350 million additional cost has been invested in the completion of the project after nine months from the scheduled time. There are challenges in the project caused due to the delay occurred and the cost overruns in the project (Steve Zemek, Two companies fined $840,000 for NorthConnex worker death). Due to the poor planning and the execution, the resource utilization is also affected. Either over utilization or underutilization of the resources have occurred in the projects. The pandemic situation also causes the resources and machines to be idle for several months without any task.

 

5          Actual performance: state whether following criteria have been met / not met/ partially met for this project and provide reasons for not met or partially met (200-300 words)

Criteria	Met / Not Met / Partially Met	Reasons (Not Met / Partially Met) Criteria
Scope	Met	The scope of the project has been met which is providing the tunnel based road for transporting between the roads M1 and M2 with reduced traffic. The traffic in the roads has been reduced as 5000 heavy vehicles has been transmitting in the tunnel per day. The aim of the project is achieved with some delays and budget overrun.
Cost	Not Met	The costs for the project could not be met here since there occurred the project cost overrun. The budget that is planned for the project could not be satisfied. About $350 million has been exceeded from the actual budget which is $3 billion. Though, the project has been met without any serious issues like failure of incompletion.
Schedule	Not Met	The schedule is also delayed from the actual plan for the project. The time for the completion that is planned is December 2019, but it has delayed until October 31, 2020. About 9 months delay caused in the project and thus could not met as per the actual scheduled planning of the project.
Quality	Met	Apart from various controversies and the challenges in the project, it has completed the project with the great quality. The lightning features of the tunnel has made it the first of its kind to be keeping the drivers pleasant over the 9-kilometer drive. Every part of the tunnel has been completed with fine quality and precise engineering facilities.

 

 

 

6      References

Auditoffice, 2019. Transport 2019. [Online]
Available at: https://www.audit.nsw.gov.au/our-work/reports/transport-2019
[Accessed 18 September 2021].

Jenny Wiggins, 2018. NorthConnex opening date still in doubt as Lendlease bulks up engineering. [Online]
Available at: https://www.afr.com/companies/infrastructure/northconnex-opening-date-still-in-doubt-as-lendlease-bulks-up-engineering-20180828-h14lig
[Accessed 18 September 2021].

Lorko, M., Servátka, M. & Le Zhang, 2021. Budget blowouts and broken promises: how to avoid project failures. [Online]
Available at: https://lighthouse.mq.edu.au/article/january-2021/budget-blowouts-and-broken-promises-how-to-avoid-project-failures
[Accessed 17 September 2021].

Matt O'Sullivan, 2019. Extent of delay to Sydney toll road decided by work over coming months. [Online]
Available at: https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/extent-of-delay-to-sydney-toll-road-decided-by-work-over-coming-months-20190212-p50x5w.html
[Accessed 17 September 2021].

Steve Zemek, Two companies fined $840,000 for NorthConnex worker death. 2020. [Online]
Available at: https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/courts-law/two-companies-fined-840000-for-northconnex-worker-death/news-story/4fcab09381b5b96bec663c4bdd9281b9
[Accessed 18 September 2021].

Timna Jacks, S. D., 2019. $2 billion blowout could hurt Metro's viability: Opposition. [Online]
Available at: https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/2-billion-blowout-could-hurt-metro-s-viability-opposition-20190607-p51via.html
[Accessed 17 September 2021].