Assignment Task

Project Introduction

West Gate Tunnel Project is one of the largest urban road project under construction in Victoria with an estimated construction cost of $6.7 billion. The construction of the project commenced on January 2018 and will open to traffic in late 2025. West Gate Tunnel project is intended to connect the Melbourne’s West to central city providing an alternative to City’s heavily congested West Gate bridge.

West Gate Tunnel project is a partnership between Victorian government and Transurban, designed to improve Victoria’s transport system. The project includes:

• 6.8 kilometres of new tunnel between the West Gate Freeway and the Maribyrnong River
• two additional lanes in each direction on the West Gate Freeway between the M80 Ring Road and Williamstown Road
• ramps between the West Gate Freeway and Hyde Street for trucks carrying dangerous goods
• a new bridge over the Maribyrnong River joining an elevated freeway above Footscray Road with connections to the Port of Melbourne, CityLink and City north
• major new cycling and walking paths and open space

Part 1 Work – Overview of West Gate Tunnel Project

Carrying out research on the ongoing West Gate Tunnel project in Victoria, your group is required to write a report to define the project and describe the contract and project delivery system which were used in the West Gate Tunnel project. The following aspects need to be investigated.

Task: Please select a 1 kilometre (1 km) stretch within the West Gate Tunnel project and state that clearly in your project scope. 

(1) Project Definition

The following aspects need to be covered:

• What are the circumstances that led to the project?
• Who are the project stakeholders?
• What are the interests of each project stakeholder?
• What are the goals of the project?
• To achieve the goals of the project, what are the main products or services the project will need to create?
• What products/services related to this project is excluded from the project scope?
• What are the main resources needed for the project?
• What are the main assumptions relevant for the project?
• What are the main risks in this project?

(2) Project Delivery System and Contract

The following aspects need to be covered:

• Based on your understanding select a suitable project delivery system to deliver the West Gate Tunnel project? (This need not be the actual project delivery system that is currently being used)
• Provide justifications for your selection.
• What are the contractual and functional relationships among the major project stakeholders? Hint: The selection need to in-line with the project delivery system selected.
• What are the roles of major parties involved within the project delivery system?
• Describe the project development process and the involvement of the major parties in various stages of the process
• What types of contracts can be used in the West Gate Tunnel project for the project delivery system selected? Why were they chosen? Hint: The selection need to in-line with the project delivery system selected.
• What type of tendering process is most suitable? Why was it chosen? Hint: The selection need to in-line with the project delivery system selected.

Part 2 Work – Project planning

This part of the assignment considers construction of 6.8 kilometres of the new tunnel between West Gate freeway and the Maribyrnong river in the West Gate Tunnel project. The following aspects need to be explored.

Task: Please select a 1 kilometre (1 km) stretch within the West Gate Tunnel project and state that clearly in your project scope. Your group is ONLY required to prepare a project estimate for the selected 1 km.

• State any assumptions made
• A detailed Work Breakdown Structure
• Gantt chart, including activities, summary tasks, durations, milestones, predecessor information
• Identify the resources required, labour, materials, equipment broken down according to the WBS developed
• Network diagram
• A cost estimate for the project
• Project reports

Work Breakdown Structure

A three-level (project-deliverables-tasks) work breakdown structure of the project is to be shown on one page.

A minimum 60 tasks are required. (This means 60 tasks at the lowest level – deliverables from which the tasks are derived and milestones do not count). Up to 100 tasks are acceptable. In carrying out the assignment, it will be necessary to research the project topic regarding materials, method of construction, works, resources and cost rates. This research forms a considerable part of the effort of the assignment.

Gantt chart 

In the Gantt chart view of MS Project, it is necessary to input task, duration, precedence and float resulting in a bar chart (and Network Diagram when that view is chosen). The assignment submission is to include printout of the Gantt chart view. 60 – 100 activities are to be shown plus deliverables, milestones, durations, predecessors and float. It will be necessary to scale the bar chart, to print a meaningful section. The output for submission is to be saved as A3 or A4 and can be sent separately with the final report;

a) Task and duration input

The 60 – 100 tasks generated in the Work Breakdown Structure are inputs in the ‘Task Name’ columns. You are also to add five or more ‘summary tasks/deliverables’ and five or more ‘milestones’.

As an example of a milestone, under the final activity, curing of concrete column construction, you might have an activity/task named ‘columns completed’. A 0 day duration is inserted against this making it a milestone. Durations are to be inputted and shown in the duration column of the Gantt chart view.

b) Precedence

This is where the sequence of tasks is included – key information for the network. To do this you first need to think through the order of tasks, (the method), for the project. Writing out on a piece of paper can help if the sequence isn’t straightforward. There are a variety of ways of inputting the sequence information in MS Project. The assignment requires the tasks to be sequenced. This is to be shown in the predecessor column of the Gantt chart view (It is also illustrated in the Network Diagram view.)

Resource planning and cost estimate 

The assignment requires input of the resources necessary for each task. A resource sheet needs to be set up to cover Resource name, Type, Material Label, Maximum units, Std. Rate, etc. This acts as a database of information from which resources are chosen, quantified and assigned to tasks.

You need to present the basic equations which were used to calculate the resource and cost.

You also need to choose one deliverable (covering the tasks under this deliverable) to present the calculation process. For the rest, you can do it through the software.

Network Diagram

Print and include in your submission two reports from your network. The first report should be zoomed out to show the whole project. The second should be sized to show a line of critical tasks and a line of non-critical tasks.

The network diagram is found View / network diagram. Once in that screen zoom out to see the network globally. If it appears illogical, crossed, like tagliatelle etc likely causes are: -

• There are a number of tasks with no predecessor (only the first activity can be without a predecessor)
• There are a number of tasks without successors (only the last activity can be without a succeeding activity)
• A mistake has been made with the summary activities/deliverables. As above summary activities must not be linked into the sequence logic by directly giving them predecessors and/or successors. This happens automatically via their subtasks.

Also submit the MS Project file along with the final submission.

Project (Management) Reports

The required reports are available based on information already submitted. For the assignment look through the range of reports, identify and reproduce in your submission for each of the following.

1. Summary of the time and cost information for the project

2. List of those activities on the critical path

3. Project milestones

4. A schedule indicating the resource name and the task/s the resource was involved in and the timing of the task.

5. Expected expenditure for each week, (or month), of the project.

6. Expected cost of each activity and of the project.

Others

This part covers all other relevant contents for the part 2 work such as assumptions and risk management.

Report quality 

This part covers the formatting of the report as well as the use of language.