On-budget Delivery Research Articles

Evaluating Standards for Private-Sector Financial Institutions and the Management of Cultural Heritage

ABSTRACTFinancial institutions typically avoid projects that will have a significant adverse effect on cultural heritage because it creates unwelcome risk and can affect their reputation. For bank clients, adverse project effects on cultural heritage can result in reputation risk, impede access to finance and insurance, increase operational costs, and jeopardize on-time and on-budget delivery of projects. To address this risk, financial institutions implement environmental and social policy frameworks that include specific requirements for the consideration of cultural heritage. This article examines the place of cultural heritage in the lending practices of 25 of the world's largest private-sector banks and its relevance for heritage practitioners who may be retained to provide advice, review or undertake fieldwork, and prepare studies in keeping with the private-sector bank policies and external standards described. The article concludes with a recommended best practice for private-sector financial institutions, a call to action for heritage practitioners to advocate for robust safeguards, and a call for support of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals by both heritage practitioners and private-sector financial institutions.

Project Scoping Process Model Development to Achieve On-Time and On-Budget Delivery of Highway Projects

Transportation agencies have significantly improved many aspects of project delivery, yet they continue to be challenged by cost increases and time delays that occur after a project is programmed and funded. An increase or a change in the scope of a project to improve facility performance is a common source of such cost increases and schedule delays. Therefore, this study focused on improvement in the project scoping process (PSP) to achieve on-time and on-budget delivery of highway projects. The thrust of this research was to develop a framework that could help transportation agencies improve their scope development processes and practices. A key effort in this study was to assess current project scoping practices. After a literature review, the research team developed a survey protocol, distributed questionnaires, collected survey data, and performed data analysis. Forty responses were received that represented 23 state transportation agencies (STAs). On the basis of the survey responses, six STAs were selected for face-to-face interviews. The intent of the interviews was to confirm survey results and delve into topics not covered in the survey. As a result of these tasks, the research team identified considerable variation in scope development processes across the agencies with respect to the definition of a PSP, formality of the process, timing of the PSP, and project maturity when a project is programmed. On the basis of what was learned from the literature review, surveys, and follow-up interviews, the research team developed a PSP definition and framework. This PSP framework contains three major actions, namely, to select the project, to analyze the project, and to advance the preferred alternative.

The integrated boardwalk: a tool for large capital project integration

Successful capital project execution of any size is a challenging endeavour. Performance gaps in on-time and on-budget delivery are often due to the inability to effectively integrate cross-functional work teams. Faced with delivering one of the largest capital projects in its portfolio, the leadership team of a large O&G asked: how do we best integrate 16 functional teams required to deliver this project? How do we get the right forums with the right audience as we are all busy? How do we build a culture of trust and performance transparency? In response, the team developed the integrated boardwalk approach as the way to run their business. The approach was for each of the 16 functional groups to build individual dashboards based on an agreed template of performance metrics. The dashboards are permanently visible performance boards in each work area. Senior leaders and leads would walk the performance boards spending no more than 15–20 mins at each. The intention is to provide an open and safe space for leads to talk about all aspect of their business as it relates to project readiness. Senior leaders drive the desired performance behaviours, where the functional leads highlight risks and specific barriers that leadership can act on and eliminate. The boardwalks have created a cultural change in the organisation, specifically: people have the right focused forums to talk about their business with the right audience using the right data; and, leaders have the transparency required to ask the right probing questions, recognise data-driven progress.

Stakeholder Perceptions on Achieved Benefits of PFI Procurement Strategy

The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) has become the most acceptable strategy employed by governments across the globe for the provision of the much needed public infrastructure. Many benefits have been attributed to this form of public procurement while it has also received several criticisms. This study sets out to assess if the benefits attributed to the PFI are being achieved. Survey questionnaires were used to get the perception of delegates from different regions who attended two (2) PFI-focused conferences held independently by two different organisations. The results of the survey are presented in the study. Generally, most of the respondents agreed that the benefits of PFI are being reaped across the globe with ‘helping government spread payment over the life of the asset’, ‘increased investment in infrastructure’, ‘on-time delivery’, ‘contribution to economic growth’, and ‘on-budget delivery’ being the most significant achievements so far and surprisingly ‘providing value for money’ ranking in faraway 17th place out of 20 benefits listed.

Hazard-Based Analysis of Highway Project Development Times

Transport agencies around the world recognize the importance of on-time on-budget delivery of highway projects and understand the need for an efficient transport development process. Past studies of highway project duration and cost estimation were focused on construction, and few studies have focused on preconstruction project delivery from an agency’s perspective. This paper proposes the use of hazard-based duration models for investigating the potential risk factors that could affect project development time from planning to letting. A database containing over 35 years of highway project data from the state of Indiana was used to develop appropriate models. Of the three model forms (Weibull, Weibull with gamma heterogeneity, and log-logistic) considered in the paper, it was found that the log-logistic model is the most appropriate for modeling project development time. For each work category (pavement, bridge, and road/interchange projects), risk factors were identified, and their influences on project development time (and consequently, on letting time) were investigated. The developed hazard-based duration models were further applied to demonstrate their ability to predict expected project development time for delivery and the project-related factors that influence this duration, thereby providing the agency with a useful interpretation of associated delivery risks.

Interface Management Improves On-Time, On-Budget Delivery of Megaprojects

Management - No abstract available.