This Vision that the sponsor has, has resulted in a positive outcome for Qatar, not just in the local area but in the global markets. As Qatar have one of the best airports in the world as well as one of the best airlines. Over the past 8 year, collectively, Hamad International Airport and Qatar Airways have won over 150 awards including awards such as: Best Airport in the Middle East, ‘Sixth Best Airport in the World’ award for HIA, HIA – Best Airport in the Middle East, World’s Best Business Class, World’s Top 10 Airlines, Best Airline in the Middle East and World’s Best Airline (QatarAirways, 2018).
One of the biggest challenges presented by this project was that; Qatar does not have a natural access to many of the basic materials needed in construction. This means that a considerable amount of the materials that they need for construction to meet the demand of the industry must be imported. At the time, many of the materials that were used were imported from the UAE (United Arab Emirates). The primary natural resource that Qatar have is Limestone, this is used alongside all the imported materials to complete the production of materials such as Asphalt and Concrete etc. Steel is also a major material that was in high demand over this period of construction.
During periods of high construction, the distribution of materials can become a major issue in Qatar. There were several major projects under-construction at the same time as the new airport, such as: Sidra’s Hospital, West Bay District’s High-Rise Offices and Residential Blocks as well as countrywide infrastructure (Highways, Reservoirs, Sewage Treatment Plants, and Shopping Malls etc.). This resulted in a high demand for all construction materials, for this the materials had to be imported from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other countries such as China.
Not only did the raw materials have to be imported but so did the equipment that would be used to fit out the airport and make it functional. There is an extensively long list of the items that needed to be imported but to list a few, for example: Baggage Handling Systems, Electrical Cabling, Transformers, Check-in Desks, Furniture, Catering Equipment, Marble etc.
Since most of the materials need to be imported it requires significant resources to control and monitor the process, in order to get the materials through the port or airport as quickly as possible. When ordering the materials, fittings and assets you must allow for the manufacturing and shipment durations, the customs clearances through the Doha Port and delivery to the site location. The larger items required organisation of police escort.
If items are ordered late, due to a possible change in the work-scope and were a necessity to continue there was the option to fly them over to Qatar. However, size and weight would be a major constraint when making this decision. If the items were to be flown over, they would arrive at the old airport which is significantly smaller than the new, further adding to the challenge of getting the items through customs clearance.
Qatar has very little local human-resources/manpower for the manual-labour side of constructing such a project. This meant that the workforce had to be outsourced from other countries around the world, the main countries supplying manual-labour to Qatar are: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines, Africa, Korea, Japan, China, Middle East countries and many others. Whereas for supervisory and management roles the man-power is provided by Western Europe, USA, Australia, South Africa, Russia and the previously mentioned countries. Dealing with this many people from a large variety of different countries presented the challenge of having to deal with communication between multiple different languages. All management and supervisor roles that would be providing instructions to the manual-labour side of the project had to have a good understanding of English, either as a first or second language. This meant that they would be able to manage smaller teams of people who spoke the same native language as them, allowing for them to communicate clearly between each other, then the supervisor could report back to other management staff in English. As mixing different languages onto one team has not proven to work in the past.
During the project the expected passenger capacity increased from the original 29 Million per year to 50 Million per year, meaning that large areas of the airport had to be redesigned and more additional areas added (for example: a larger passenger terminal) to accommodate for the increased passenger traffic throughout the year. These changes happened in the initial construction stages of the project and lead to significant delays to the completion date which was to be in 2009. The forecast new opening day (April 2013) was then further delayed due to changes that were made in local Fire Life Safety Specifications, requiring substantial changes to be made throughout the facility. This left the new airports actual opening/completion date to be in May 2014, the overall lifespan of this project extended from the original 4 years (2005-2009), to 9 years. With such an increase in delays this led to contractors having significant pressure placed on them to finish by the required dates the Operator of the Airport expected (Qatar Airways). This led to many claims and counter claims being made from various parties.
Significant Environmental impacts come with projects of this calibre, one of the most significant environmental impacts came in the enabling works of the project where 6.5 Million Cubic Meters of household waste had to be moved to a newly engineered landfill under strict regulations. All of this was done in order to create the area for the airport which required over 60 Million Cubic Meters of land reclamation.
Shown below are who I think are the stakeholders of Hamad International Airport are:
Many meetings were required to coordinate all the requirements of the Stakeholders and filtering the information down to the contractors to execute the work was a difficult task to. Despite the coordination procedures in place significant delays happened due to unforeseen changes during the closing stages of the construction stage. Which required the opening date to be delayed due to the modifications that were necessary (as mentioned earlier).
As the fitting out of the airport progressed the interaction with the stakeholders became more complex, especially regarding the retailers that would be in the Passenger Terminal Area as they would require modifications to: walls, door, electrics and pipework to be adjusted in the area that their store would be located. Further complexity was added when the location of which the store was to be located was changed, this would mean that even more modifications would have to be made to both the new location to suit the retailer and the prior location to fit the needs of the new retailer that would take over that position.
One of the most significant stakeholders’ impacts was that of the Life Safety modifications that had to be made just before the airport opened, which led to a 12-month delay on the projects completing date, as mentioned earlier.
An embargo placed against Qatar by the UAE and Saudi, as mentioned earlier, the risk presented by this was that there was a possibility of Qatar running out of materials for construction. Qatar had been stock piling construction materials prior to the embargo being placed, therefore, when they were presented with this problem, they had the materials to last them a couple of months to get them through the initial period of the embargo. This allowed them to avoid the risk of running out of materials while they found a solution to the problem.
Budget was managed through a Valuation and Variation process as part of the project management process. The Valuation assesses the amount of work completed and relates this to the cost allocated to that specific item of work. The Valuations are submitted monthly to the Engineer for approval. Payment would not be provided until at least 75 days after the date of approval. Payments were often made much later than this, which resulted in severe cash flow problems for the Contractors. This resulted in impacts being made on the supply chain, due to late payments to suppliers, leading to the materials required being delivered late.
Variations to the work-scope were managed by issuing a Change Order from the Employer/Engineer which was evaluated by the Contractor and submitted to the Employer/Engineer for approval. Usually some time elapsed to agree the Change Order before the work could proceed. Sometimes the Contractor would proceed at risk in order to reduce the impact of the Change Order on the completion date. The overall management of the Budget was under the responsibility of the Steering Committee (made up of senior officials from the primary stakeholder, Qatar Civil Aviation Authorities) who were responsible for the supervising the design and construction of the new airport.
The project time frame was also managed by the Employer/Engineer through the project controls management process. Baseline programmes would be agreed with the various contractors, which defined the time periods and work-scope to be performed by each contractor. The work-scope was divided into packages called Construction Packages (CPs). The programmes for each CP would feed into the overall project programme and be reported to the Steering Committee on a monthly basis. Bi-weekly and weekly updates were preformed and reported to the Engineer/Project Management Consultant. The contractor would evaluate the time and cost of the changes that were instructed by the Engineer. For significant Change Orders the time impact would extend the project completion date. When this occurred, the Contractor would submit an Extension of Time to the Engineer, and any entitlement to an Extension of Time would be assessed by the Engineer and recommended to the Employer to award the Extension of Time. Agreement with the Employer and Contractor for Extension of Time could take several years to resolve.
There were many lessons that stood out to me when researching this project, but the ones that stood out to me the most would have to be:
▪ Team Management, this stood out to me because over such a large-scale project that involves a diverse workforce such as this one did, it’s important to put those that can communicate well with each other together. As shown in the management of this project, that does not necessarily mean people who are friends with each other are put together because that could effectively reduce the productivity, but people who are able to communicate in the same language. Since there were so many languages that people working on the project spoke if not managed correctly there would have been large potential for misunderstanding.
If I were to manage a project like this that involved many different languages then I would also aim to group those that can speak the same language together in order to maximise their work efficiency.
▪ When Qatar outsource to obtain the Skills Required to complete this job, it stood out to me the most as it demonstrated the importance of getting help from others when needed. This is because I place myself in positions where I feel as if I can do all the work and then quickly come to realise I cannot, yet do not go to others for help.
I would not only do as they have done In a project situation but aim to start doing this in everyday life in order to reduce the amount of stress that I place on myself, as this has taught me that it is okay to struggle, everybody does. It’s just finding the right person who can help you.
▪ Supplier Payments is always something that I thought was incredibly important in my studies of Accounting, as it determines what kind of relationship you have with your suppliers. I would approach the way they dealt with this differently as I feel that there was not much effort made on the contractor’s side to delay payments.
Personally I would approach it by sitting down with the suppliers and negotiate moving the payment period back and having the assets delivered on time, as this is something that disrupted the flow of the project. By doing this, the communication is there and they know the situation that you’re facing and if payments between you have been on time or possibly early on previous projects then they are more likely to appreciate that you have hit a bump in the road do to some situation and move the payment period.
In conclusion, there were some minor and major problems that came across during the project’s construction, but the changes that were made because of these were ultimately for the greater good. By overcoming the challenges and risks they faced, Qatar has ended up with one of the best airports in the world, this helps the sponsor make the first step towards achieving their overall vision for the whole of Qatar. The finished result of the airport is not only something that the primary clients (Qatar Airways) take pride in using as a new base of operation, but one that will leave a staple of the quality and care that goes into the projects that take place in Qatar in the minds of passengers as this landmark building is the first thing that they will see once setting foot in Qatar