Project Delivery System For Yagan Square Perth

Introduction to the Yagan Square Project

Discuss about the Project Delivery System for Yagan Square Perth.

Yagan Square is situated in Perth’s CBD, which is a transforming city in the Western Australia. It is the major part of the Perth City Link project, designed to be a primary community, meeting and celebration place as well as a major tourist destination. The vision of the Perth City Link is to transform the city into a world - class transit hub by providing a direct access to the new Perth Underground Bus Port and the Perth Train Station ("Yagan Square | Perth City Link", 2016). The project aims to develop Yagan Square as one of the busiest pedestrian locations in the Perth city. Furthermore, Yagan Square will involve food markets and a well – furnished community where people can meet, discover and celebrate the culture, heritage and environment of Western Australia. To be more precise, the square is named after the indigenous Australian warrior Yagan. The construction of Yagan Square was initiated in February 2016 and is expected to be opened in 2017 ("Yagan Square | Perth City Link", 2016). The place will be over one hectare in size, with the capability of arranging for a range of activities and events for up to 8,500 people.

Figure 1.1: Design and Construction of Yagan Square

(Source: "Yagan Square | Perth City Link", 2016)

The basic purpose of a project delivery method is to plan, design, construct and provide other relevant services for organizing, executing and completing a building facility. In a project delivery, the three main parties associated are the project owner, designer and the builder. More specifically, selection of the appropriate project delivery method is one of the basic decisions for developing the acquisition strategy (Duggan & Patel, 2013). The different types of project delivery methods are discussed as follows:

It is the traditional method for delivering a project typically involving three sequential phases. These are the design phase, the bid phase and the build or construction phase. The design phase concerns with the designer’s service for the project (Lines, Sullivan & Smithwick, 2014). A contractor is selected for the bid phase. Finally, the selected contractor builds the project in the construction phase. It most commonly ends up in a fixed price contract (Kerzner, 2013).

This method is somewhat similar to that of the design bid build based on the three sequential phases. However, the owner directly contracts with the individual specialty contractors with multi prime (MP) for designated components of the overall work, instead of a single general of prime contractor (Burnham & Nagata, 2016). The basic characteristics of this method include a linear design with many contracts involving architect, contractor and subcontractors.

Project Delivery Methods

In this particular method, the three linear design phases are fast tracked with the three prime players or parties such as the owner, designer and CM constructor. The construction manager is contracted depending on qualification, experience, target construction price and fees for management services for managing and constructing a project (Cardenas, 2016). The major advantages in this project delivery method are it can easily retain control of design and allows adequate flexibility to the project price.

In this project delivery method, the owner develops a basic conceptual plan and thereby solicits bids from joint ventures of engineer, architects and builders for the project construction and design (Keen et al., 2015). An integrated process overlaps the design and construction phases, where the designer and contractor work together.

The SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis for the Yagan Square project for Perth City Link has been demonstrated in the table as formulated below:

Table 3.1: SWOT Analysis for Yagan Square, Perth City Link Project

(Source: Created by the Author)

For this particular project, the ‘Design Build (DB) Method’ can be considered as the most appropriate method for project delivery. It is mainly due to the short span of time allocated for completing the project (Construction of Yagan square started in February 2016 and it is set to open in 2017). By adopting the Design Build method, it is possible to integrate the design and construction phases. To be more precise, the integrated process facilitated by this specific project delivery method includes an overlapped design and construction, which is typically fast – tracked (Kereri & Gad, 2015). Therefore, it is automatically quicker as compared to the other project delivery methods such as multi prime and Design - Bid - Build (DBB).

Apart from that, this particular project delivery method involves only the prime players such as the owner and the design - build entity. As a result, it ensures a substantially simple process for delivery of the project (Leach, 2014). Furthermore, it will involve only one contract, which is between the owner and the design builder with a single point of responsibility. In addition to that, in this method, the design builder is responsible for identifying any inconsistency existing between the performance standards and the prescriptive requirements (Lu, 2010). On the other hand, the owner has the sole responsibility for the cost for reconciliation in the inconsistent standards.

The Design Build method involves the following steps:

SWOT Analysis of Yagan Square Project

Strategic Facility Planning: The owner establishes the project needs, objectives, and technology content and performance criteria.

Selection of Design-Builder: Design - builders are selected depending on certain factors such as capacity, reputation, previous owner experience, fees and pricing methods using interview and evaluation processes (Yuan-zhi & Bureau, 2014).

Conclusion of First Part of Contract: Contract terms and language is typically taken under negotiations for authorizing preliminary design.

After that, the design builder joins with the project owner to define the project along with project objectives, requirements, target budget and schedules (Burke, 2013). After that, the design - build Contract Award is followed.

Conclusion

The paper has thoroughly included a detailed discussion on the Perth City Link Project, the design and construction of Yagan Square. For achieving this purpose, the paper investigated the characteristics and features of Yagan Square including its size and elements. Furthermore, the various project delivery methods have been adequately discussed. After that, the most suitable method to deliver the particular project is selected and the method of application is analyzed. Apart from that, the researcher has also performed a detailed SWOT analysis for the concerned construction management project for Yagan Square. The individual elements and components of Yagan Square will be considered for developing the strategic and tactical planning for the project execution. It requires substantial amount of industrial effort in order to integrate the food market, facilities for public art, hall, children’s playground area, native gardens, digital tower, plaza, mall as well as an integrated community where the people can gather, meet and celebrate together the culture, heritage and environment of Western Australia. It is one of the new projects of Perth City Link and expected to design one of the busiest pedestrian spots in this city that will effectively link the new underground bus station and the train station. Precisely, the contract is valued around $ 65 million. Approximately 25 food and beverage operators will be sought for the plaza and the construction is expected to complete by early 2017.

References

Burke, R. (2013). Project management: planning and control techniques.New Jersey, USA.

Burnham, R. E., & Nagata, M. F. (2016). Alternate Project Delivery: Claims in Design-Build, Guaranteed Maximum Price, and Other Delivery Methods.Construction Contract Claims, Changes, and Dispute Resolution, 431.

Cardenas, D. P. (2016). Evaluation of Construction Project Delivery Methods: A study of Axiomatic Design Principles Measuring the Efficiency of the Design Process (Doctoral dissertation, Worcester Polytechnic Institute).

Duggan, T., & Patel, D. (2013). Design-build project delivery market share and market size report. RCD/RSMeans Market Intelligence.

Keen, D. J., Edinger, L., Wiener, K., & Salcedo, E. (2015). Current Practices to Set and Monitor DBE Goals on Design-Build Projects and Other Alternative Project Delivery Methods (No. Project 20-05 (Topic 45-03)).

Kereri, J. O., & Gad, G. M. (2015). Comparative study of relationship management in design-bid-build project delivery methods in infrastructure projects.

Kerzner, H. R. (2013). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Leach, L. P. (2014). Critical chain project management. Artech House.

Lines, B., Sullivan, K., & Smithwick, J. (2014). An Action Research Approach to Implementation of Alternative Project Delivery Methods within Architectural, Engineering, and Construction Owner Organizations: Overcoming Resistance through Education. In American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

Lu, W. (2010). Improved SWOT approach for conducting strategic planning in the construction industry. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 136(12), 1317-1328.

Yagan Square | Perth City Link. (2016). Mra.wa.gov.au. Retrieved 9 September 2016, from https://www.mra.wa.gov.au/projects-and-places/perth-city-link/places-attractions/yagan-square

Yuan-zhi, L. I. U., & Bureau, S. Q. H. (2014). The Safety Management Points of Construction Enterprises Based on SWOT Analysis. Value Engineering, 20, 102.