CHANNEL TUNNEL

Channel Tunnel



Channel Tunnel

Introduction

The Channel Tunnel (Chunnel) project, undertaken to create a connection between England and France via an underground tunnel, represents one of the largest privately funded construction projects ever undertaken. It required the cooperation of two national governments, bankers underwriting the funding for the project, numerous contractors, and several regulatory agencies. Further, the construction and engineering of the tunnel required the use of new technology and required significant modifications during the project due to unexpected conditions and changes required by various interested parties.

The management of a project of this magnitude is a significant effort even if everything related to the project ran extremely smoothly. As this case study will demonstrate, numerous factors came into play during the course of the project that had significant effects on the overall course of the project. In the end, the Chunnel project was completed, but it was late and over budget. The causes for missing the key cost and schedule deadlines, along with other factors related to Project Management Knowledge Areas and processes, are discussed and analyzed throughout the case study. (Williams, 1993, 54)

Discussion

Relative to risk management, the management team appears to have reviewed the scope of the Eurotunnel for initial risks. However, it seems that the focus was on engineering risk as opposed to process and approval risks. Those involved appear to have been comfortable with the technical nature of this project, but less prepared to deal with the level of IGC oversight and change management controls. At the highest level, both countries were aware of the financial risk, requiring that funding be provided by non-governmental sources. Business risk appears to have been addressed to varying degrees via contractual agreements. However, these same contracts were the focus of subsequent scrutiny based on their inability to spread the risk among various stakeholders. (Sjogren, 2002, 41 )

From a project management perspective, risk planning and mitigation needs to be an ongoing part of each project. The hope is that most material risks are identified, quantified, and prioritized early enough so that an effective risk response strategy can be established. The ability to address known and unknown risks requires careful assessment and understanding of the nature of each initiative. For this case, decisions made in the inception phase (contract choice and change-control methods) could have been more carefully assessed for risk impact. (Shaw, 2000, 980)

The schedule required planning all activities related to building three tunnels (north, south, and service). This was somewhat complicated due to the need to hire 46 contractors to complete the design requirements. As it turned out, the time estimate to complete the tunnelling itself was materially accurate, finishing three months ahead of schedule. However, ongoing safety requirement changes sought by ICG continued to create negative schedule variances.(Serich, 2001, 23)

From a project management perspective, schedule planning did include activities related to activity definition, activity sequencing, and activity duration estimates to develop the baseline project schedule. This can be further illustrated by the fact that scheduled activities included 12 tunnelling ...