Project delivered on time and excessive cost

Discuss about the Construction Effectiveness of Risk Management.

The paper investigates an issue of quality failure or adverse environmental outcome caused due to construction fault. The assignment is executed in the light of the collapse of the West Gate Bridge in 1970 into the Yarra River.

The purpose of the report is to analyse a failure of a construction work and its after effect on the environment. The report shows that failures of construction companies to execute and maintain civil construction structures efficiently lead to catastrophes affecting hundreds of people and causing massive damage to the environment and its structures like rivers. It shows that loss of resources and stakeholders’.

This West Gate Bridge collapse in 1970 was an issue of extreme quality failure, failure to deliver quality product (the bridge over here) and immense loss of life and property. The collapse resulted in immense multitude of environmental pollution when tons of concrete, dust and building material fell into the river below and also spread  over the surrounding areas. The section would delve into the material facts of the catastrophic building failure and issues it created.

The West Gate Bridge was the most ambitious project in Australia, a part of which collapsed into the Yarra River on October 15, 1970.  The accident happened when the construction company, John Holland Construction Company failed the deliver a quality construction. The bridge killed 35 people and left many injured when the span between 112 metres between piers 10 and 11 collapsed 50 metres to the land and the river below. The collapse resulted due to faulty construction, negligence and lack of governance on the part of the contractors and the union. It resulted in huge quantities of concrete, metal, debris and other wastes like immense quantities of dust falling into the Yarra River below which resulted in river pollution. The fire, dust and debris spread in the surrounding area aggravating the environmental pollution and degeneration.

The West Gate Bridge collapsed due to building failure on the side of the contractor John Holland Construction Company that was awarded the contract by Victorian State Government. The Victorian Government gave power to Lower Yarra Crossing Authority, a business consortium to build the bridge, the later floated tender for the purpose and John Holland Construction Company got the contract. Maunsell and Partners, a Melbourne based firm was the consultant for the concrete work and Freeman Fox Firm, a London based company acted as the consultant for steel work. It can be pointed out the later had constructed Milford Haven Bridge which collapsed killing four people. The faulty construction was use of low quality materials and maintenance of the bridge by the construction companies and its engineers. Sources also cited the conflict between the management and the union resulted in lack of coordination and planning while constructing the bridge that ultimately led to the collapse (Heraldsun.com.au. 2017).

Briefing of the issues or the problems

The collapse of the West Bridge into and around the Yarra River caused massive environmental damage, perhaps one of the most important long-term issues it created. The bridge piers of concrete weighing 200 tonnes of concrete fell into a river causing immense amount of river pollution. The dust and the concrete settled on the bank and the surrounding areas causing massive damage to the environment. The mud and the concrete fell onto the building around and caused damage to them as well. The collapse led to explosion of the concrete, which caused fire. Lubricants and oil added to the multitude of environment damage the collapse resulted in. This analysis shows that the collapse led to massive damage to the environment and the environmental structure below, the Yarra River.

The slackness on the side of the civil engineering construction company John Holland Construction Company and its consultants, negligence in maintenance and several other factors led to extension of the project and increase in the cost. Ede   (2013) in his work states that use of poor quality building materials result in collapse of constrictions like bridges. The reason of the collapse was a small gap of 4.5 inches between two girders. The people tied to balance between two spans, which led to cracks which was a structural failure. The construction companies decided to remove the buckle. The engineers ordered the workers to remove the bolts and that led to the bridge to collapse. The faulty construction and the consequent led to increase of construction from $44 million to a whopping $200 million.

The fall of the West Bridge and the subsequent investigation by the authorities uncovered several legal, moral and ethical issues. The commercial organizations functioning in Australia come under the ambit of Safe Work Australia 2008. The act mandates all the commercial organisations including the construction companies follow the act. They are obliged by law to enforce and adopt codes of practices to ensure employee safety. The Act mandates the CEOs of the Australian companies to ensure that their organisations follow it and require them to frame strategies according to the act. The CEOs are supposed to inform the progress their organisations achieve in adopting and implementing Safe Work Australia 2008 (Legislation.gov.au. 2017). This shows that the construction company John Holland Construction Company and its consultants have breached the act. The construction company did not adhere to the safety laws that every civil construction company is mandated to follow while operating in Australia.

The investigations also unearthed several ethical and moral issues revolving around the construction of the bridge and its collapse. Freeman Fox and Partners, one of the consultants had reputations of an ethical and irresponsible construction work. There are records of collapses of a number of bridges constructed by the company. The involvement of the company in spite of its bad reputation in the civil construction market internationally points out to the lack of ethics on the part of the main construction company, John Holland Construction Company (Glatzenberger 2015).  There are also proofs of conflicts among the company, the engineers and the workers regarding the construction of the bridge. The investigators on moral grounds blamed the Victorian Government, the consortium, the contractors and even the workers for the collapse and the consequent catastrophe. There were also reports of frequently conflicts between the parties involved like the construction companies, the union and the workers led to faulty building planning and calculations. These legal and ethical issues led to investigation and hearing of the matter at the Royal Commission (Ngundo 2014).

The above analysis of the issues involving the fall of the West Bridge in 1970, points out to four primary issues. First issue was failure to construct the bridge according to the expectation of the client and key stakeholder, the Victorian Government (Prov.vic.gov.au. 2017). The second issue was the massive environmental pollution caused due to collapse and spreading of materials into the river below and the surrounding areas. The third issue was rapid increase in the construction cost and extension of construction time, which was in fact encouraging high cost. The fourth issue was breaches of law, morality and ethics by the authorities and the construction companies.  Li, Ng and Skitmore (2013) point out that civil construction companies manufacture bridges and faults in their products (bridges and roads) results in massive damage to the stakeholders. The analysis of the above issue clearly shows that John Holland Construction Company did not act responsibly towards the stakeholders. The collapse resulted in massive wastage of resources and pollution, thus affecting the society and the environment. The collapse led to death and injury to workers and damaged houses surrounding the structure. It shows that the construction company did not protect the interest of the stakeholders like the people, workers and the society at large (Jin et al. 2013).

The evidences like photographs, drawings and plans show that actual performance f the construction company, John Holland Construction Company pertaining to the construction of the West Gate Bridge was way below the performance the principle the Victorian Government, expected or specified in the tender documents. The photograph above shows a collapsed portion of the West Gate Bridge. It shows the structures like the span, girder and pillars after the collapse (Savage 2013).

The drawing below shows the structure of a cable stayed bridge, the category to which the West Gate Bridge belongs. The diagram evidently shows that the bridge decks hangs on cables and the entire load is transferred to the base through the pillars. The governments build these bridges with the expectations that they would be able to support heavy load of traffic and connect different regions. Adopting of a plan to construct bridges and getting approval from the top ministries involves several legal and political complications and are very time consuming. The ministry building the bridges pay a huge amount of money to the contractors who build the bridges. Langenmayr (2017) states that the governments accumulate this huge amount of resources to offer the contractors from the taxes they collect from the people and the companies. This analysis shows that the contractors by neglecting their responsibility of executing the civil construction work actually breach the expectations of the governments employing them for the work and the people (Moreu and Spencer Jr 2015). 

The figure below is a plan of a cable stayed bridge which showing the pillars or piers and the deck. The figure clearly points out that the deck hangs from the cables, which are in turn attached to the towers, which transfers the weight of the structure to the base. An analysis of the structural fault in case of the West Gate Bridge shows that the crack appeared in the in between the spans. The decks hang from the cables hence, when the decks cracked, the entire super structure of the bridge collapsed.

The figure shows the present status of the West Gate Bridge which John Holland Construction Company completed. The bridge is supports a large number of traffic and is the third longest bridge in Australia. The finally has finally proved to be success and the construction company is working towards expansion of the bridge.

The above discussion regarding success of John Holland Construction Company in meeting the expectation of the principle client, the Victorian Government can have two inferences based on the evidences. The project of building the West Gate Bridge was one of the most ambitious projects of the Victorian Government and involved a lot of expenditure. So, when the bridged collapsed and the slackness from the side of John Holland Construction Company was proven, it can be construed that the construction company failed to keep up to the performance expectations of the principle (Herps, Buntinx and Curfs 2016). However, the last picture bears evidence to the fact that construction finally succeeded in meeting the performance expectations of the Government of Victoria and the common people who use it to travel.

Conclusion:

The above discussion shows that failure and negligence from the side of the construction companies result in collapse of bridges. The collapse results in death and injuries to hundreds of people including workers. These bridges collapse into rivers and lakes over which they stand. This causes massive amount of environmental pollution to both the water bodies and the surrounding areas. It can be recommended to the construction companies that they must supervise, plan, control and maintain the civil construction work more strictly to ensure high quality of execution. This can prevent or at least minimise future collapses of bridges and damages to the people and the environment.

References:

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Glatzenberger, E., 2015. Leadership and Growth: The connection between leadership and sustainable growth–perceived from a company’s and governmental perspective in Sweden and Austria in the construction industry.

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Langenmayr, D., 2017. Voluntary disclosure of evaded taxes—Increasing revenue, or increasing incentives to evade?. Journal of Public Economics, 151, pp.110-125.

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Moreu, F. and Spencer Jr, B.F., 2015. Framework for consequence-based management and safety of railroad bridge infrastructure using wireless smart sensors (WSS). Newmark Structural Engineering Laboratory. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign..

Ngundo, J.M., 2014. Factors affecting effectiveness of risk management in public housing construction projects in Kenya: a case of Kibera slum upgrading housing scheme in Nairobi.

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