Phase I

The project initiation phase began with drawing up of the business case including major milestones and dates. The business case was first drafted in December 2006, after which an economic evaluation was performed before year end. The business case was further amended and finalised in March 2007. The estimated total cost (ETC) was R13.6m.

The engineering plans, installation and testing/commissioning were to be performed by an internal construction team, who effectively act as a contractor to the project.

The project start date was mooted for February 2007, with completion set for September 2008. The initial project plan (with Gantt chart) compiled with MS Project, verified these dates and assigned resources to each task.

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4.4.1. Investment Breakdown

Total Investment : R 13.627 million

Cambridge CTC R 468 779

Signalling equipment : R 7 312 519

Tele – communications : R 1306 800

Construction Blaney relay room : R 370 887

Project Management Costs : R 2 149 921

Escalation Costs : R 2 018 840

A contingency of 10% was included

4.4.2. Commitment dates

 Project start date (approval): February 2007

 Release of Request for tender: April 2007

 Contract Award: Mid June 2007

 Preliminary Plans/Order Material Jan 2008

 Milestone 1: Final Plans February - April 2008

 Milestone 2: Build Blaney relay Room April - July 2008

 Milestone 3: CS90 Installations April - July 2008

 Milestone 4: Upgrade Blaney Interlocking May - June 2008

 Milestone 5: Testing and Commissioning July - end August 2008

 Project Completion and Evaluation September 2008

4.4.3. Project Team

The team for this project consisted of members that were geographically dispersed;

making this a virtual team in a virtual project.

Table 4.1: Project Team Roster

Title Location

Work Site East London

Test Engineer (1) Johannesburg Central

Test Engineer (2) Cape Town

Project Manager Johannesburg Central

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Contract Manager Johannesburg East

Senior Technologist Cape Town

CS90 Specialist Richard’s Bay

Technician (1) Bloemfontein

Technician (2) Bloemfontein

Technician (3) De Aar

Technician (4) Cape Town

Technician (5) Cape Town

Telecoms Specialist East London

Site Supervisor Bloemfontein

The above table shows a representation of the various locations where team members are based. In addition to this, the location of the site (and subsequently the customer) were in a different location to each team member.

4.4.4. Project Planning and Execution

Early on in the project, two key personnel departed from the team:

 Project Manager – departed the organisation

 Senior Technologist – assigned to another project

Hence the new Project Manager joined the team after the project had commenced.

The PM also had a technical responsibility to setup the visual display of the station layout on the remote control system.

The project kicked off in August 2008 due to numerous delays in the project initiation phase. Project meetings were held monthly in East London with all major stakeholders and the project team. Site visits were conducted after the meeting to assess progress on the project.

Due to a need to communicate over fibre optic medium, the telecoms project team were listed as stakeholders on the project. A representative from the team attended all project meetings and was made aware of the time constraints indicating the heavy reliance by the project manager on the telecoms team.

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4.4.5. Material logistics

The upgrading of interlocking of Blaney station required the team to source specialised Spoorplan interlocking units from other departments in the organisation.

The reason for this is due to the limited availability of such equipment; hence the decision was made to utilise refurbished, re-certified units.

The task of acquiring such units lay on the critical path, while the equipment was located ± 1000km from site. The PM personally held a meeting with relevant personnel to inform them of the urgency of this matter.

4.4.6. Engineering Plans

The contractor was responsible for drawing up of plans; a task which lay on the critical path. A month after project kick-off, the PM was informed that the draughtsman would not complete the task as per the scheduled date due to resource overload. This resulted due to pressure from other PM’s to prioritise their tasks. The PM was thus forced to alter the project timeline, which once again affected the triple constraint.

4.4.7. Remote Control

The PM was assigned the task of designing the station layout for remote control. The CS90 specialist would thereafter configure, program and setup the complete remote control system. In addition to designing the CS90 VDU, the PM had to arrange for a lease of rental PC’s used for CS90 train control. As per company policy, all IT related equipment should be leased and not purchased as part of the project. This task also lay on the critical path.

4.4.8. Training

Technical staff was required to undergo training on the CS90 system in order to successfully perform maintenance. This task was delayed since training was only performed at certain times of the year, at the organisation’s training facilities in Johannesburg.

Operations personnel also required training on how to operate the system, but this was deliberately delayed to avoid training the TCO’s too early.

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4.4.9. Telecoms

The fibre optic telecommunication rollout project ran parallel to the Cambridge CTC project. Due to the scope requiring all communication to occur via fibre optic, the delays in the telecoms project severely impacted this project.

The final commissioning of the fibre optic rollout was set for June 2009.

4.4.10. Site Supervision

Due to the much dispersed nature of this project, no team members were based near the actual work sites, hence there was a lack of site supervision from TFR. An initial safety induction was performed to inform the contractor of their obligation to adhere to safety rules and guidelines. Thereafter, safety checks were performed by an official employed by the contractor and not TFR. All safety procedures were followed and no safety incidents occurred on this project.

A full time site supervisor was not appointed due to a lack of resources. Hence random site visits were performed by the manager responsible for maintenance of signalling equipment in East London.

After each monthly meeting (held at Cambridge offices in East London), the team would conduct a site meeting to address issues/concerns that may have arisen.

There were a total of 9 sites (8 stations + CTC) for this project, thus the project team only visited the site at which installation was being performed. This was effectively the site of the next commissioning.

4.4.11. Phase I: Findings and Recommendations (Baselining)

Project records show that while the project start date was slated for February 2007;

the actual start date was June 2008. The main reason for this delay was due to the finalisation of the business case which occurred 12 months after the planned date of February 2007.

When a project start date is delayed, the PM must then expedite/crash activities to make up the slack and bring the project back to its original timeline. However a 12 month delay is almost impossible to recover from and will surely affect the triple constraint. The PM must ensure that the project is correctly baselined in order to

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more accurately measure the project performance. This project should not have been baselined for February 2007 as it was still in the early conception phase with no confirmed support from executive management.

Due to the departure of the original project manager, a replacement was appointed to manage the project. This scenario presents complications as the initial project delays (due to incorrect baselining) do not hold any personnel accountable.

4.4.12. Phase I: Findings and Recommendations (Telecoms)

The team for Cambridge CTC project were at the mercy of the telecoms fibre rollout project team. This was due to heavy reliability on fibre optic communication. Both projects (and project teams) belonged to different departments and were under separate organisational structures. This resulted in a lack of co-operation between teams and led to delays in both projects.

4.4.13. Phase I: Findings and Recommendations (Plans)

Further delays in the project resulted from the contractor not adhering to strict timelines in delivering the plans for installation. The lack of a delay damages clause in the contract will result in contract teams accepting high quantities of work without having adequate resources. The most obvious explanation for this is that both parties (contractor and client) are under the same parent company. The project delay still resulted in a loss of revenue for TFR and therefore consideration should be given in the future for adherence to delay damages to compensate for a lack of task completion.

4.4.14. Phase I: Findings and Recommendations (Site Officials)

Due to the extreme virtual nature of the project, the PM had increased difficulty in monitoring on-site progress. The lack of a full time site supervisor can adversely affect the quality factor of the triple constraint. This in turn can lead to project delay;

which affects the time factor. Such a finding presents a strong case for adequate funds & resources to be reserved for full time site supervision, especially when managing virtual teams.

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