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Evaluation of budget planning as an effective tool in construction cost control
Five functions of project manager
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1. Introduction
The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River will probably be finished by 2009 and will be the largest hydroelectric dam in the world.
Being the present manager and being appointed by the government at the feasibility stage I am asked to write a report in order to outline the activities required to successfully manage this major project and to ensure that it is completed on time and within budget.
This report will be divided into six parts beginning with an introduction and ending with a conclusion.
At first should the terminology be defined. A project is "a unique set of coordinated activities, with a definite start and finishing point, undertaken by an individual or organisation to meet specific objectives within defined, scheduled costs and performance parameters" (BS 6079-1,200:2, Material of Sunderland 2005, page 5). The individual who undertakes the organisa-tion is usually the project manager. This person plays a special role and is supported by his team.
The project manager leads the project and provides vision, direction and encouragement. The project manager takes lead in project planning to determine the schedule and budgets neces-sary to meet the project objectives and is responsible for delivering the project once the pro-ject has been approved by senior management. The project manager is also responsible for the project support team.
The skills a project manager should have are defined by Richman as people skills, project management skills and technical skills. In the case of such a large project such as the building of the TGD the project manager also needs to have integration skills and great knowledge of the organisation.
All skills mentioned above will be further described within the follo...
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...oard and the support teams, need to collaborate and not only think about their personal gain in order to achieve the goal of completing the project in time.
Bibliography
Book
Field, M. & Keller, L. (1998). Project Management. London: The Open University.
Other
University of Sunderland. (2005). Contemporary Developments Distance Learning Pack: Management of Projects. Sunderland: University of Sunderland.
Microsoft. (1999). Encarta Encyclopedia 99. The Three Gorges Dam.
Internet
1. Wikipedia. (2006) Three Gorges Dam. [Internet]. Wikipedia The Three Encyclopedia. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Dam [10. November 2005].
2. http://www.irn.org/programs/threeg/resettle.html
3. http://civcal.media.hku.hk/threegorges/introduction/default.htm
4. http://www.germannatcom-icold.de/info/index.cgi/page/tgp_exkursion
20 dams have been built, many of them by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, along the River and the tributaries. The Hoover Dam, which holds back at the Black Canyon to form the reservoir Lake Mead, one of the largest artificial lakes in the world. The Glen Canyon D... ... middle of paper ... ... nts for profit along the river's course can hardly complain when a river flows where it's supposed to go.
Grand Coulee Dam is a hydroelectric gravity dam on the Columbia River in Washington State, built by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser It is among the most famous dams in the United States. The reservoir it created is called the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Lake. The reservoir is named after the United States President who seemed to love dams and hydroelectric power and who was involved with the project through to the final completion of the dam. The dam was built as part of the Columbia Basin Project as a way to irrigate the desert areas of the Northwest United States. The dam started during the 1930s as a public works project and finished toward the beginning of World War Two. The initial construction plan was reconfigured during construction for more height. Its height was determined by the point at which the water from the reservoir began backing up into Canada. The scope and size of the dam is hard to comprehend. It is over a mile long and taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza, in fact, all the pyramids at Giza can fit within the base of the Grand Coulee Dam. The dam is so large that a truck at the base looks like a toy, this creates some perspective into the dam's true size. When the dam was completed in the early 1940s it was the largest dam in the world.
Throughout California there is a total of 1,404 dams(KQED). They can be small structures just holding back rivers and streams, or as big as lakes and reservoirs, supplying water to up to 20 different counties. Oroville dam is the largest dam in California and is located just outside of Oroville County near Sacramento.
The region needs the energy that the third dam can provide. Providing affordable power, more jobs and economic stability to a region to promote governmental stability is a great idea. Unfortunately, the one component you cannot remove from the scenario is human effect. Humans are corruptible. With the costs of building the third dam increasing dramatically and private investors participating, it is more and more unlikely that the power generated will be any more affordable than Inga 2. I fear this could send the region into another great war
In the beginning of the construction of the Three Gorges Dam, there were several problems. There were several protestors and opinions about the dam before the Three Gorges Dam project was even started.1 China has had history of several dam failures in the mid-1970s that were responsible for thousands of deaths. The three gorges (Xiling, Wu, and Qutang) have scenery that is a tourist attraction.2 The dam was going to be a little over 600 feet tall, 7500 feet wide, and hold over 97 trillion gallons of water. Because of all of the population increase, China started using coal power plants1 and shipping, which causes acid rain over the region making the Yangtze River is one of the most polluted rivers in the world.4 It does not help that the Yangtze River runs right through Chinas industrial heartland. Using the river to transport their goods to other parts or China adds to the pollution.2 Pollution from mines, hospitals, and garbage dumping is another big problem for the river because the pollution is building up around the dam.1 With the Three Gorges Dam will come landslides because of the rising water tables and the large slopes with unstable soil from local farming causing more sediment being added to the river.3 And because the dam lies on a fault line there will also be an escalation of earthquakes. There is a huge decrease in sediment discharge; which caused a 90% sediment load into thousands of other reservoirs. Before the dam was operational, it was retaining water and sediments.4 The water levels were rising faster than anyone expected, therefore, the finish date had to be moved up.1 Scientists even projected that 70% of sediment discharge would be trapped for the first two decades and 44% would be store...
Director Owen Lammers calls it one of the "largest and most environmentally and socially destructive projects on Earth"(Maier, 1997). One of China’s oldest dreams is becoming its newest reality. Since 1914 the idea has arisen of damming the Yangtze River. China plans to do this with a 600-foot, cement wall which will take eleven years to complete and costs could rise to over 75 billion dollars. The dam is claimed to have many advantages for China and the Chinese. Three Gorges is expected to produce around one-tenth of the nation’s energy, without the use of coal, improving air quality. Also, the natural floods that occur with the Yangtze river will be stopped, supposedly saving thousands of lives in the future. The first thing needed to keep the project going is money, and many United States senators see this as a great opportunity for jobs, but it is also viewed as a good investment. Fortunately, the U.S. Export-Import Bank, (for the first time), "…denied financing solely on environmental grounds"(Giaccia, 1997). These advantages are easily outweighed by the disadvantages of this proposal; this monument threatens the environment, but construction will ensue.
...s very inefficient. Besides hydroelectricity, China has a lot of potential in other alternative energy, like wind energy and solar power. The investment of these alternative energy could be cheaper and faster compare with the large dam. According to the China Academy of Meteorological Sciences, the potential of wind energy is massive, with 235 GW of practical onshore wind power potential and 750GW offshore. For the solar power, China is already a global manufacturer of PV panels which makes it likely to have a large market for grid-tied solar in the future. ("Three gorges dam:," 2008). The Chinese government’s goal is to get 15% of electricity from renewable sources by 2020. With the strong financial and political power of China government, China could become the world leader of energy revolution while protecting the environment and human rights at the same time.
Located next to the town of Sandopuping in south-central China, after 17 years of construction, the Three Gorges Dam is a modern marvel that now stands as the world’s largest hydroelectric dam. It spans 1.3 miles across the Yangtze River, the world’s third largest river, and stands 610ft high. The Yangtze River runs 3,937 miles from the province of Qinghai in eastern China to Shanghai feeding into the East China Sea. The dam may ...
Soon after, the plans were altered to incorporated a giant shipping lane to the reservoir and 26 hydroelectric generators to the dam (Sly 1). The project, which resides on China’s Yangtze river, has entered the second phase of completion. Following the diversion of normal river flow and traffic to a side channel, major construction of the coffer dam, which will reportedly span more than a mile in width, has ensued (Sklar 4). And major is no exaggeration considering the Chinese government is attempting to dam the world’s second largest river. The Three Gorges dam is estimated to be over 600 feet high and result in a reservoir of over 400 miles in length (Lammers 1). The resources and materials to be consumed, beyond the 29 billion dollar cost estimate, are to include: the "3.6 billion cubic feet of rock and soil... to be excavated, 1 billion cubic feet of embankment fill... moved, 900 million cubic feet of plain and reinforced concrete... to be poured, and nearly 300,000 tons of metal structures.
The Hoover Dam is an engineering marvel completed in the year 1935. The dam spans the Colorado River in the Black Canyon, about 30 miles south of Las Vegas. The dam provides hydroelectric power and irrigation in the arid regions of Arizona and California. At the time, it was the tallest dam in the world and it created the largest man made lake in the United States. The dam was built before the luxuries of modern tools and technology, so the workers faced many challenges during the construction. The Hoover dam has an intriguing history, a difficult construction, and used revolutionary technology.
A project manager should be aware of the key challenges and threats an organization would face as well as he/she should have the skills to tackle the crises effectively and efficiently. In addition to that, a project manager should also be able to convey the thoughts and ideas in a convenient manner who is responsible to make a framework for an effective communication to ensure clear communication between the team members even though the style of communication would be different based on the situation.
The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric dam in China that spans the Yangtze River by the...
Project management involves all activities that encompass scheduling, planning, and controlling projects. A successful project manager ensure that an organization’s resources are being used both efficiently and effectively. Most projects need to be uniquely developed require a sense of customization and the ability to adapt to any posed challenges. The scope of effective project management includes defining what the project is and what is being expected to be accomplished. Projects are imposed to fulfill a certain need and project managers must have the ability to create the proper definition. Goals and the means used to attain those goals have to be clearly stated. Project Managers must also have the ability to plan
It is important to have the whole team involved and every team member should about the status of the project and identify there responsibility towards the project success.
When planning a new project, how the project will be managed is one of the most important factors. The importance of a managers will determine the success of the project. The success of the project will be determined by how well it is managed. Project management is referred to as the discipline that entails the processes of carefully planning, organizing, controlling, and motivating the organization resources so as to foster and facilitate the achievement of specific established and desired goals and meet the specific criteria of success required in the organization (Larson, 2014). Over the course of this paper I will be discussing and analyzing the importance of project management.