Executive summary
Many nations are now realising the importance of diversifying their economic trends and options for the benefit of its citizens. Dubai, like many other countries within the Middle East, has a strong economic strength in oil production. Oil, being the rare commodity, enables economies of countries producing it to blossom to envious levels.
Most countries in the Middle East like Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia are recording huge and tremendous growth in the economy because of the available oil deposits. The same is true with the United Arab Emirates. But, owing to the growing concerns of diversification, many have a realisation to invest in other upcoming sectors of the economy as well. It is against this backdrop that Dubai is putting attention on the infrastructural investments in the real estate (Pacione 2005, p. 259).
As one of the seven emirates of the United Arab Emirates, Dubai has cut a niche to be one of the most desirable destinations in the real estate segment to tap the economic potential in this area. The real estate projects are actually growing very fast in this emirate. In fact, the current reports have it that about a third of all the cranes in the world has a role to play in building properties in Dubai. Incidentally, according to the Interpol statistics, the Emirate ranks as one of the safest places to live in the whole world.
This safety makes the investors rush to the Emirate with various development projects. Key among these projects includes tourism and real estate development. However, in order to realise the efficient execution of any real estate project, it is paramount to institute in place adequate planning and control capabilities. The main aim of this paper is to underscore various planning, execution and control problems in a specific real estate project in Dubai. The project under study apparently is the city of Arabia in Dubai (Pérez 2007, p. 38).
Introduction
The city of Arabia is a multi-billion dollar investment in the Dubai suburb at the heart of Dubai land. The projection is that it will offer residency and homes to more than thirty four thousand households upon completion. In addition, it contains the world’s largest Mall, the Mall of Arabia together with the Restless Planet, which is an internationally known dinosaur theme-park.
This makes it assume the position of key destination within the new Dubai. Other important pillars in the region are the restaurants, shopping malls, clinic, administrative offices, and schools that exist within the city (Cooper 2008, p. 103).
The city of Arabia is majorly divides into four elements, which include the Mall of Arabia, the Restless Planet, the Wadi Walk, and the Elite Towers. On the other hand, the Wadi walk consists of a water front community with outdoor cafes, stylish apartments, and attractive retail outlets while the elite tower is a group of thirty four impressively residential and commercial apartments (Bagaeen 2007, p. 183).
Upon completion, the city of Arabia is planning to have its own monorail system for purposes of reducing on the increasing number of people using cars within the city. Other major planning considerations for the city include thirty thousand eight hundred residents who will occupy eight thousand two hundred residential units. In addition to that, there is hope of installing a catchment area that would have a total population of 1.87 million people.
Aim of the study
The aim of conducting this research is to determine the implications of project planning, execution, and control capabilities on project development and progress according to budget, schedule, resource management, and identify opportunities for improvement for water treatment in the city of Dubai.
The city of Arabia has effective strategies of ensuring its real estate sector attain a given threshold that not only meets the ever growing demands owing the new comers in the sectors for investment purposes. The sector is on the rise in terms of turnover rate and the scale in which construction work rates effect from across its growing fronts. In that, it is important to elucidate issues that may hinder effective execution of plans and controlling capacities in this sector.
This is therefore the main area of concern for this case study. The finding would be helpful in guiding the policy makers arrive at a constructive deliberation of not only improving the sector to attain the economic recognition it requires but also boost the entire economy of the emirate. To that end, the following objectives serve the purpose of achieving that mandate:
- To use a study dimension in competitive identification and contraction of the best company to design, develop, and install a water treatment system adhering to the CPM chart, cost estimates, and earned value for the project. The process will ensure the best company with value and price consideration wins the contractual basis in installing this program.
- To identify possible outcomes of the implemented project in terms of project success based on initial budget, schedule, challenges and opportunities for improvement, and appropriately manages available resources.
- Compare the method of installing water treatment system plant with other possible options in an effort of giving reliable and applicable recommendation for the most cost effective alternative.
Project background
Fully functional real estate must have adequate supply of water and effective method of ensuring the sewerage is getting out without polluting the environment. Poor functional sewerage system coupled with lack of water supply could hinder the growth of real estate and therefore act as a stumbling block for the investors interested in this economic segment.
The city of Arabia has the most vibrant real estate mechanism in the world to a level that most investors are currently flocking the country to channel their funds in this sector (Pacione 2005). The rapid growing trend attributes to the fact that the city of Arabia is politically stable and therefore it is among the safest place to live in the world. Investors would in most case analyse the stability of the place they want to invest their funds prior to making decision.
Tourism is flourishing from this flocking of people in the city of Arabia. This continues to mounting pressure on the available accommodation hence the need to keep the real estate sector on the rise. This calls for the need to build more houses to accommodate the ever growing business ventures and the increasing tourism population in the area. These factors are the pillars of increased activities in the city’s real estate development.
Investors have a realisation that they can invest in the sector and the returns would be blossom. The main challenge however, is the ability to effectively supply water and sewage system to these housings. Supply of water and installation of functional sewerage system are an important aspect of maintain the hopes of investors to channel more funds in the real estate section. Without close monitoring of both supply of water and sewage system the entire process would spell doom and drive away the potential investors (Pacione 2005).
It is therefore paramount to identify a company that cannot only design, develop, but also install a water treatment system that adheres to the CPM chart, cost estimates, and earned value for the project. The process will ensure the best company with value and price consideration wins the contractual basis in installing this program.
This project attempts to help clients come up with an appropriate company for these chores. This will save the community and the government lots of funds while also attracting investors to increase their amount of funding and investments in the sector (Project Management Institute 2004).
Problem definition
Real estate’s needs efficient and effective means of ensuring water and sewerage systems function well. This is the most important aspect of real estate business, although the process of installing a plant in the apartment may be expensive for those investing in the business other options of acquiring a contractual person or company to intervene is usually the best option.
The problem for this case study is the ability to acquire and identification in a competitive manner contraction of the best company to design, develop, and install a water treatment system adhering to the CPM chart, cost estimates, and earned value for the project. The process will ensure the best company with value and price consideration wins the contractual basis in installing this program (Lyneis, Cooper, & Els 2001).
Literature review
A project design that gives value to the implementers must have several considerations to sound sensible enough and therefore win the implementation process. For instance, Lee et al (2007) asserts that any viable project must have a clear goal with effective planning in place. Any unplanned work will, at most times, end up incurring lots of debts and inflation of the budgetary allocation.
Prior to commencement of implementation process the budget will spell out the total amount of funds available for the project and this should be the guiding principle for such project. This will give value to the clients. Steffey and Anantatmula (2011) depict that most projects will not see the light of the day if they do not have efficient methods of ensuring certain risks measure is in place.
Risks and other factors that could hinder execution are most likely to occur along the project implementation in case the implementers would not be suspecting or anticipating some of these risks because those tasked with development of the project design were able to deduce any likelihood of such risks owing to poor predictive measures.
Some of the most productive and successful past projects not only in the water and sewerage systems embraces novel technological approaches to solve some of the problems and helps in predicting the efficacy of such work. Technological application in a project plan helps in monitoring the quality and ensuring professionalism in the implementation process.
Flyvbjerg et al (2002) assumes that underestimation of costs and foreseeing some of the likely risks would at most be a major block in ensuring a successful project implementation process. It is thus paramount to ensure prior to the institution of commencement methods in championing the project that strict ways of estimating viable cost for such projects is in place and are justifiable.
Flyvbjerg et al (2002) continues to elucidate the importance of ensuring a proper training of those carrying out the process, training is paramount if the implementers are bound to succeed. A winning project must therefore have well trained resource personnel to ensure its implementation to the terminal stages of completion (Gerk & Qassim 2008; Project Management Institute 2004).
Training and coordination process will help attain this goal however; one clear thing is that if training is effective and efficient it is likely therefore that the process of coordinating the project would also be fruitful. A fruitful and well coordinated project will not only cut the cost of funds misappropriation but also ensure chances of risks arising during the implementation process are minimal and therefore give value to the client (Gardiner & Stewart 2000).
A professional system of management is in fact the most significant aspect of many projects. The management must not only have a plan for installing the project alone but also stays in ensuring the project retains its course and function on a day-to-day event. Most successful and in fact current water and sewerage systems employ technological applications in the management procedures to help cut costs of monitoring and retaining a given quality monitoring process.
The efficiency of resource would also depend on the method of management in place. It is therefore important to include the proposals of clients in the design process, their wish and proposal are integral in shaping the viability and efficacy of such projects. The formulated criterion that guides the project evaluation process is also a pivotal aspect in any feasible project. This is the reason most project need a concrete plan prior to its institution.
The plan must also undergo evaluation process. This process is important in ensuring the identification of possible risks likely to hinder its implementation. In fact, at this stage, it even becomes easy to give a predictive opinion on the entire project. Once effective means and planning procedures are in place, the most significant aspect is the execution process. A project should have a proper schedule that ensures it does not incur additional costs during its implementation and execution.
This schedule will help identify the quantity of resources important for each execution stage. Developing an execution tool is a significant process of ensuring a feasible project attains the value for most clients. In fact, it is true that some of these tools would help check on the possibilities of cost inflation during the implementation and execution process (Gerk & Qassim 2008).
The most successful project that takes into account the cost consideration does not only utilise effective means of planning, execution, and control capabilities to achieve its mandate but also incorporates effective means of ensuring the project attracts potential investments in that economic sections. A CPM chart is one powerful tool that enables one to accomplish several implementation processes of waste and water system.
The program particularly helps in the planning of the project and ensuring some specifications for the initial requirements forms the basis in which the project stands. There is success in some previous projects using the same method in the implementation of the plans, its execution, and ensuring control procedures of the project (Khang & Myint 1999).
Previous similar projects that at least once employed, this technique of elucidating the viability and efficiency of implementing a water and sewerage system depicts a solid return in monitoring the quality of the entire plant. This has the likelihood of cutting down on the costs likely to occur in the process of implementation once the installation is complete.
The city of Arabia is one successful story in the real estate management process, this is triggering the government to find effective means of ensuring the city retains its position as not only the safest place to invest in but also as the best place with effective fully functioning systems supporting some of those key areas of economic mainframes (Balakrishnan 2008; Gardiner & Stewart 2000).
Control measures
A feasible project must have in place proper means of ensuring it troubleshoots on possible problems likely to occur within its implementation process. Putting checks helps in monitoring the entire project and avoids deviation from the initial course. This measure is important in every project design for effective accomplishment and attainment of value for the client. In most instances deviation from the initial plan is likely if the project implementation process is not sticking to the laid procedures.
A project that deviates from its core value will present challenges to the implementers and subsequently diminish on the expected profitability. According to Raz and Erel (2000), any project must have a clear objective of measuring actual processes of executing, comparison of the plans, analysing of any deviation and devising measures of implementing the correct action to restore it on the track.
Control plans would need earlier identification of problem indicators during the planning process way before beginning the execution process. This must also help in monitoring the entire plan. Once a performance criterion is in place, it would be easy to deduce and come up with workable control measures.
Some analytical measures or models prove to integral in helping with analysis of project. Ear value analysis or (EVA) is one of these tools that help in determination of efficiency of a project to help devise some risks likely to come about in the course of plan execution. This helps in budgetary focusing a measure that also ensures the previous performances helps in making decisions for the current deliberations.
Discussions
The case discussion will base its argument on the models of ensuring the project implementation process takes into account the importance of giving value to the clients pricing expectations. It will also bring forth the importance of using CPM charts in devising a concrete measure of giving the cost value as well as the earn value for the project.
The discussion therefore centres on the importance of putting up an elaborate proposal with innovative approaches in an effort to cut down the project costs and the time it takes to accomplish the implementation process while reducing the possible risks that may turn lethal toward its execution and feasibility.
Use of CPM charts
This model has a number of benefits; it ensures existence of an effective monitoring process for the project while also saving on the entire implementation cost. The model is quite cheap because of its simple yet more elaborate nature of analysis. It is from this dimension that this project will rely on to give value for the money of investors wanting to invest in the real estate.
The model is practical because it is likely to occur along the project implementation. In such case the implementers would not be suspecting or anticipating some of these risks because those tasked with development of the project design were not in a better position of deducing any likelihood of such risks owing to poor predictive measures.
The CPM charts helps in evaluation process in which it even becomes apparent that the implementers of a given project would be able to deduce means of setting out corrective measures and offer the value for the investors’ money (Khang & Myint 1999; Mustafa & Ryan 1990).
The government of the city of Arabia would be more willing to fund a more comprehensive method of equipping the real estate economic segment with appropriate measures that helps in restoring a fully functional delivery and eradication of water and wastes respectively.
The team implementing this project would need to assign appropriate duration of monitoring and elucidating control measures. This will help in the process of validation and ensuring the system functions efficiently. This is according Falco & Macchiaroli (1998) who suggests that there is likelihood of project deviating from its initial plan if the environmental change along the implementation process does not exist; it is therefore paramount to institute practical means of generating a feedback measure as well as a corrective approach.
For identification of the best company to set up the water and sewage installation, the most effective process would involve carrying out outsourcing or offering a competitive contractual terms to those companies qualified for the program.
In that, it would be impeccable to base the mode of warding this on terms like the laid strategies of ensuring they complete work in a given period while meeting the anticipated cost, in fact the most crucial aspect is the ability to institute means of ensuring the entire cost of implementation process does not exceed the expectation (Cui et al 2010, p. 367).
Cost estimates
To get an effective means of reducing the entire cost of installing the water and sewage plant, estimation of possible costs liable to the project is the fundamental basis (Khang & Myint 1999; Mustafa & Ryan 1990). In that, devising a comprehensive method of getting a contractor or subcontractor for that case with the best measures but still considering the project feasibility would be a pivotal factor in cost estimation.
The cost of the project implementation must give value to those investing in this economic segment. This means that any method suspected to inflate the value of project implementation should not get priority. Deriving a more competitive method of choosing between the available contractors should be the approach that the project implementers would be thinking of when evaluating the potential of various contractors for this task.
The project manager must ensure these contractors have a mechanism of ensuring their project implementation criterion is complete with effective methods of cutting down the cost. This is the significance of using the above model to deduce a cost effective implementation process. The cost must always reflect on the importance of having the plant in place, most projects would determine the likely outcome form the project upon its completion and compare it with the profitability to predict feasibility.
Earn value
For this to come into existence, the project manager must also ensure the method of making the entire process of getting the best contractor incorporates certain financial consideration (Mustafa & Ryan 1990). The subcontractor or the contractor must demonstrate the ability to ensure the project save the funds and even after its installation would be in a position of earning value for the client.
The clients’ perception is the most necessary consideration because it helps the contractor in designing a picture that portrays the desires and needs of the client. Projects must be in a position to earn value for the clients, a demonstration of this is important would be the key factor in considering the contractors to win the installation process of the project.
Recommendations
The city of Arabia is in the best position of instituting measures of ensuring it retains its current trends in which there is more injection of funds into the real estate segment of economy. The city is luring many investors interested in the real estate. This can only happen if real estate receives the needed attention on its ability to install effective and functional water and sewage system.
A competitive process of getting the best company for this process is only possible if there are proper mechanisms of identifying areas that need attention. It is true that proper installation is important but there should be other consideration to guide the entire process. In that a contractor using specific models to check the cost of the project for instance by employing a CPM chart to elucidate feasibility and cost estimates would be the main factor in considering the possible person to win the installation.
The project manager must ascertain how the methods laid in place to cut the cost of the plant would come into existence without increasing risks of cost inflation. Implementation process is therefore a key procedure for deciding the best candidate for the installation process.
Although the main problem with this sector is poor maintenance of similar systems after installation, the process of ensuring effective monitoring the plant should also be a key considerable factor (Ford et al. 2007). It is also necessary to determine the quality of the plant the contractors would be installing prior to the award of the task. A poorly build plant is likely to incur additional costs in the future and even present some negative signals to investors interested in the sector.
Maintaining quality even after the installation process is another very important consideration. A plan of the contractor must always have this as its pillar. Water and sewerage plants need technological application to enable effective monitoring process of its quality. This should enable the client have it easy in going about the process of evaluating the entire plant even after its installation.
It is, therefore, paramount that the best candidate for this must have some innovative application of technology to help in planning, execution, and monitoring the controls while also giving possible risk indicators to enable the possibility of corrective decision making.
These recommendations would only bind if they are both cost effective and timely. The project manager must ensure institution of a comprehensive method to ensure the project completion is timely within a specific duration and that, however, if the duration extends it should not presents the likelihood of incurring additional cost (Gardiner 2005).
The clients’ mind and expectation in the entire proposal would be the appropriate approach in ensuring it attains its objectives. Most clients would want to get an assurance for the money and time, it is thus important to come up with a competitive company that would guarantee the client of funds invested in the institution and investment.
Conclusion
Any viable project must take into account the importance of the targeted client’s needs. A client would want a project that meets a certain financial projection. It is vital that the project proposal has both means and mechanisms of ensuring the project is viable and meets the needs of the client.
Selection of the best contracting company for a project may not be easy owing to the specific requirements coupled with the unique features that each contractor comes with for the various projects but one thing is clear selection of a competent contractor is most appropriate if it takes into consideration the unique models of cutting costs and guaranteeing the client of the future return upon installation.
For instance, in this case study, if a contractor is able to demonstrate how the CPM chart would help in cutting down the cost of installing water and sewage system in the city of Arabia, that would win the client’s selection because this is the main issue of concern. The model of implementation must ensure adherence to value, profitability, reduced duration of accomplishing the task, ensuring there is proper planning, execution and implementation process (Ford et al. 2007).
A project should have a proper schedule that ensures it would not incur additional costs during its implementation and execution process. This schedule will help identify the quantity of resource important for each execution stage. These features are helpful in ensuring the city installs a more comprehensive and practical plant that would give value for the investors’ money while also serving the rental occupants.
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