Case studies in Project management

Individual assignment – Heathrow Terminal 5

Yadav Sarvesh (B00402390)

 Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Project Stakeholders....................................................................................................................4
Strategies adopted in the project......................................................................................................5
Efficient project Structure design................................................................................................5
Roles and responsibility...........................................................................................................5
Methodology............................................................................................................................6
Control and communication:...................................................................................................6
The Balanced scorecard...............................................................................................................6
T5 Performance management system..........................................................................................7
Key Performance Indicators and measures..............................................................................7
Performance monitoring and improvement:............................................................................7
Just in Time:................................................................................................................................8
Challenges........................................................................................................................................8
Uncertainty:.................................................................................................................................8
Material Handling and Logistic Issues........................................................................................8
Technological Failure..................................................................................................................9
Innovation adopted in process of project management...................................................................9
Overall project.............................................................................................................................9
Sub- Project level.........................................................................................................................9
Continuous improvement project process.................................................................................10
Team management initiatives........................................................................................................10
Finding...........................................................................................................................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................12
 Introduction

London Heathrow airport terminal 5, Two decades of planning and construction, started in
March 2008, Terminal 5 was going to share the weightage of passenger footfall of Heathrow,
which was facilitating over 65 million passengers, with a budget of GBP 4.3 billion. 16 major
projects, 147 sub-projects. This construction project was much more than a terminal construction
it included several other mini projects for example:
 New Transit system
 Rail station
 The diversion for the river system
 87 m High Air Control Tower
 Multi-story car park [CITATION Lon10 \l 1033 ]
London Heathrow terminal five was going to be the hub for the three major airline companies of
the UK namely British Airways, British Midland International, and Virgin Atlantic Airways, and
was capable of handling more than 35 million people annually, However by seeing such huge
numbers project timeline was also very long ranging from 1985 to 2008. The main milestone for
the project timeline was as follows

Initial planning
1985

BAA submit
planning
1993
application

The terminal 5
1995 enquiry begin

The terminal 5
1999 enquiry finishes
 Permission granted
2001 for the construction
if terminal 5

2002 Construction begins

Terminal
2008 inauguration

Terminal 5 construction was one of the most complicated and complex constructions in the UK
construction history as it was way ahead of time, technology, and accessibility. Many challenges
were faced by the team and to overcome that different strategies were adopted by the project
team. Several strategies were adopted by the team, innovative measures were taken to reduce
time and risk.
Project Stakeholders

British Airport Authority: British airport authority owns the majority of the airports in the
United Kingdom, London Heathrow is one of these six airports which BAA owns and operate
generating the revenue of GBP 2.5 billion per year making it one of the largest transportation
company globally. They have given the contract of construction to Laing o Rourke, who was
going to construct over 350,000 squares carpet area in the main building in which 175 elevators
were there, 18 km of conveyor belt for baggage with the help of sixty thousand people, with over
more than forty thousand hours of software engineering manpower, more than hundred and fifty
different IT systems. [ CITATION Far10 \l 1033 ]
British Airways: British Airways is one of the biggest airline companies in the UK. It has a fleet
of more than two hundred and forty-eight planes. They were going to migrate there ninety
percent of their business in Heathrow to terminal 5 as a hub in London.
 Strategies adopted in the project

Strategies adopted for completing the project plays a vital role as they set the vision and direction
for the project to undergo. British Airport Authority has analyzed several projects in the past to
know where things have gone south, accordingly, they have come up with an adaptable and
dynamic approach that could deal with the uncertainties from the past experiences

Efficient project Structure design

The Traditional tree structure approach was implemented for this project. In this structure
management and organization both have equal contributions to the project structure that includes
communication, documentation, different control procedures.
Roles and responsibility: To achieve efficiency in the project structure they have allotted
specific roles and responsibility structure as follows
 Title and Role: Board of Director
Responsibility: Focus on the company mission and vision, Approval of plans (Budget,
Policies, and programs), Monthly and annual meetings, ensure availability of resources to
project team.
 Title and Role: Chief operating officer
Responsibility: Managing operation and daily activities, delivering project ideas to the
particular head, and monitor them accordingly.
 Title and Role: Project Head
Responsibility: Maintaining coordination between a chief operating officer and
Programme manager
 Title and Role: Programme manager
Responsibility: Managing project, monitoring issue, maintaining a relationship with
supplier and management, Budget, Running a project on strategy and policy and
coordination.
 Title and Role: Project Manager
Responsibility: Recruitment, Managing the project, Project planning, Conflict
management, Action log, Daily reporting to stakeholders, monitoring the project, Making
sure milestone is achieved, cost controller, and risk manager.
 Title and Role: Project Leader
 Responsibility: To act as a Leader for the team and support and fulfill the role of the
manager in a small team.
 Title and Role: Project Team member
Responsibility: Participate and execute tasks assigned by the team in charge.
Methodology: The management of Terminal 5 has decided to have effective communication
between stakeholders, project manager, and other project team members and will follow the
standard procedure concerning project management that was published by as Association of
project management and was also approved by the British Airport Authority and other
stakeholders.
To deliver the project successfully British Airport Authority has come up with their agreement
known as the T5 agreement (Discussed further).
Control and communication: The major factor that plays a vital role in project controlling is
the flow of information from lower management to upper management and vice versa so they
have come up with the communication plan which will be helping to overcome form hindrance
that particular member of the project faced during the project. So the communication plan will be
focusing on the below activities
Phase: Tells the phase in which the meeting is.
Who: Who is in charge of the meeting.
Type: Subject.
Purpose: Topic to discuss.
How: medium used for the meeting.
When: Frequently of team members will meet.
Whom: Participant of meeting
Deliverable: Outcome of meeting.
This plan will help to remove the confusion and fluent flow of communication.

There was Balanced scorecard-based performance system was developed for the terminal 5
projects.
The Balanced scorecard
It is a strategic measurement system designed keeping in focus on the four perspectives namely
Financial, Customer, Internal Process, and Learning and Growth. The main objective to develop
this scorecard is to establish0tangible0performance indicator concerning the function of the
project.
It also acts as a link between the factor or concept which manager can’t connect in a project such
as:
 Short term vs Long term objectives
 Financial measures vs operational measures
 Internal performance vs external performance
In Heathrow Terminal 5 project performance management system has created a fresh approach
which connects all the stakeholder, contractors to achieve the objective.

T5 Performance management system

Key Performance Indicators and measures: The main objective of this criteria to steer
the project objectives. To ensure stakeholders are identified for each task and set the
benchmarks and requirements so that tasks can be completed by the first attempt. It also
helps stakeholders to monitor progress and know the difference between planned versus
actual progress of the project.
Performance monitoring and improvement:

Embedded performance management in Terminal 5: Implementation of balanced

scorecard management for terminal 5 was continued with two more initiatives for the
projects.

 The terminal agreement

 A four-tiered approach for quality culture.

The terminal five agreement was made between the British Airways Authority and
several other contractors in which they have agreed to ensure the whole 1-billion-pound
project so that they can shoulder risk with every other contractor and supplier which will
also be helping to identify risk in its initial phase and they can come up with the best
solution.
For the quality culture that will link team members and suppliers with interrelated four-
tier approach, Introduced in 2005.
1. Stakeholder engagement
2. Quality centric culture
3. Communication campaign
4. Best practices for quality assurance
 The stakeholder engagement and commitment focus on relationships with project leaders
and suppliers to get the quality supplies at the right time to buy-in and commitment. The
quality-centric culture will help to maintain regular quality checks with the help of
regular workshops, briefing, help to create awareness. Commitment campaign, the third-
tier approach will help to maintain efficient communication between all the members of
the project which will be including a quality logo. Communication workshops. The fourth
tier of quality in which research has been done to choose the best practices that align with
KPI. Which was followed by supervisor training that they need to supervise efficiently
and effectively.
Monitoring and Improvement: Each sub-project team in the mega project (Airfield,
Heathrow express, Integrated baggage system, etc.) was recorded, measured, and
monitored on the monthly basis and by that reports are classified as a Balance scorecard.
After the analysis of the performance of each subproject, they were highlighted by the
three different color Red, Yellow, and Green which defines project current position
concerning project planned position to a deadline.
6000 Nonconformance report (report in construction industry used to know the deviation
in work regarding the quality assurance) were made during the project which cost 0.6
percent of the whole project budget. [CITATION Afr09 \l 1033 ]
Just in Time:
Just in time approach was used by the management in this project as it will be creating less
liability and cost for the storage, risk can also be mitigated which helps them to get ab better and
efficient supplies.

Challenges

Some challenges are faced by every project. The bigger the project bigger the challenges
Heathrow terminal 5 was one of the biggest projects in Europe and was faced several issues
while the construction of the project.
Uncertainty:
At the time of construction, several uncertainties were faced by Heathrow Terminal 5 was an
environmental change, Tunnel collapse to recover those uncertainties was a hindrance. Delay in
Construction of Heathrow airport also lead to change the statistic and Terminal 5 was late by 5
years and was estimated to be 80 percent more costly.[CITATION FUg08 \l 1033 ]
Material Handling and Logistic Issues
One of the major challenges in 2006 while making of Terminal was material and logistics as
there was only a single door to the entrance of the building and there that makes the handling and
flow material very difficult to manage.
Technological Failure
One of the major challenges faced by the project manager when the baggage IT system was
tested and due to some technical issue it was unable to match the number of passengers to the
number of bags which was seen as chaos as the baggage system was base for everything in the
terminal.

Innovation adopted in process of project management

Taking Heathrow Terminal 5 construction, it can be classified as Megaproject and process for
megaproject are same, efficiency and effectiveness define the success of the project. Initially,
everyone was in doubt whether any company would be able to complete the project and
resources will be sufficient or not.
Innovative thinking changed the way of thinking in several ways. Research has been done to
seek the opportunities, there were two levels of the organization where an innovative approach
can change the outcome.
Research organized two-level where innovative capability in response to uncertainty.
 Overall project
 Subproject level

Overall project
The main uncertainty which can affect the whole project or can be a threat need the attention of
senior project management or the concerned authority. One of the major uncertainties that
happened when the Heathrow express project was ground to0stop0and standstill due to tunnel
collapsed. In this situation due to cost- a reimbursable approach was adopted project director and
manager have full freedom to act the way they wanted which has the most efficient outcome
which resulted in the completion of the project within limited deviation.[CITATION Uke18 \l
1033 ]

Sub- Project level

Megaprojects have many sub-projects, In Heathrow Terminal 5 there were many sub-projects for
example, Construction of main building and facilities that includes airbridge, air traffic control
tower, main terminal structure, etc. For completing the project, individual project managers need
the liberty to have decided to find the solution for the uncertainties if happen. In all this overall
project was initially planned by digital modeling which helps to know the real risk that can be
faced during the construction because of the use of this technology risk assessment was done and
the project was completed in time. [ CITATION And09 \l 1033 ].
Continuous improvement project process
This process main objective of this process is to maintain best practice in the project, so British
Airport Authority decided to go with this process as they have already used in their mini project
but never in mega projects. This process work on the key principles:
 Safe projects
 A consistent process
 Design standard
 Standard component
If anyone will see the progress cycle of Terminal 5 of Heathrow in which the focus of the
management team was to reduce the risk with the appropriate action so that risk can be migrated
or reduced. Many experts believe that continuous improvement project process was key to the
success of Terminal 5 which helps all the project managers of subprojects to handle.
Many scenarios happened which proved the effectiveness of this process as the main objective of
the process in this project is to address the risk or issue regarding the standard, process, and
framework latest to management so appropriate action would be taken as early as possible.
[ CITATION Het \l 1033 ] Baggage handling system: The baggage system installed in Terminal
5 was not able to identify and deliver the bags at the right destination as it was one of the longest
baggage conveyor system globally at that time, this issue was addressed immediately to the top
management and right measures were taken because of which it was corrected at the right time.

Team management initiatives

The Delivery of Terminal 5 was possible in time was due to the concept known as integrated
teams. It was brought by the technical director of the project who has already used it in his
previous projects while he was working for a major pharmaceuticals company in which with the
help of this concept he was able to control the budget which was going to get double in its
estimated total. British Airport authority also hired a project troubleshooter who had experience
in the oil and gas industry as well as the pharmaceutical industry. He immediately stopped the
project and decided to change the project team member and decided to move different
approaches focusing on Leadership, simplicity, and liberty.
The focus was on the creating team which was in three-part: The main contractor, the Architect
engineer team, and the client team. All the supplier was contracted through an open-book
contract which helps to negotiate the cost as they were reimbursable which provide better
collaboration with the project team. The British Airport Authority technical director oversaw
Engineering and architect team and was leading 400 member at one stage few incidents
happened and because of team integration help ease the process such as Heathrow Express:
This project was going to fail when one tunnel collapsed, Mace, AMEC, Laing O'Rourke, Morgan
Vinci JV were the in charge of the project and they decided to stop the project due to heavy losses and loss of
time but due to early identification of failure, BAA came forward to help them with the collaboration of BAA
with them concerning budget, time and delivery of project they started the project again and it was completed
within the timeframe.[ CITATION Lea06 \l 1033 ]
 Finding

By going through the Project, it can be seen that there were some management issues in which
material a logistic were affected as well as the efficiency. Poor stakeholder management was one
of the main reasons for project growth as approval for the project initials has taken lots of time,
failure of an integrated system. Terminal 5 project was way too complicated as it construction of
the main building flow was also complicated which results in confusion in the British Airways
employees for the search of resources they needed.

Conclusion

Despite the several challenges, Heathrow Terminal 5 was successful due to innovation, structure
project was structured that leads to a high standard with low overall cost. British Airport
Authority plays a significant role in the project which helps them to identify risk early and
overcome it without damaging much.
The Team integration and Innovative process such as the continuous improvement process which
helps to track and maintain the flow of communication and quality of the project also led to the
TQM approach which helps safety and fluent process.
There were many issues such as management, Logistics, and the technical problem was found
out, but it was resolved quickly that wouldn’t affect the project due to the better skills set of the
manager and team members.
Initially, at the starting of the Terminal operation, there were several issues were faced regarding
the application of IT in the terminal but it was a lack of practices and skills that were required to
operate as in the present time everything in terminal 5 is operating efficiently.
In the end, we can say that the work that was done in Heathrow terminal 5 was appreciatable as
there was a lack of management and communication, major issues such as baggage, Heathrow
express, team manager and leader and all other members of the staff was able to utilize
resources and complete the project in time and within the budget which is rare in Megaproject in
the construction industry.
 References

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CHris Little.
Davies, G. D. a., 2009. Innovation in megaprojects: system integration at London Heathrow
terminal 5. California management review, 51(2), pp. 101-125.
Davis, A., 2009. Innovation in project mnaagement: Systems Integration at London Heathrow
Terminal 5. California management review, 51(2), pp. 101-128.
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Fugeman, H. a. W., 2008. Heathrow terminal 5: Delivery in strategy. Proceeding of the
instituion of Civil engineers-civil engineering, 161(5), pp. 10-15.
Hethrow terminal 5 (n.d.) assignment champion.
Learning to manage mega project: The case of BAA and Heathrow terminal 5 (2006) Tim Brady,
Andrew Davies, Howard Rush.
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Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
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[Accessed 16 april 2021].
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[Accessed 20 April 2021].