CEIM-SET Congratulates the Graduates of 114th Batch

We would like to congratulate the new graduates who received their diploma during the 114th AIT Graduation Ceremony on December 17, 2010. The names of graduands and their Thesis/Project title are listed below:

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEGREE (CEIM)

1. Rajwanlop Kumpoopong

A Hybrid Stochastic/Mechanistic Model for Determining Bridge Condition Rating

MASTER OF ENGINEERING DEGREE (CEIM)

1. Kittichai Kanjanakantika

Risk Factors Affecting Business Diversification in a Real Estate Company

2. Vuong Hai Khoa

Supply Chain Management: A Case Study of Construction Companies in Vietnam

3. Tinn Withayawaragul

Relationship Between Project Phases and Stock Performance: A Study in Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET)

MASTER OF ENGINEERING DEGREE (PROFESSIONAL)

(Area of Specialization: Project Management in Construction)

1. Nguyen Chau Dieu An

Project: A Critical Appraisal of Briefing Clients in the Construction Process: A Case Study of Residential Project

2. Hoang Thi Hai Anh

Project: Risk Management in Price Adjustment Contract: A Case Study of a Construction Project in Vietnam

3. Dang Tuan Anh

Project: Risk Management of Basement Construction Affecting Adjacent Buildings: A Case Study of Construction Project in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

4. Truong Thai Binh

Project: Owner's Involvement in the Preliminary Stage of Real Estate Development: A Project Case Study in Vietnam

5. Nguyen Phan Hoa Binh

Project: Integrated Project Management Assessment for a Development Property Project at the Capital Fund in Vietnam

6. Le Nam Binh

Project: Owner's Project Schedule Management for High-Rise Office Building Projects: A Case Study of the Construction Project of Petrovietnam Finance Centre in Danang City

7. Nguyen Hung Cuong

Project: Delay in Planning, Design and Construction: A Case Study of Residential Development Project in Ho Chi Minh City

8. Le Ngoc Diep

Project: Risks Affecting Construction Cost in Vietnam

9. Do Tran My Thuy

Project: Risk Management in the Design of Large-Scale Construction Projects: Case Studies of an Urban Area and a Highrise Building Project

10. Truong Ngoc Dung

Project: Effectiveness of Feasibility Study Analysis in an Apartment Building Project: A Case Study of a Two Towers-Twenty Six Storey Apartment Project in Ho Chi Minh City

11. Nguyen Duy Thien Giang

Project: Claim Management and Analysis: Case Study of a High Rise Building Project

12. Trinh Thi Thu Ha

Project: Environmental Impacts Assessment in Nam Ly Bridge - Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

13. Vo Si Hoai

Project: Schedule Planning and Control in an Engineering, Procurement and Construction Project: The Case of a City Hall Project

14. Le Quang Khanh

Project: Owner's Organization Project Management Maturity: The Case of Petrolimex Saigon

15. Nguyen Trung Kien

Project: Project Owner's Quality Management System - The Case of Sails Tower Project

16. Tran Thanh Liem

Project: Project Management Life Cycle and Risk Management in a New Residential Development Project in Vietnam: The Case Study of the Fifth Street New Residential Project (D2D's Company) and its Secondary Project (Berjaya-D@D Join Venture Company)

17. Nguyen Cao Bao Luat

Project: Design Management in a Design-Build Project Based on the Design Team of Contractor Perspective

18. Vo Dinh Nguyen

Project: Project Management Practice in a Small and Medium Vietnamese Contractor: The Case of Nhat Dang Company

19. Do Huu Phuoc

Project: Owner's Project Life Cycle Approach: The Case of Rubber Plantation Project in a Vietnam Rubber Company

20. Tran Duc Quang

Project: Project Organizational Structure Roles and Responsibility - The Case of Marriott Five-Star Hotel

21. Chona Salvatus Salvahan

Project: Minimizing the Impact of Change Order to Project Costs

22. Nguyen Duy Duc Thu

Project: A Feasibility Study of a Curtain Wall Testing Company in Hanoi

23. Nguyen Le Thuan

Project: Owner's Project Control Strategy

24. Le Mien Thuy

Project: Method and Effectiveness of a Feasibility Study for an Apartment Project: The Case of Carina Plaza Building

25. Nguyen Thu Trang

Project: Application of Fidic Contract in a Bridge Project: The Case of Can Tho Bridge

26. Tran Thi Thien Trang

Project: Assessment of Risks on the Design Management Aspects in Luxury Hotel Development Projects: The Case of Le Meridien Saigon Hotel

27. Nguyen Duc Trong

Project: Organizational Project Management Structure in a Real Estate Developer Company: The Case of Namlong Corporation

MASTER OF SCIENCE DEGREE (PROFESSIONAL)

(Area of Specialization: Project Management in Construction)

1. Mr. Nguyen Duc Thanh

Project: Risk Factors in Vietnam Power Plant Projects: A Case Study of Nhon Trach Power Plant and Camau Gas Power Fertilise Projects

2. Tran Van Trung

Project: The Delay Factors in EPC Contracts in Vietnam: The Case of Uong Bi Thermal Power Plant

3. Mr. Vo Quoc Vinh

Project: Contractual Risks of SME Contractors - A Case Study a of Mechanical and Electrical Contractor

Greetings from CEIM/MPM

Dr. B. H. W. Hadikusumo, Dr. Chotchai Charoenngam and the CEIM/MPM staff wish you a blessed and bountiful year 2011!

Design Management for Architectural Project: A Case Study of PVMTC – Petrovietnam Building Project

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Success factors for financial sustainability of toll road project in China

The rapid growth of the Chinese economy calls for massive development of infrastructure and assets. Over the past 10 years a national trunk highway system and a network of urban and provincial expressways have emerged in China (World Bank, 2003). A World Bank (2003) research estimated that highway investments in China significantly increased in the late 1990s and reached 2.5 percent of GDP. Still, an estimated $75-100 billion needs to be invested in highway construction over the next 15 years. Toll road is one of infrastructure project that has high ability to attract private investment since it is able to recover directly the costs of its operation and construction through toll charges. While this brings a lot of opportunities to project stakeholders, it also contains various risks that can bring the result that the real project outcomes are very much lower than the expected.

Ms. Truong Thi My Thanh made a study which main objective was to develop the model of success factors for Chinese toll roads to achieve financial sustainability in planning and executing stages and recommend proper consideration from key stakeholders to ensure that toll road project can be sustainable and more attractive to private investment. To complete the main objectives, following sub objectives were explored:

1. Investigate the cost and financial performance of toll roads in China to find out significant attributes influence on the difference of estimated and actual outcomes

2. Investigate the impact of above factors to project finance for short term and long term sustainability.

3. To propose the model for financial sustainability of toll roads in China and provide recommendations for policy makers, international lending institutes and toll road developers as required consideration in planning stage to enhance the certain of financial condition and control the financial sustainability in executing stage.

Conclusions

Toll road is one of infrastructure project that has high ability to attract private investment since it is able to recover directly the costs of its operation and construction through toll charges. Toll road development can be attractive to investors and lenders only if the financial and economic benefit can be met. Financial sustainability is the essential part of this entire criterion, with many attributes should be considered. It is true that the financial sustainability of toll road depends on the performance of all stakeholders involve in project from initial phase to the end of project life cycle. Planning and executing stages are the most important and have high impact to project financial sustainability. Proper considerations to the significant attributes in these two stages need to be taken from involved stakeholders to ensure that long-term survival and sustainability are achieved.

The purpose of studying toll road performance and the impact to financial sustainability is to (1) indentify the significant factors impact to project financial sustainability in planning and executing stages, and (2) recommend proper consideration from key stakeholders to ensure that toll road project can be sustainable and more attractive to private investment.

The study was carried out by examining seven Chinese toll roads with different development model. The focus was to investigate toll road development model, the participation of stakeholders and the risks they had to face with. After that, in-depth analysis is on (1) financial sources (2) financial usages and investment cost variation (3) revenue base (4) operating performance (5) financial benefit and (6) financial sustainable situation. Those attributes were investigated in combination with the involvement of key stakeholders related to projects. A qualitative research was prepared where the data collection techniques are case studies.

From the analysis, the factors impact to project financial sustainability can be divided into five levels (1) Policy support (2) Regional development (3) Fund raising model (4) Project development (5) Financial structure. All these factors are essentially important for project developer’s consideration.

Policy support: This factor covers four significant attributes (1) Government assurance (2) Land acquisition and resettlement policy (3) Toll rate structure and tolling adjustment and (4) Penalty regulation for truck over load. Government assurance provides the legal support to negotiate with ADB/WB to get the loan. The policy support for land acquisition activities reduces the risks of delay and cost overrun. Additionally, the proper toll rate setting and fixed frequency of tolling adjustment ensure the certainty of revenue stream and help toll road developer can foresee the profit. Lastly, the strictly penalty is needed for truck over loading to reduce the maintenance cost of toll roads.

Regional development: Financial sustainability extremely depends on the certainty of project revenue stream which significantly impacted by master plan of regional development. The study found that appropriate point time of investment base on socio-economic situation ensures proper traffic flow after toll road start to operate. Additionally, toll road projects constructed in combination with the upgrading of local toll road network and industrial zones promise the high traffic growth rate and higher revenue stream in the future.

Fund raising model: The study found out that securitisation model for Chinese toll road development has the highest level of long term financial sustainability, because the local government provides very high level of grant and subsidy. Government build and operate model has quite high ability of financial sustainability but lower than securitisation model. Project establishes very high level of contingencies budget even the total cost will increase. Additionally, local government subsidise the over budget of construction cost, hence there will no increase in short term debt and current liabilities. Cooperative joint venture model of toll road in China has lowest level of financial sustainability since it uses very high debt to equity ratio; the debt mostly comes from domestic bank with high interest rate and high interest during construction. Project is developed separately with the improvement of local road network and the expansion of industrial zones because there is limited source of fund of investors.

Project development: It was found that four significant problems closely go along with the development of toll road project, they are inappropriate preparing in feasibility study, improper land acquisition planning, delay in land acquisition implementation and not timely approval of works variations and equipment procurement from ADB/WB. Changes between feasibility design and detailed design because of improper feasibility preparation was the most significant reason caused civil work and land acquisition cost overrun. Resettlement plan, compensation standard and the difference in acquiring temporary and permanent land was carried out ineffectively caused over budget of land cost. Limited budget contributes to the delay of land acquisition activities. The delay of project completion also involved with the insufficient feedback on report ADB/WB required from project executing agency hence delay in resolving problems and difficulties that occurred during project implementation.

Financial structure: This factor covered five significant attributes; they were (1) Debt to equity ratio of capital investment, (2) Government grant, (3) Source of debt, (4) Source of equity and (5) emergency budget for financial consumption overrun. It was found that the D/E split which was used to develop toll road project in China mostly based on the financial health of local government rather than the ability to generate revenue of project itself. The grant from central government was just used to improve some section of feeder roads, hence the amount mostly based on the length and socio-economic condition of the projects while grant from local government was significantly based on the benefit that local government could receive from project. The result showed that the amount of ADB/WB loan had very high impact to financial structure of investment capital since it reduces the debt from domestic bank and the percentage of grant. The study also found out that local government was not yet successful to attract private participation since equity from private sectors still played minor part of investment capital. When project got construction cost overrun project owners used three sources of emergency budget cover investment overrun, they were short term loan from domestic banks, local government subsidy and contingencies budget. Government build and operate model used highest contingencies budget and received fully support in the context of subsidy from local government. Whereas cooperative joint venture model had to find the loan from domestic bank since it used low contingencies budget and not received any subsidy from local government.

Recommendations for critical factors model

The development model for financial sustainability of Chinese toll road has been structured in considering long term and short term impact. Based on the findings from the information of diverse situation, the model has been structured on policy support, regional development, organisational model, project development and financial structure levels. The recommendations for key stakeholders involves in toll road project have also been provided to enhance the financial sustainability of toll road development. The applicability of critical factors model will help policy makers, toll road developers and international lending organisation (ADB and WB) to foresee the sustainability of financial condition of toll road in planning stage through proper master plan for regional development, policy support and effective organisational model. Additionally, the findings also help toll road developers to control and enhance the financial sustainability in executing stage through the risk mitigation instrument in each development step, proper financial structure of investment capital and appropriate sources of fund as emergency budget for financial consumption overrun. Lastly, the applicability of the findings not only used for Chinese toll road developers but for stakeholders in other emerge economy countries as well.

Quality Management in Construction Projects: A Case Study of Quality Management in Construction Projects of an Oil and Gas Company

Currently, although businesses involved in construction activities apply quality management systems, but in practice there are a lot of poor works that worry people and society. Consequences of poor quality will damage property and waste money of business and community, and it also cause danger to people.

To ensure the effective application of quality management for construction projects, it requires the strong commitment of business leaders and implementation of multiple solutions. Applying this effective quality management will bring many potential benefits for businesses. Mr. Le Van Thong made a research which main objectives were: (1) determination of quality management activities in the construction in the Oil and Gas Company; and (2) to discuss and review the effectiveness of quality management in construction of the Oil and Gas Company

Conclusions

Quality management system has been applied by PTSC companies in their projects. It brings success to the company for many years now, and became a famous company in the international market in oil and gas technical services industry in Vietnam. They are the useful tools to avoid and mitigate problems and to improve quality performances of the following projects. They are the principles that management use to achieve effective cost control, quality control, schedule control etc. Many civil and industry construction Corporations, companies in developed countries have been applied the successful Quality Management and got more profits and reduced lost time and cost for reworks. They recognize the importance of the Quality Management and have responsibilities to identify, assess, prevent and manage all breakdowns and risks to projects, damage to property and working environment.

The quality improvement programs establish actions for achieving the objectives and targets, in line with the policy commitment of continuous improvement. When establishing targets, the following will be taken into consideration:

- Who do? How? Who supervise the provision of information; as executive / coordination / control is assigned in advance and all agents involved must comply.

- The system clearly and closely flexibility have created a positive consequence of works completed on schedule, ensure quality and safety.

Effectiveness of the implementation quality management:

After implementation of the quality management, there are some achieved results as below:

1. Quality Assurance is to obtain completed construction that meets all contract requirements. Assurance is defined as a degree of certainty. Quality assurance personnel continually assure that the contractor's works comply with contract requirements.

2. Quality Control is the successful execution of a realistic plan to ensure that the required standards of quality construction will be met. In QC, the contractor defines procedures to manage and control his own, designer of record, consultant, architect-engineer, all subcontractor and all supplier activities so that the completed project complies with contract requirements. For design-build contracts, this includes providing and maintaining a Design Quality Control plan as a part of the overall contract QC plan. This plan, as a minimum, must assure that all documents are reviewed by a technically competent independent reviewer specifically named in the plan. This review cannot be performed by the same designers that produced the product. The design QC plan must be managed by a Design QC Manager who has verifiable engineering or architectural design experience or is a registered engineer or architect. The Design QC Manager is under the supervision of the QC Manager.

Recommendations

1. The performance of Quality Management must be carried out permanently in the company to prevent all budget overrun, progress slow, reworks maybe happening from the existing projects and future projects.

2. The performance of Quality Management must be concerned from the top management to everybody in the company.

3. Examine the quality control methods being used to determine if the contractor is properly controlling design activities in design-build contracts.

4. Examine the quality control methods being used to determine if the contractor is properly controlling construction activities.

5. Make certain that the necessary changes are made in the contractor's QC system, if excessive construction deficiencies occur.

6. Assist the contractor in understanding and implementing the contract requirements.

7. Examine ongoing and completed work.

8. Produce the quality specified in the plans and specifications and for design-build contracts in the Request for Proposal, as well as the contractor's accepted proposal.

9. Develop and maintain an effective QC system.

10. Perform all control activities and tests.

11. Prepare acceptable documentation of QC activities.

His thesis abstract is copied and posted.

Abstract

In an organization or business will have a lot of construction projects, any project also is importance. Ensure the quality of the project is very important for each organization. Aware of that, the quality management has been applied widely in their construction projects. But how apply the successful model of quality management for a construction project that is still a big question.

Organizations in Vietnam as some other countries, in fact, the signers disclaim the possibility of anticipating and detailing everything in the construction documents. Second, it is unstable for the construction environment. The complexity and size of project vary. Working conditions cannot be somewhat control. The employee is variable; its composition, motivation and size change. Cooperation between contractor and subcontractors is problematic. Those will affect the quality management of construction projects and it makes the project to delay, re-work and increase cost.

So, how to manage the quality of the construction project effectively? This thesis will research about quality management in construction project through theory and real case that is applied in PTSC Production Services Company.

Investigation of Change Order Management: A Case Study of Oil & Gas Projects

Oil and gas project is very complex and changes could easily happen anytime. These projects mostly are huge with many phases such as engineering, procurement, fabrication, installation, pre-commissioning, commissioning for offshore facilities, and oil and gas platforms. They are considered to be very risky because of their complications and difficult conditions with high level of safety and requires big amount of money. Therefore cause of changes should be identified and classified.

Mr. Le Dang Thuc made a research which main objective was to study the change order management in EPC Oil & Gas Projects. The other objectives of his research were to: (1) investigate the different kinds of change order in oil and gas project; (2) assess the impact of change order in terms of cost and time; (3) investigate the change order process in oil and gas project; and (4) recommend ways to improve change order management in oil and gas.

Conclusion

Administering impact of change order in EPC oil and gas project is very significant to reduce time and cost and guarantee the success of the project. In order to do that, management of cost and time attached special importance to invest and innovate. There are five key concepts to manage impact with cost such as design cost breakdown structure, cost estimating, setting contingency, cost monitoring & control. The setting of contingency in contract price is to cover the cost in order to reduce risk and the unforeseeable events. To manage change order in term of time, the baseline and progress must be updated and reported.

In this study, several cause of change order were identified: alteration to specification, alteration to scope of work, alteration to contract, alteration to schedule, in which activity is unsafe under certain conditions; activity does not meet legal or regulatory requirements and others (example weather, political climate, etc).

Impacts of change order

According to five case studies, the impacts of change order in terms of additional cost are alteration to Scope of Work, alteration to Specification, others (Bad weather, Crane broken), and activity is unsafe under certain conditions. While the impacts of change order in terms of time are alteration to scope of work and others (Bad weather, broken Crane). Frequent types of change order were also identified such as alteration to scope of work, alteration to specification; activity is unsafe under certain conditions, Others (Bad weather, broken Crane), and alteration to schedule.

Time and cost impacts play an important role to prevent more extra time and cost during the execution. In CNV cases, it showed that the cost impact in construction phase is almost always high, as it is related to changes in costs of materials, risks in construction, designing, under pressure of schedule progress, and labor requirements during certain times of year, etc. Contract management is very complex and involves many phases, especially in oil and gas projects. Factors such as time, cost and quality have been managed strictly and change order forms are core parts of contract administration.

After studying and analyzing five different case studies, it has been found that the main cause of change order is the alteration to scope of work (78%). This happens due to reason such as change decision, change basis of design, location, and lack of estimation of scope of work. Alteration to scope of work is also the most cautious change order. This should pay more attention in contract dealings and should avoid happening. If there are alterations to scope of work, it will affect so much to project in term of cost and scheduling of project. Alteration to scope of work should be reduced and become a lessons learned for future project.

Change Order Process

Change order procedure is very significant to manage changes. This thesis shows a procedure for oil and gas project with 3 scenarios:

1. Client Originated changes - In the event that the Client requests the Contractor to prepare an estimate for a potential change, it shall be made formally by an instruction in writing from the Client. After the review and data input including time and cost, cause of change, the contractor will send VR to client for approval within a time frame. The client will check the VR with their requirement and issue a Variation order to execute project.

2. Contractor originated changes - Contractor identifies the change. They check the change in terms of time and cost, the relation with Client account, and then send to Client for review and approval. Within reasonable time, Client shall endorse the VR and return to Contractor. Client will follow this up with the issuance of VO.

3. Subcontract related changes - When changes occur, Subcontractor may consider giving rise to a claim for additional costs. The Subcontractor will immediately notify the Contractor via official communication. The Contractor responds by reviewing and approves the SVR.

These procedures will help company to be ready to cope with the change, as well as support for smooth execution of the project. To implement this procedure, all member need to understand and each step must be clear. To improve change order, system should be audited many times and innovated after seeing the mistake of sequence. The Project manager responds to guide all parties and all member of project team for clear and ready application.

Recommendation

In order to reduce change order, the project management system should be improved and include the following factors:



His thesis abstract is copied and posted.

Abstract

Oil and gas projects are very complex with huge budget therefore they are easy to raise change during execution of project. A lot of factors affect the project during execution of the project. Many problems could happen unforeseeably to the upcoming part of the project. Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) process is complex and related to a large variety of variables therefore occurrence of changes in the scope of work is almost inevitable. Many factors such as financing, definition of work and regulatory matters also insert a certain degree of uncertainty into the project. The management of the change is very significant to prevent the impact of change order. Management system and identification cause of change should be play important role. The finding out what is repetitive causes will help Project team has a focal point to manage change order.

The causes of change are classified into 7 types which are based on the various parameters such as specification, scope of work, contract, schedule, etc. All of these changes are defined and analyzed.

In order to know how they administer in term of time and cost impact, this research has been assessed the 5 case studies and analysis is based on the cost estimate system, cost control, planning. Control research refers to the change order management system as per historical data of projects to identify the cause and the impact of change order. After studying and analyzing five different case studies, it has been found that the repetitive cause of change orders are alteration to scope of work. This happens due to the poor project management systems as estimation system, change decision, change basis of design, location, lack of estimation of scope of work and change order procedures.

Change order in oil and gas sector require leaders who can balance budgets and launch schedules and stay on task, because if a project is deemed too costly or late, it can delay the whole mission for months. Cost impact in construction phase is very high; therefore it is needed to pay attention during this period. To reduce change order, the scope of work should be clear. Cost estimates system use contingency in estimating a budget to cover rick, labor, project management system use responsibility break down, select expert vendor to supply material.

Time Impact in design phase is highest because of the following lack of communication, many deviations in design, change location and change design basis.

It is necessary to establish a change order procedure system to ensure effective project execution. A change management system will help a company to be ready to cope with changes and support smooth execution of projects.

Special Purpose Vehicle in Toll-Road Project Development: A Case Study of the National Highway 14 Project in Vietnam

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