Critical Evaluation of a Real World Project: Kuala Lumpur Airport

This report critically evaluates the success of Kuala Lumpur International Airport project based on various criteria. It analyzes the background, design, cost, time, management, and popularity of the project. The report also discusses the drawbacks of the project and provides recommendations for future projects.

Running Head: PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Critical Evaluation of a Real World Project: Kuala Lumpur Airport
Name of the Student
Name of the University

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Executive Summary
A project is generally considered to be successful when all the initial criteria like time, cost and
outcome have been met and also successfully fulfils the requirement of the customer. However,
with advanced complexity in projects, a project may be considered to be successful from one
point of view whereas can also be considered as failure from another point of view.
The Kuala Lumpur International Airport was built in 1998 to handle around 25 million
passengers every year. Based on the initial conditions, pre-determined factors and the customer
reviews, the project is generally considered as successfully.
In this particular report, the case study is being analyzed to determine a standard criterion that
can be used for considering the project as successful or failure.

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Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................3
2.0 Background of the Company and Project Case.........................................................................3
3.0 Discussion and Critical Review of the Project Case.................................................................5
4.0 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10

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1.0 Introduction
The success criteria of a project is a complex matter as from different perspectives, the
project may seem to be successful or failure at the same time. Hence, in order to determine the
end result of the project, it is important to select a particular point of view or criteria through
which the project can be measured. Some examples of projects are the Sydney Opera House and
London Millennium Dome. The first project is considered as success in terms of the people’s
points of views and as a landmark but is considered as a big failure in terms of investment and
time spent for the construction (Kiliç & Kaya 2015, pp.399-410). On the other hand, the latter
project is successful in terms of investment and time but the people were not happy about the
architectural design and the glamour of the structure. For the analysis of project success or
failure, the chosen project for this report is the construction of Kuala Lumpur International
Airport. From normal point of view in terms of project management as well as the functions, the
project can be considered as successful but there are some other factors that affect the success
status of the project.
In this report, the case study of Kuala Lumpur International Airport has been analyzed
and the standard criteria have been discussed in order to conclude whether the project can be
concluded as successful.
2.0 Background of the Company and Project Case
Due to the rapid growth of Malaysia in terms of economy and industry in the 1980s, the
need for rapid transportation of cargo and passengers was increasing at a very significant rate. At
that time, there was only one international airport in Malaysia i.e. the Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah

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Airport. With the increasing number of passengers and cargo, the government took initiatives to
reduce the load on the airport and thus the plan for the new international airport came about. The
initial authorization was provided by the government in 1990 and the design work was started in
1993. As per the initial design, the airport would be handle 25 million passengers per year and as
per the plan, the airport was completed in 1998. Currently, the airport handles more than 25
million passengers per year and plans are in place to expand the airport so that it will be able to
handle 100 million passengers a year.
The Kuala Lumpur International Airport is not just another airport and only design phase
of the airport took about 2 years before the project was started for operations. The government
wanted to build a technically advanced airport with ultra modern features as well as provide
numerous facilities and convenience to the passengers. During the planning of the airport, there
were several considerations made that were as follows.
Environment – The government wanted to ensure the constructions as well as the
operations of the airport did not hamper the environment negatively. As a result, the design
named “symbiosis between architecture and the forest” was selected as it focused on persevering
the surrounding forest while also constructing the airport.
Agriculture – Another main consideration that was made during the planning was
agriculture as it was an extensive source of livelihood for many people of the country. Hence, the
land was selected such that it did not hamper any agricultural field nearby. Moreover, the land
was chosen far from the residential areas such that the airport operations did not affect the lives
of the people.

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Transportation and Convenience – Due to the selection of the land, the airport site was
50 kilometres away from Kuala Lumpur city. In a busy traffic area, covering this distance would
take a huge amount of time. Hence, as per the plan of the airport, a corridor was designed that
would take the passengers from the city to the airport in just about 45 minutes.
From these points, it is clear that the airport design was mainly aimed to ensure minimum
adverse effect on the community as well as the environment.
3.0 Discussion and Critical Review of the Project Case
As discussed previously, the design of the airport was done in significant detail and it
took 2 years to finalize the design of the entire airport plan. The government of Malaysia hired
architects from different reputed organizations from different countries for considerations of
airport plans. The architectural plans were so chosen to provide the airport with the most modern
facilities as well as conveniences for the passengers. The airport started operations in 1998 and
currently, the airport handles 25 million passengers every year.
From the project management point of view, the project is considered to be successful.
The reasons are explained as follows.
Design – During the planning phase of the project, the government of Malaysia was
careful about the design of the entire airport. The design consideration included that the main
terminal, transport corridor, facilities, ultra modern look and space for future expansion. Since
the project was also approved for the initial 25%, the design was to be developed in such a way
that there would be sufficient space for further expansion in the future (Samset & Christensen
2017, pp.1-17). As per the final report on the analysis of the airport, it can be said that the final

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outcome of the project successfully met all the requirements as all the designs were incorporated
with sufficient amount of success. All the facilities have started working as per expected and the
passengers receive significant amount of convenience while travelling through this airport. The
design of the overall airport has also been successful as it does not have any major negative
impact on the environment as well as the community.
Cost – While the initial budget for the project was set at around USD 900 million, the
final cost encountered for the project after it was completed was calculated to be USD 958
million in total (Sears et al. 2015). Although this is more than the initial budget, this deviance
can be considered as normal due to changes in resource prices and other costs. Hence, in terms of
budget, the project can be considered as successful.
Time – While the project was finalized, a specific timeline was set that required the
project to be completed by 1998. The project itself did not exceed the timeline was successfully
completed within the pre-set timeline and each and every deliverable of the project was
successfully met within this time. Hence again, in terms of time, the project can be considered as
success.
Management – In many large scale projects, it is seen that due to the management issues
including poor handling and control of the project, the project is ultimately considered as failure
even if the final outcome is met. In this particular project, there has been no management related
issues. A project manager was assigned to take care of monitoring, controlling and managing the
project (Walker 2015). The project manager completed each of his duties successfully without
facing any major unwanted challenges and delays that could have caused huge problems for the
project. As a part of the management, the project manager also managed the human and material

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resources such that no extra funds or efforts were wasted and the human resources successfully
executed all the design plans related to the airport. Hence, from the management point of view,
the project can be considered as successful.
Popularity – From the instance of Millennium Dome of London, it can be pointed out
that even if the project is successful from the project management point of view, the final result
of the outcome may not be successful as planned. Same could have been the case for Kuala
Lumpur International Airport if the passengers disliked the design and operations of the airport
as well as the conveniences they received (Kerzner & Kerzner 2017). However, after the
completion of the airport, it became instantly popular and with the construction of airport
corridor, the passengers did not mind the significant distance between the city and the airport.
The airport reached the target of 25 million passengers annually easily and with further increase
in the passenger count every year, the next phase of the expansion plan is soon to be
implemented in order to accommodate more passengers as well as cargo. Hence, in terms of
customer review and popularity, the project can be considered as successful.
From the discussion of the above mentioned points, it can be easily concluded that the
project is completely successful as it has been able to achieve its targets and fulfilled all the
expectations of the government and the passengers alike. However, there are certain drawbacks
of the project as well that are slowly surfacing with time. Some of the drawbacks are discussed
below.
Maintenance – In one of the above points, it has been mentioned that the investment in
the project was sufficient as it did not exceed the initial budget by much. However, during the
calculation, the maintenance and future costs were not considered. From a study conducted on

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the airport after it has been over 15 years of operation, it has been found that the maintenance
costs of the airport have risen to a significant amount that is much higher than previously
expected (Harrison & Lock 2017). As a result, in spite of providing prompt and good quality
services to the passengers with further plans for expansion, the true picture states that the
government is also facing significant losses for maintaining such a highly developed and
technically advanced airport. There are a few reasons behind this issue. Since the airport is
located at a remote location, the transportation of cargo, passengers, resources and others take up
high amounts of costs. Again, due to the technically advanced airport facilities, it requires
constant maintenance to ensure all features are running successfully. The maintenance not only
requires constant supply of materials but also require managing skilled labor at the site. The
government has to pay a significant amount to keep the maintenance processes running as
expected.
Design – While the airport was designed to handle 25 million passengers annually, the
estimation was made in 1990 whereas it is now 2018 and no further upgrades of the airport have
yet to be done. In these 28 years, the number of passengers has increased at a significant rate as
also the number of flights starting and landing on the airport (national and international flights)
(Banihashemi et al. 2017, pp.1103-1119). As a result, the airport has run out of capacity and
without upgrades, the airport will continue to face several issues like overpopulation and
boarding, damage of facilities, lack of waiting space for the passengers and others.
Now from this point of view, many will consider the project as failure as it has been able
to keep up with the demands of the passengers as well as providing the promised facilities to the
passengers. Furthermore, due to the issues, the government is losing cost benefit that was
previously expected but not materialized due to high operational and maintenance costs.

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However, it is to be noted that maintenance and upgrade related criteria should not be
considered as proper criteria for judging the success of the project if the project fulfills all the
requirements and is also commercially successfully and also if there is sufficient room and
opportunity for improvement.
4.0 Conclusion
In the analysis of the case study, various criteria have been considered for determining
whether the project is successful or failure. The case study involves the construction of the Kuala
Lumpur International Airport that was initially planned in 1990 and constructed in the period
from 1995 to 1998. The project successfully met all the criteria and deliverables that were set
during the planning. However, the objective of this report was to determine whether the project
was successful from all points of view or whether it can also be considered failure from certain
standard criteria. As a result of the analysis, it can be said that if cost benefit, final costs and
design limitations can be considered as standard criteria, then the project can be called as failure
but from project management or customer point of the view, the project can be considered as
absolutely successful.
5.0 Recommendations
Based on the analysis of the case study, some recommendations can be provided as
follows.
The success criteria for a project must be selected from an appropriate point of
view that is most suitable for the organization.

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The design process in the projects must be developed taking into consideration the
project management aspects as well as the user requirements.
Feasibility aspects of the project must be considered from all points of view as
discussed in this report.

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References
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(CSFs) for integration of sustainability into construction project management practices in
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