Project Management: Case Study - Regional Rail Fleet (NSW)

This case study explores the project management aspects of the Regional Rail Fleet project in Western Australia. It discusses the background, literature review, project feasibility, and the positive and negative events associated with the project. The study also highlights the need for the project and the risks involved.

Running head: PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Case Study: Project - Regional Rail Fleet (NSW)
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

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Table of Contents
Part 1-Deliverables..........................................................................................................................2
1.1 Background.......................................................................................................................2
1.2 Literature Review..............................................................................................................2
1.2.1 Identification of the PM risk framework...................................................................2
1.2.2 Reviewing the industry report and identification of the risk.....................................3
1.3 Western Australian Government’s need for the project....................................................5
1.4 Project feasibility..............................................................................................................5
1.5 Negative and positive events.............................................................................................6
Bibliography....................................................................................................................................9

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Part 1-Deliverables
1.1 Background
The government of Western Australia, wants to replace the rail fleet of Explorer, XPT as
well as different types of endeavour trains that are around 36 years old. It is identified that a new
train maintenance facility will generally be built for stimulating the economy as well as for
creating proper job opportunities as well as skills. It is found that the new trains will be helpful in
improving the safety, comfort as well as accessibility as well as reliability of the customers who
generally travel around Western Australia. With the help of the new project, the government
wants to provide different types of facilities to the travellers including the facility of selective
door proper electronic charging points as well as comfortable seating arrangements. The Western
Australia government has generally awarded the contract for delivering the regional rail fleet
project to the various momentum trains. In addition to this, it is expected that the new trains in
the region of Western Australia will be started from the year 2023.
1.2 Literature Review
1.2.1 Identification of the PM risk framework
According to Aven (2016), a risk management framework is mainly defined as one of the
structured procedure that is helpful in determining various types of threat to an organization for
successfully defining the strategy and for eliminating or reducing the impact of the risk as well as
other types of mechanisms that are helpful in effectively monitoring as well as evaluating the
strategy of the project quite successfully.
It is stated by Bromiley et al. (2015) that effective risk management framework is helpful
in adding proper value to the organization. An effective risk management framework is helpful

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in protecting the capital base of the organization for hindering the economic growth. In addition
to this, it is found that risk management framework helps in providing proper process that helps
in integrating the security as well as different risk management activities of the system within the
development life cycle of the project. The risk management framework generally helps in
carrying out some of the important steps for managing the risks effectively.
According to Wiengarten et al. (2016), in the initial step of risk management framework,
it is quite necessary to carry out the prepare step that is considered as one of the essential
activities for the organization as well as for the business process that in this particular step, the
organization generally helps in managing the security as well as privacy risks that are mainly
associated with the risk management framework of the project.
In the second step, the project manager needs to categorize the entire system as well as
processing of the information that are stored as well as transmitted with the help of proper impact
analysis (Cole, Gine & Vickery, 2017). In the third step, proper risk mitigation techniques are
generally implemented in order to resolve the problems that are mainly associated with the
project.
1.2.2 Reviewing the industry report and identification of the risk
According to Tupa, Simota and Steiner (2017), risk management is considered as one of
the significant concept that helps in determining, quantifying as well as mitigating as well as
reviewing the risk events that generally create adverse impact on the project. In order to mitigate
the risks that are associated with the rail projects in Western Australia, it is quite important to
determine the risks that are mainly related with the project (Leveson, 2015). The risks that are
mainly related with the rail project in Western Australia generally include site risk, material risk,
design risk, financial risk, safety risk as well as human resource related risk.

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It is stated by Kerzner and Kerzner (2017) that land acquisition risk is one of the major
risk that can create impact on the progress of the project. If proper notice is not sent to the owner
of the land for the acquisition, then it would be quite challenging to start investigation that is
associated with the work. In addition to this, it is found that if the materials that are used for rail
project are not proper in quality then there is high chance that quality related problems can occur
due to not following proper quality standards in the project. It is opined by Joslin and Muller
(2015) that major time is generally needed in order to design the rail project effectively. It is
quite necessary for the designers to create detailed design for the project so that the rail fleet can
be developed successfully by avoiding the problems as well as issues with the project. Thus,
proper report containing good design will be developed with the commencement of the project.
On the other hand, it is identified that contractual liability related risk can generally
create serious impact on the progress of the project while conducting proper survey. In addition
to this, it is found that market inflation can be one of the major reason due to the rising number
of financial challenges (Hornstein, 2015). The occurrence of various types of financial
challenges can generally create major impact on the project. In addition to this, it is identified
that site safety risk can be one of the very common challenges that are faced by the rail project in
the construction project.
Thus, it is quite necessary to utilize proper measures so that risk as well as challenges of
the project can be mitigated. Moreover, management risk is also considered to be significant
when the project manager face lot of challenges in managing the project completion within the
estimated budget as well as time of the project (Aven, 2016). Furthermore, legal risk can also
create negative impact on many of the government agencies, civic bodies that are affected by the

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development of rail line that further needs approval for the project that is considered to be
complex.
1.3 Western Australian Government’s need for the project
The government of Western Australia generally needs the project of rail fleet for successfully
stimulating the regional economy so that proper job opportunities as well as skills can be
developed. It is found that by undertaking the project of rail fleet, the government can be able to
provide much more comfortable design of the project by providing proper facilities of spacious
buffet, reversible seating and more. In addition to this, proper facility of toilets, presence of
automatic doors as well as proper electronic charging points. All these facilities that are provided
by the government will generally be helpful in reducing the issues that the travellers faces while
travelling and can be able to travel comfortably.
1.4 Project feasibility
The project feasibility is generally undertaken for measuring the ability as well as likelihood
for completing the work of the project quite successfully by including all the important factors.
The project feasibility study helps in properly testing the visibility of the project. It is found that
the main goal of the feasibility study is to properly emphasize the various types of potential
errors. The feasibility analysis that is mainly undertaken in the project are generally elaborated
below:
Operational feasibility: The operations that are undertaken for the development of the
rail fleet project is considered to be undertaken feasibly.

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Financial feasibility: The project that is undertaken is considered to be economically
feasible and therefore it is determined that the work of the project can be completed successfully
within the time that is assumed.
Technological feasibility: The project is technologically feasible as the various types of
hardware that are needed for the project are easily available in the market.
1.5 Negative and positive events
The positive as well as negative events that are mainly related with the development of the
rail project is western Australia are mainly illustrated below:
Risk Id Risk Description Negative/Positive
1 Schedule slippage If the project delay
due to the addition of
some new features
within the rail fleet
then it can generally
cause delay within
the entire project.
Positive risk
2 Financial risk If the budget of the
project is not
managed effectively
then it can cause
number of financial
risks within the
Negative risk

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project.
3 Material risk If the materials that
are supplied for the
project are not of
good quality, then it
generally can cause
number of issues and
challenges in the
project. In addition to
this, quality related
problems can
generally occur
within the project for
not following proper
quality standards
within the project.
Negative risk
4 Safety risk If the safety related
precautions are not
used, then number of
safety related
problems can
generally occur
within the project.
Negative risk

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Thus, it is necessary
to utilize appropriate
number of safety
precautions while
undertaking the work
of the project quite
successfully.
5 Management risk If the project
manager who is
involved with the
work of the project
are not much
experienced, then it
will be quite difficult
for them to manage
the risks as well as
challenges of the
project. Furthermore,
it will also delay in
the completion of the
project that can
further increase the
budget of the project.
Negative risk

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Bibliography
Aven, T. (2016). Risk assessment and risk management: Review of recent advances on their
foundation. European Journal of Operational Research, 253(1), 1-13.
Badewi, A. (2016). The impact of project management (PM) and benefits management (BM)
practices on project success: Towards developing a project benefits governance
framework. International Journal of Project Management, 34(4), 761-778.
Bromiley, P., McShane, M., Nair, A., & Rustambekov, E. (2015). Enterprise risk management:
Review, critique, and research directions. Long range planning, 48(4), 265-276.
Cole, S., Giné, X., & Vickery, J. (2017). How does risk management influence production
decisions? Evidence from a field experiment. The Review of Financial Studies, 30(6),
1935-1970.
Hornstein, H. A. (2015). The integration of project management and organizational change
management is now a necessity. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2),
291-298.
Joslin, R., & Müller, R. (2015). Relationships between a project management methodology and
project success in different project governance contexts. International Journal of Project
Management, 33(6), 1377-1392.
Kerzner, H. Z & Kerzner, H.R. (2017). Project management: a systems approach to planning,
scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Leveson, N. (2015). A systems approach to risk management through leading safety
indicators. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 136, 17-34.

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Sánchez, M. A. (2015). Integrating sustainability issues into project management. Journal of
Cleaner Production, 96, 319-330.
Todorović, M. L., Petrović, D. Č., Mihić, M. M., Obradović, V. L., & Bushuyev, S. D. (2015).
Project success analysis framework: A knowledge-based approach in project
management. International Journal of Project Management, 33(4), 772-783.
Tupa, J., Simota, J., & Steiner, F. (2017). Aspects of risk management implementation for
Industry 4.0. Procedia Manufacturing, 11, 1223-1230.
Wiengarten, F., Humphreys, P., Gimenez, C., & McIvor, R. (2016). Risk, risk management
practices, and the success of supply chain integration. International Journal of
Production Economics, 171, 361-370.