USQ ENG3003 Engineering Management: Flood of Decisions Report Analysis

This report analyzes the 'Flood of Decisions' case study, focusing on the management of the Wivenhoe Dam in Queensland. It explores various information sources, including SEQ Water, advice from the Water Grid Manager, and the Queensland Water Commission, used for decision-making during flood events and droughts. The report examines different types of managerial decision-making, such as problem-solving, problem-seeking, and avoiding problems, considering conditions of certainty, uncertainty, and risk. It delves into classical, behavioral, and judgmental heuristics approaches to decision-making and recommends a suitable decision-making model. The report includes a SWOT analysis of the case and concludes with insights into the importance of wise decision-making for saving lives and minimizing damage. This report aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of engineering management principles in the context of a real-world crisis.

Running head: ENG3003 ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
ENG3003 ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note:

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Executive Summary
Wivenhoe dam is the largest dam that has been built by government of Queensland after the
Brisbane flood in the year 1974. This dam has been designed for Brisbane water supply followed
by protecting the city from this kind of flood in the near future. Government has created
Queensland flood commission of injury for modelling of flood and warning system. During the
instance of drought of long period, they have come up with idea of managing dwindling water
supplies in different regions. For achieving this, they have make use of range of rainfall and
water use patterns that are being used for development and analysis from various scenario.

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Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................3
Body of Analysis.................................................................................................................3
Information Sources used for assisting the decision making for Wivenhoe Dam...........3
Type of Managerial decision making evident and condition for decision.......................5
Classical, behavioral and judgmental heuristics approaches to decision-making...........7
Suitable Model for decision making................................................................................7
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................9
References..........................................................................................................................10
Appendix............................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
The following report is all about analysis of case study of “A flood of decision”.
Management of the water supply body that lies in the south-east Queensland gives a perfect
example for engineers that are working in rapidly changing context. They have successfully
being able to manage their own time, setting up priorities and operation of supply and flood
mitigation system (Wang et al. 2017). At the time of extreme weather condition, long period of
drought in seen between the period of 2001 and 2009. In this system, largest dam that is
Wivenhoe Dam was built by the government of Queensland. The dam has been designed on the
point to increase Brisbane water supply and protecting the city from similar kind of events in the
near future. Flood mitigation compartment has been designed for upstream of floodwaters
followed by release of water in a controlled way (Colapinto, Jayaraman and Marsiglio 2017).
This is mainly done for reducing the flow of water in Brisbane River, which ultimately reduces
the downstream of flooding in both Brisbane and Ipswich.
In the coming pages of report, an idea has been provided with respect to different
information source which can be used for proper decision making for Wivenhoe Dam. The next
section deals with decision-making theory which has been highlighted in the chapter. A list of
managerial decision-making has been taken into account for this scenario. The last section deals
with various kind of decision making that are classical, behavior and judgmental for decision-
making.

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Body of Analysis
Information Sources used for assisting the decision making for Wivenhoe
Dam
Management of water supply that lies in the south-east of Queensland aims to provide a
suitable example for working engineers in the changing condition. They need to manage their
own time, setting up priorities and operation of water supply and flood mitigation system. It is
seen during the period of extreme weather condition that is drought of period 2001 and 2009
(Mettler and Pinto 2015). During the 2010, the controlling weather pattern shifted from EL Nino
to La Nina which resulted in increase in rainfalls. Wivenhoe dam has reached a water capacity of
40 per cent and there were some water restriction. In the year 2011, the compartment of dam rose
with water from the heavy rainfall that eroded its capacity for flood (Pons 2016). The delay
ultimately resulted in emergency release of water as increase in the level of water has threaten
the dam stability. Before this, Queensland has advised the release of water in the Brisbane River.
Information sources that can be used for assisting the decision-making process for
Wivenhoe Dam are
SEQ Water: Seqwater is the authority for the supply of Bulk water from the government
of Australia. SEQ needs to prepare a proper report for each of the flood event. The report should
comprise of the used method and reason for its use (Mehta et al. 2016). The body is completely
responsible for providing safe, affordable and reliable supply of drinking water for more than 3.2
million people. The service is provided across the south East of Queensland. This merely
provides some of the flood mitigation services. It also manages catchment health and even offer

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some recreation facilities (Stuart, Keogh and Hughes 2016). In addition, it also provides water
for irrigation to more than 1,200 farmers.
Advice from Water Gird Manager: SEQ water grid Manager is completely responsible
for complete direction of physical operation of SEQ water Grid. This merely helps in
optimization for proper scheduling of supply from each of the sources (Lesleighter et al. 2016).
It merely takes into account a list of factors like reserve system, cost of operation, risk
management and quality of water. SEQ water grid manager provides a proper mechanism that
can be used for sharing cost of SEQ water grid. This can be achieved by working like a single
buyer service and even single selling of bulk water for urban purposes.
Water Commission: Queensland Water Commission can be stated an agency established
as defunct Queensland Government. This is merely needed for developing a long term strategy
for supply strategies (Davis 2016). The commission emphasizes on providing a safe, secure and
sustainable water for ecosystem. The commission is planning for providing a safe, secure and
sustainable water supply for SEQ. It is mainly done so that it can achieve the required service
level objectives.
DERM: DERM stands for department of environmental resource management is known
to be commercial focused group. The main goal of this body is all about enhancing the financial
returns from the management bodies (Ryan et al. 2015). SEQ water needs to put forward the
report to the flood event to the Chief Executive in the interval of six weeks for completing the
flood event.

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Type of Managerial decision making evident and condition for decision
Decision Making is considered to be as one of the vital skill of manager that requires the
final execution and thinking of plan (Nathan et al. 2016). By the help of managerial decision
making skills, a manager can help the firm in achieving its objectives.
Avoiding Problem: One of the best decision making step is all not making a choice at all
(Melović et al. 2015). There are large number reason why the decision making need to do this
1. Insufficient information for choice making among the list of alternatives.
2. Negative impact as a result of selecting an alternative that highlights the benefits for
selecting the right one (Mettler and Pinto 2015).
3. There is no kind of pressing need and status can quo without any kind of harm.
4. Person taking into account the alternative for decision making does not have authority for
decision making.
Solving the Problem: Most of the decision with respect to problem-solving activity
reaches the end, a proper solution is reached for this Wivenhoe Dam. This merely highlights the
desire for reaching the goal in the given condition (Poff et al. 2016). Problem solving need
proper definition of problem, analysis of information and its evaluation.
Problem Seeking: The whole method of problem solving is all about focusing on the
scope of the problem. It might be defined in an in-correct way and even too large with missing
key point. Decision maker of Wivenhoe Dam needs to step back and consider the provided
information. This is merely needed for proper analysis (Cetindamar, Phaal and Probert, 2016).
Problem solving for decision-making needs to be returned to the starting point and highlight
some issue they addresses.

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Decision Condition
Quality of decision which is made by Wivenhoe Dam management will result to success
and failure (Beach and Lipshitz 2017). For this, all the provided information and alternative need
to be studied prior to arrival to any fixed point.
Certainty: This kind of environment is considered to be sure and completely certain by
nature. This merely highlights that all the provided information of dam are available and in hand.
This particular data is not that much easy to collect (Biard et al. 2015). Manager come up with
all the required information which help in informed decision making.
Uncertainty: Considering the decision making environment for uncertainty, the available
information to manager is either unreliable or incomplete. In this type of environment,
everything lies in a condition of flux (Ma, Destercke and Wang 2016). There are many external
and random force where environment is completely unpredictable.
Risk: Under the condition of risk for this Wivenhoe Dam, there is possibility for more
than one event taking at a single instance (Wang et al. 2017). Manager needs to understand the
possibility and profit of either occurrence or non-occurrence of flood.
Classical, behavioral and judgmental heuristics approaches to decision-
making
Classical Decision Model: This is an approach for decision making, which highlights
about the fact that how they go for decision making. Managers are either of two type that is
logical and rational (Colapinto, Jayaraman and Marsiglio 2017). The decision of manager is
considered to be of best interest for the whole organization.

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Behavior Decision Making: It is the duty of managers at Wivenhoe Dam to not only
focus on decision making but also need to emphasize on the idea of influencing decision taken
by others (Mettler and Pinto 2015). The framework of architecture is merely needed for
examining the process of decision making.
Judgmental Decision Making: This particular parameter does not need any ex ante. In
this given situation, there are decision making which cannot be measured in accurate and cost-
effective way.
Suitable Model for decision making
Classical Decision Model: This merely highlights that how the decision should be made
for having the desired outcome. Considering the classical approach, decision are made rational
and even directed to a single point (Pons 2016). In the case study, the dam water for Wivenhoe
has flooded and damaged two important section that is Brisbane and Ipswich. The personal who
manages the dam are completely operation of Queensland legislation. It needs to follow some
operating manual for avoiding any kind of liability for losses due to water release from dam.
Around 50 of Brisbane river catchment lies below the Wivenhoe dam (Mehta et al. 2016). This
particular dam can be only used for mitigating flood and not preventing it.
In this case study, there is an alternative solution for the problem that not releasing the
floodwater. In the year 2010, controlling weather pattern shifted from EL Nino to La Nina which
ultimately resulted in increase in rainfall and the record-breaking amount of rain. The draining
dam flood compartment of dam rose to high position with heavy rainfall on 2011 (Stuart, Keogh
and Hughes 2016). The level of water was allowed to rise, followed by eroding the capacity of
the flood storage. This delay is considered to be an emergency release of water when its level got

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much high. Before, government of Queensland has already advised the resident of southeast for
releasing water into the Brisbane River. The flood ultimately resulted in huge amount of impact
in both Brisbane and Ipswich. This particular flood resulted in huge amount of damage to both
the cities (Lesleighter et al. 2016). At the time of flood in south-east Queensland, the
management of Wivenhoe needs to provide accurate details in workplace.
SWOT analysis has been provided this case scenario
Strength Weakness
1. New Technology
2. Setting up Priority
3. Managing Time
1. Lack of Communication
2. Misunderstanding among the
employees
3. Solving the issues
4. Crisis
Opportunities Threats
1. Professional engineers
2. Employment to people
1. Natural Disaster
2. Huge damage to both road and homes.
Conclusion
The above pages help us in concluding that this report is all about Wivenhoe Dam, which
was constructed by government of Queensland. People need to make wise decision so that it can
save the life of others. There are many personnel who manages the dam under the legislation of
Queensland. It is mainly done so that they can follow the manual operation for avoiding any kind

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of liability for the loss as a result of water release. The dam can be used for mitigating flood and
not preventing them. Management of this at the time of south-east flood highlights the need for
proper details in the workplace. In the year 2012, flood commission has handed all of its finding
which is considered to be a list of recommendation. This need the crime and misconduct
Commission to make an investigation for the dam operations. CMC need to rule engineer so that
they can act as per the stressful situation. Commission has also found that the provided
information needs to be present at the time of manual operation of dam. This means that there is
little idea with respect to misconduct by most of the engineers. It can be stated as a perfect
example for idea of clear and accurate details in the workplace. This merely acts like a best
decision-making method at both the level that is staff and management. In addition, they need to
advise the government and water supply bodies about water restriction policies and its
implementation.

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References
Beach, L.R. and Lipshitz, R., 2017. Why classical decision theory is an inappropriate standard
for evaluating and aiding most human decision making. Decision making in aviation, 85, pp.835-
847.
Biard, T., Le Mauff, A., Bigand, M. and Bourey, J.P., 2015, October. Separation of decision
modeling from business process modeling using new “Decision Model and Notation”(DMN) for
automating operational decision-making. In Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises (pp.
489-496). Springer, Cham.
Cetindamar, D., Phaal, R. and Probert, D.R., 2016. Technology management as a profession and
the challenges ahead. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, 41, pp.1-13.
Colapinto, C., Jayaraman, R. and Marsiglio, S., 2017. Multi-criteria decision analysis with goal
programming in engineering, management and social sciences: a state-of-the art review. Annals
of Operations Research, 251(1-2), pp.7-40.
Davis, A., 2016. A civil engineering feasibility study on a sustainable pumped hydroelectricity
plant at Wivenhoe.
Lesleighter, E.J., Bollaert, E.F.R., McPherson, B.L. and Scriven, D.C., 2016. Spillway Rock
Scour Analysis-Composite of Physical & Numerical Modelling, Paradise Dam, Australia.
Ma, L., Destercke, S. and Wang, Y., 2016. Online active learning of decision trees with
evidential data. Pattern Recognition, 52, pp.33-45.
Mehta, A., Greer, D.A., Dootson, P., Hammill, C. and Tippett, V., 2016. Enhancing the
Effectiveness of Seqwater's Dam Release Messaging: A Response to the IGEM Review.