Project Management Report: Burj Khalifa Construction Project Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Burj Khalifa construction project, focusing on project management principles and practices. It begins with an introduction outlining the project's objectives, which included not only building the world's tallest structure but also creating a symbol of inspiration and achievement. The report then details the project plan, highlighting its multi-purpose design and construction techniques. It examines the project's objectives, emphasizing the importance of clearly defined goals and success criteria, such as the Iron Triangle (cost, time, and scope). The analysis delves into the project management concepts, tools, and techniques employed, including the involvement of various consultants, contractors, and suppliers. It discusses the initial and actual costs, the reasons for cost overruns, and the challenges related to timelines, design changes, and economic downturns. Furthermore, the report assesses the project's quality management, risk management, and communication strategies, including the use of innovative technologies and software. The report concludes with a discussion of the project's successes, such as its contribution to Dubai's economic growth and its overall quality standards, while also acknowledging the challenges encountered. Finally, the report emphasizes the importance of effective negotiation, planning, and execution in achieving project goals and meeting stakeholder expectations.

Project Management
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................3
Brief description of the project plan................................................................................................3
Outlining the project objectives and its importance........................................................................3
Detailed overview and analysis of the relevant project management concepts, tools and
techniques........................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES.....................................................................................................................................7
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INTRODUCTION
Project management is a process that consists of various sequential steps that is required to
be followed by the project planner or manager for the successful completion of their project i.e.
initiation, planning, execution, control, closure or termination (Heagney, 2016). The main target of
all the activities is to obtain desired results or targeted goals. The present project report aims at
critically appraising of a construction project of world’s tallest building, named Burj Khalifa in
Dubai.
Brief description of the project plan
The Burj Khalifa in Dubai is the world’s tallest tower which has a total height of 700 meters
tall and has more than 160 floors. It is a multi-purpose development tower which is spreaded to
460,000 square meters and includes residential accommodations, hotels, official and commercial
building, shopping centres, leisure, parking facilities and others. It is embodied in the Islamic
architectural style and its structure has been designed as a reinforced concrete system using
conventional construction techniques and methods (Turner, 2016). The structural system of the
building is termed as butteressed core which represents a conceptual change in the design of Tower
Palace III. The project was scheduled to begin in January 2004 to end in October 2009 for the
construction of 160 stories.
Outlining the project objectives and its importance
Before planning and initiating any project, it is essential and an important requirement for
the project manager to define the goals and objectives very clearly, so that, every stakeholder can
put their valuable contribution to complete the project successfully. The main target objective of the
Burj Khalifa project was not just to design the tallest building in the world but its key aim is to
design a milestone of inspiration, ingenuity and achievement (Abdelrazaq, 2010). It is important to
define clearly the goals, so that, project success can be evaluated in the terms of goal-oriented &
ways that had been followed by the project planner to accomplish the target objectives. Besides this,
the successive criteria decided for the project were Iron Triangle, Y shaped building, use of concrete
and steel frame, excellent infrastructure and construction within decided time-frame and at decided
cost as well.
Detailed overview and analysis of the relevant project management concepts, tools and techniques
Burj Khalifa project was associated with the 16 consultants, 2 real estate companies, 3 sub-
contractors, 38 suppliers, 14 contractors, 78 companies and 3 financial institutions. In this, EMAAR
was the investing organization which has financed the Burj Khalifa project and Skidmore Owing &
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Merrill LLP (SOM) has designed the mechanical engineering system (Abdelrazaq, 2011). However,
Turner Construction & Grocon Construction were the construction manager of the project who were
responsible to provide expertise knowledge for the completion of the construction work within
decided schedule.
Main contractors
Samsung Engineering $876 million
Arabtec $876 million
Besix $876 million
Other contractors
Lift contractor Otis for the
Cladding contractor Al Ghurair Group
Data system contractor Johnson Controls
Door contractor DORMA (13,000 doors)
Sealant contractor Dow Corning
The targeted cost of the construction of the Burj Khalifa has been decided to $876 million;
however, the actual cost incurred in the construction work was founded to $1.5 billion dollar.
Economic downturn during 2008 raised the iron prices by 75% which is the main reason behind
high cost of construction. Moreover, rise in cost of material, like aluminium, cement and other
commodities caused high actual prices (Guo, Kwon and Kareem, 2015). In addition to this,
EMAAR property also decided to increase its final height to 828 meter, which incurred unexpected
cost. Further, in order to create the world’s excellent building, Armani changed its interior designing
by adding luxurious furniture & fitting which overturned the budgeted cost, which indicates that the
project did not meet out its cost targets successfully.
Exclusion of excavation time, it has been decided to complete the design within 47 months
from Feb 2005 to Dec 2008, whilst, actually, the building was completed 9 months later in
September, 2009. Changes in the interior design, planning and construction work and procedure
does not only impact the costs but also delay the work. Despite this, deteriorating conditions in the
Dubia’s economy delayed the construction work which termed as Dubai Shock which hampered the
construction work by 4 months (Baker, 2010). For the timely completion of the project, although an
innovative technology also has been adopted named, 3-day cycle which is targeted to improve the
construction by one story within three working days, still, it not has been successfully achieved due
to the alteration in the interior and exterior designs and work at various stages.
Apart from this, quality is one of the most critical factor which helps to measure project’s
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success or failure. The project of Burj Khalifa has excellently managed the resources which was the
main key component for the quality management and assurance (Steyn and et.al., 2016). The main
building constructor, Samsung & Besix utilized the new technologies of construction i.e. mixed
reinforced concrete so as to safeguard the building against heavy pressure & wind. Automatic self-
climbing technique, wall reinforcement, high-speed construction, GPS monitoring, pre-fabrication,
pour-enhancement strips, Lateral Load Resisting technique, Floor framing, logistic construction,
optimized transportation using latest and high speed equipment has been used for the project.
However, tower cranes, tower main hoist, concrete pumping equipment has been used (Papke-
Shields and Boyer-Wright, 2017). Further, for the massive pressure and strengthen concrete,
engineers initially applied a practice test before starting the construction work. Besides this, from
the perspectives of service-users, the building has successfully met out the requirement of all the
stakeholders such as consumers and others. Thus, it became clear that from the quality point, the
project has successfully met the objectives.
The project also has various risk contributing factors which has been managed successfully
by the project manager. In this project, there was a team of 5000 consultants, 78 companies & 7500
workers which made it harder for the project planner to communicate the plans and policies
successfully. For managing the communication risk, modern technology software named Prolog
which is a web scheduler has been used which helps in effective communication system (Russo and
et.al., 2013). Further, technical experts has been hired for the minimizing the possibility of any
technical failure. The project made significant contribution in the economic growth by designing a
wonderful building in the Dubai which became the popular tourist destination and attracts domestic
as well as overseas tourists from all over the world. Undoubtedly, the Burj Khalifa construction
completed 9 months later, still as Dubia has struggled due to heavy debts the experts were really
worried and concerned whether the building construction would be successfully complete or not. In
the last, the world’s tallest building was completed which was the top achievement.
CONCLUSION
From the above evaluation, it can be concluded that Burj Khalifa construction project did
not successfully achieved their cost and time-frame target due to ineffective negotiation, change in
the infrastructure design and raising the building height to 828 meters. Therefore, it summarized
that project planner must fulfil their negotiation commitment and ensure right planning and its
effective execution as well. The report summarized that Burj Khalifa has proven as an aspiration of
the Dubai economy and meet their stakeholder’s expectations effectively. It also has successfully
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meet out their quality standards by creating the best attractive building in the world.
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