Bae Automated System Essay
Case Study:
BAE Automated Systems (A):
Denver International Airport Baggage-Handling System
Introduction
As a company that had good reputation in building an automated baggage handling system for airport project, BAE Automated System had been contracted by City of Denver to provide an airport-wide integrated baggage system. The president of BAE propose that they could develop a “most complex automated baggage system ever built,” which will effective in delivering baggage and efficient in operating and maintaining. Unfortunately, many problems arose in the process of building the system that disrupted the process of finishing the project which affected on delaying in schedule of opening the Denver International Airport. Communication …show more content…
and coordination were the crucial issues that have contributed significantly to the failure of the project. The paper will discuss about those issues, what the impacts to the project and how to overcome those issues.
The challenges and the problem issues
Even though DIA’s project has faced many problems but several issues below had given significant impact to the failure of the automated baggage handling system project: * Lack of project control and monitoring in which there was no clear person in charge who had authority to manage and control the project. For the big project such automated baggage handling system, it was supposed to have a separate organization management who focus on the project rather than delegating the project to a manager area that he was also busy with other responsibilities and moreover has no work experiences in such project. Too many responsibilities made the manager area who handle the project couldn’t focus and not optimally contributed to the project. In fact, there were no major changes in the organization to accommodate the new baggage system. As a result when there was a problem in accessing other work areas, BAE should plead the city to solve the problem which need longer time rather than could rely on the manager area to get fast problem solving. * Emphasizing on recruiting as much as possible local business and local workforce causing the project involved great individual firms and persons which created potential problems in communicating and coordinating. Actually, as long as the coordination and communicating was built well then it would not be a big problem but in fact there was no one in charge to lead and take control among all those great amount people which resulting no coordination between them. Consequently, no cooperation each other, everyone was doing with his or her own thing regardless what others were needed and supported from him or her. * Bad contract has been performed between BAE and Denver city. There was no strong commitment from Denver city that explicitly listed and clearly defined on the contract. It was just a general contract rather than stated the contract in details so that both parties couldn’t change and deny it as they want. This weak contract has placed BAE in weak position in which they could only accepted the city’s requirement without regarding BAE’s requirements on the original contract. * There was no specific commitment from two major tenant airlines (United and Continental) to the project. It made them arbitrarily requesting changes in the system design without considering the consequences to the project. It was proved when the United request BAE to change the transfer system for bags changing planes as well as the Continental asked BAE to add automated baggage sorting system to its west basement six months before the airport will be scheduled open. The consequence of their requests was BAE should redesign the system which obviously affected to the time of finishing the project.
Strategic directions to overcome the problems
An effective governance framework in the project should be developed by having well-defined roles and responsibilities in organizational structure for the project. Effective governance in a project organization structure should clearly define who the person that will supervise, monitor, control, and direct the project. Agarwal and Sambamurthy (2002) have proposed a collaboration called vision networks that foster collaborate among senior management for creating and articulating about strategic vision. In the project of automatic baggage handling system there is no such an effective governance has been run, who person in charge, how the project monitored and controlled, where the problem should be issued to solve, etc was not clearly defined on the project. The articulating strategic vision would define how to govern the project.
In any activities that involving people’s interaction such as in a project and in an organization, communication is the most important thing that should be well developed. Without having good communication, any goals would be hard to be achieved because communication is the important key in coordination. Regarding to the problem in DIA project, instruction was the first key element in communication. There was no clear instruction to all contractors that they should cooperate each other to achieve common goal, instead the city encouraged everyone to compete each other that potentially creating problem in coordination. The fact was happened that BAE could not access the working area to do their job. There was no proper support from other contractors to provide comport working environment in finishing the project, as a result limited access hampered task finishing time. It would be better if the project management gave clear instruction before commencing the project to all contractors, for example they should support each other by giving the necessary access to other workers if needed. The first instruction from the management to all parties involved in the project was important to make sure that everyone knew what the common objective was and what the management wanted from them.
Cullen et. all (2005) has suggested that communication should be performed before and after the project of outsourcing run. They put communication in the beginning of outsourcing life cycle at the building block 3 (strategize) which defined communication strategy: “the how, what, when, where, and to whom to communicate” because determining clear communication channel prior commencing the project was crucial as it could avoid inflexibilities pathway that are difficult and expensive to change later. They also put communication in the operate phase at building block 8 (manage) which suggested conducting regular communication and meeting. It was the phase when the project has been run and began to appear the problems from the project of outsourcing. If the regular meeting and communication was performed by the project management as Cullen et. all suggested, it supposed that any problems could be identified and overcame by the project management before it getting worst and gave bad impact to the whole project.
In term of bad contract between BAE and Denver city, not only BAE has been trapped into bad contract with the city but also the city has been trapped into bad contract with the two major tenant airlines (United and Continental).
The city has been failed to get commitment from those two airlines which also trapped BAE into problems. It was supposed that before all parties signed the contract, the substantial portions of the deal should be defined. Cullen et all (2005) called them as the “rules of the upcoming game”. It defined the configuration of the deal which not only defined about financial and technical aspect but also defined the governance structure that will be established. The details that should be clearly defined in the contract are the most crucial process in making a contract. By having proper details in contract, it would be beneficial for all parties particularly if there are disputes. For example, when BAE fall on loss due to hiring requirements compliance, it was not supposed to be happened if from the beginning BAE and Denver city has defined clearly in details about all matters including hiring matters. Because of inaccuracy putting details in contract with Denver city then BAE had made a big mistake when outsourced employees from other contractors. BAE did not consider about city law that require certain percentage jobs be contracted to minority owned companies before engaging other contractor from outside
Denver.
Reference Lists Agarwal, R. and Sambamurthy, V., 2002, ‘Principles and models for organizing the IT function’, MIS Quarterly Executive, March 2002, Vol. 1 No.1, pp. 1-16.
Cullen, S., Seddon, P., and Willcocks, L., ‘Managing outsourcing: The life cycle imperative’, MIS Quarterly Executive, March 2005, Vol. 1 No.1, pp. 229-246.
BAE Automated Systems (A):
Denver International Airport Baggage-Handling System
Introduction
As a company that had good reputation in building an automated baggage handling system for airport project, BAE Automated System had been contracted by City of Denver to provide an airport-wide integrated baggage system. The president of BAE propose that they could develop a “most complex automated baggage system ever built,” which will effective in delivering baggage and efficient in operating and maintaining. Unfortunately, many problems arose in the process of building the system that disrupted the process of finishing the project which affected on delaying in schedule of opening the Denver International Airport. Communication …show more content…
and coordination were the crucial issues that have contributed significantly to the failure of the project. The paper will discuss about those issues, what the impacts to the project and how to overcome those issues.
The challenges and the problem issues
Even though DIA’s project has faced many problems but several issues below had given significant impact to the failure of the automated baggage handling system project: * Lack of project control and monitoring in which there was no clear person in charge who had authority to manage and control the project. For the big project such automated baggage handling system, it was supposed to have a separate organization management who focus on the project rather than delegating the project to a manager area that he was also busy with other responsibilities and moreover has no work experiences in such project. Too many responsibilities made the manager area who handle the project couldn’t focus and not optimally contributed to the project. In fact, there were no major changes in the organization to accommodate the new baggage system. As a result when there was a problem in accessing other work areas, BAE should plead the city to solve the problem which need longer time rather than could rely on the manager area to get fast problem solving. * Emphasizing on recruiting as much as possible local business and local workforce causing the project involved great individual firms and persons which created potential problems in communicating and coordinating. Actually, as long as the coordination and communicating was built well then it would not be a big problem but in fact there was no one in charge to lead and take control among all those great amount people which resulting no coordination between them. Consequently, no cooperation each other, everyone was doing with his or her own thing regardless what others were needed and supported from him or her. * Bad contract has been performed between BAE and Denver city. There was no strong commitment from Denver city that explicitly listed and clearly defined on the contract. It was just a general contract rather than stated the contract in details so that both parties couldn’t change and deny it as they want. This weak contract has placed BAE in weak position in which they could only accepted the city’s requirement without regarding BAE’s requirements on the original contract. * There was no specific commitment from two major tenant airlines (United and Continental) to the project. It made them arbitrarily requesting changes in the system design without considering the consequences to the project. It was proved when the United request BAE to change the transfer system for bags changing planes as well as the Continental asked BAE to add automated baggage sorting system to its west basement six months before the airport will be scheduled open. The consequence of their requests was BAE should redesign the system which obviously affected to the time of finishing the project.
Strategic directions to overcome the problems
An effective governance framework in the project should be developed by having well-defined roles and responsibilities in organizational structure for the project. Effective governance in a project organization structure should clearly define who the person that will supervise, monitor, control, and direct the project. Agarwal and Sambamurthy (2002) have proposed a collaboration called vision networks that foster collaborate among senior management for creating and articulating about strategic vision. In the project of automatic baggage handling system there is no such an effective governance has been run, who person in charge, how the project monitored and controlled, where the problem should be issued to solve, etc was not clearly defined on the project. The articulating strategic vision would define how to govern the project.
In any activities that involving people’s interaction such as in a project and in an organization, communication is the most important thing that should be well developed. Without having good communication, any goals would be hard to be achieved because communication is the important key in coordination. Regarding to the problem in DIA project, instruction was the first key element in communication. There was no clear instruction to all contractors that they should cooperate each other to achieve common goal, instead the city encouraged everyone to compete each other that potentially creating problem in coordination. The fact was happened that BAE could not access the working area to do their job. There was no proper support from other contractors to provide comport working environment in finishing the project, as a result limited access hampered task finishing time. It would be better if the project management gave clear instruction before commencing the project to all contractors, for example they should support each other by giving the necessary access to other workers if needed. The first instruction from the management to all parties involved in the project was important to make sure that everyone knew what the common objective was and what the management wanted from them.
Cullen et. all (2005) has suggested that communication should be performed before and after the project of outsourcing run. They put communication in the beginning of outsourcing life cycle at the building block 3 (strategize) which defined communication strategy: “the how, what, when, where, and to whom to communicate” because determining clear communication channel prior commencing the project was crucial as it could avoid inflexibilities pathway that are difficult and expensive to change later. They also put communication in the operate phase at building block 8 (manage) which suggested conducting regular communication and meeting. It was the phase when the project has been run and began to appear the problems from the project of outsourcing. If the regular meeting and communication was performed by the project management as Cullen et. all suggested, it supposed that any problems could be identified and overcame by the project management before it getting worst and gave bad impact to the whole project.
In term of bad contract between BAE and Denver city, not only BAE has been trapped into bad contract with the city but also the city has been trapped into bad contract with the two major tenant airlines (United and Continental).
The city has been failed to get commitment from those two airlines which also trapped BAE into problems. It was supposed that before all parties signed the contract, the substantial portions of the deal should be defined. Cullen et all (2005) called them as the “rules of the upcoming game”. It defined the configuration of the deal which not only defined about financial and technical aspect but also defined the governance structure that will be established. The details that should be clearly defined in the contract are the most crucial process in making a contract. By having proper details in contract, it would be beneficial for all parties particularly if there are disputes. For example, when BAE fall on loss due to hiring requirements compliance, it was not supposed to be happened if from the beginning BAE and Denver city has defined clearly in details about all matters including hiring matters. Because of inaccuracy putting details in contract with Denver city then BAE had made a big mistake when outsourced employees from other contractors. BAE did not consider about city law that require certain percentage jobs be contracted to minority owned companies before engaging other contractor from outside
Denver.
Reference Lists Agarwal, R. and Sambamurthy, V., 2002, ‘Principles and models for organizing the IT function’, MIS Quarterly Executive, March 2002, Vol. 1 No.1, pp. 1-16.
Cullen, S., Seddon, P., and Willcocks, L., ‘Managing outsourcing: The life cycle imperative’, MIS Quarterly Executive, March 2005, Vol. 1 No.1, pp. 229-246.