Budget Cost Managment
Central Artery / Tunnel (CA/T) Project
• What do you think was the problem with the Central Artery/Tunnel (CA/T) project? • Explain how effective cost and value management would have helped in the successful completion of the project. The Central Artery / Tunnel Project, is the largest Highway project ever undertaken in the History of the United States. After nearly 3 decades since the projects inception it is still considered a wonder of technology and advancement in the US. By those standards one could call this project a wildly successful project, but looming over this marvel is a sentiment of distaste from the public eye. Several Cost and Schedule Estimates have been blown by well into the hundreds of percentages with this project. It seems that major flaws in the Project Cost Management discipline are what caused this project to go such arye. No project like this had ever been attempted, it is likely that the project team did not use worst case scenario estimating, and in fact may have even used best case scenario estimating during this project. Unless a process is very well understood and there are industry standards developed it is unwise to use best case scenario estimates. Cost Control seemed to be another issue driving the cost of this project upwards. Subcontractors were running rampant with their changes to the project cost because of severely underbidding on their scope of the project. Yet no one was holding these contractors accountable for their careless processes. Some 10 years after the finished project we are still finding evidence of shabby construction within the tunnel. This was likely done as a means to cut every corner possible to make up cost from these contractors. Utilizing effective Cost and Value management could have saved this project from being the largest PR nightmare Highway project ever. By following some simple Cost Estimating processes that are tried and true I feel the project
• What do you think was the problem with the Central Artery/Tunnel (CA/T) project? • Explain how effective cost and value management would have helped in the successful completion of the project. The Central Artery / Tunnel Project, is the largest Highway project ever undertaken in the History of the United States. After nearly 3 decades since the projects inception it is still considered a wonder of technology and advancement in the US. By those standards one could call this project a wildly successful project, but looming over this marvel is a sentiment of distaste from the public eye. Several Cost and Schedule Estimates have been blown by well into the hundreds of percentages with this project. It seems that major flaws in the Project Cost Management discipline are what caused this project to go such arye. No project like this had ever been attempted, it is likely that the project team did not use worst case scenario estimating, and in fact may have even used best case scenario estimating during this project. Unless a process is very well understood and there are industry standards developed it is unwise to use best case scenario estimates. Cost Control seemed to be another issue driving the cost of this project upwards. Subcontractors were running rampant with their changes to the project cost because of severely underbidding on their scope of the project. Yet no one was holding these contractors accountable for their careless processes. Some 10 years after the finished project we are still finding evidence of shabby construction within the tunnel. This was likely done as a means to cut every corner possible to make up cost from these contractors. Utilizing effective Cost and Value management could have saved this project from being the largest PR nightmare Highway project ever. By following some simple Cost Estimating processes that are tried and true I feel the project