Project Management For Narrabri Airport Master Plan

Objectives of the Initial Phase

Discuss about the Project Management for Principles and Strategies.

The Narrabri Airport Master Plan was adopted in 2012-13. In this plan, proposal was passed to completely revamp the whole Narrabri Airport with latest technology and make it fully functional on a permanent basis. The plan also included expansion of the airport in order to accommodate high capacity aircrafts and introduction of new specific area for jet aircrafts (Projects 2016). The overall master plan was divided into several periods and the project was expected to complete in 2030.

In this report, the first phase of the master plan project has been discussed. During this phase, a line marking plan was made for the existing parking apron to accommodate a single larger aircraft such as BAe-146, Dash 8 400 or ATR72 or two smaller aircraft such as B350 King Air or Saab 340 (Ryerson and Woodburn 2016). This was in preparation for Virgin Australia ATR72 operations. It was announced on 18 March 2014 that Narrabri Shire Council had been granted $5.9 million under Round 2 of NSW Resources for Regions program towards the cost of the airside aspects of the “runway end of safety areas” upgrade project (Tonkin 2014). Works were completed in August 2015.

Before initiating the initial phase of the project, the following objectives were set:

Rehabilitation of runway 18/36 to accommodate unrestricted operations up to and including Fokker F100 or equivalent.

Strengthen and widen existing taxiway to align with final design aircraft requirements and current standards.

Rehabilitation and expansion of the existing apron to accommodate final design aircraft requirements and current standards (Bejarano et al. 2015). Apron was expected to accommodate 3 x Fokker F100 and 1 Beech 350 (or equivalent) simultaneously.

There would be a 240 metre runway extension of 18/36 to the south as part of the rehabilitation of the existing runway.

Provision of new General Aviation area providing parking and aircraft access to the new fuel facility and RFS station.

Associated pavement markings on all new aircraft movement areas.

All new airfield ground lighting including runway, taxiway’s and apron.

Installation of new single sided Precision Approach Path Indicators (PAPI) to assist aircraft on approach and to comply with standards for Jet Regular Public Transport (RPT) operations.

Removal of existing aviation fuel facilities and installation of new facility within the general aviation area. The new fuel facility would provide for self service Jet A1 and Avgas bowsers as well as a Jet A1 tanker for pressure and over wing refueling of larger Jet and Turboprop aircraft (Bejarano et al. 2015).

Stakeholder Analysis

In the first phase of the project, a number of stakeholders were involved, who had their own duties in conducting the project successfully (Chevalier 2016). A stakeholder analysis table is given below.

Stakeholder (Team or Individual)	Role	Responsibilities	Issues raised by this stakeholder	What are the stakeholder’s expectations?	What is the level of influence of this stakeholder?	How much does this stakeholder support the project?	How will we engage this stakeholder?
Narrabri Shire Council Chairman	External	Sanction of lands and extra funds	He raised a concern regarding the future of the project	He expects that the project will help in the development of Narrabri Shire	Influential	Weakly in favour	He can provide extra funds and lands for expansion
Airport Authority of Australia	Organization	Sanction of the Project, Analysis of the need of the project	The authority once raised an issue as to whether the project is actually necessary	They expect that the project will help them gain more passengers	Very Influential	Strongly in favour	The authority will help in the overall project and the operations
Project Sponsor	Sponsor	Availability of sufficient funds	Project sponsor raised a concern regarding the uncertain future of the project	The project outcome will help the sponsor to gain significant benefits	Influential	Strongly in favour	They will provide funds when needed
Project Manager	Manager	Management of the whole project	No issues raised	The project will be completed successfully and in time	Very Influential	Strongly in favour	Strong management and leadership skills
Nearby Land Owners	External	Land disputes	Land owners were not interested in letting go of their lands for airport expansion	They will either get proper sum for the lands or proper relocation	Limited Influence	Strongly opposed	Their demands should be met in order to stop land disputes
Passengers	Client	More passengers will allow more airline companies to provide service	Passengers are not sure whether the flights from the Narrabri Airport cost effective	Passengers expect to reach all parts of Australia and other countries from Narrabri Airport in the future	Influential	Indifferent or undecided	More passengers = more flights
Local Public Services (Fire, Hospital, Security)	External	Provide emergency services	The vastness of the project will require massive emergency services support	They expect the project to be done abiding by all the safety guidelines	Limited Influence	Weakly opposed	They will provide instant services in cases of emergency
Employees	Team	Work as teams for the conduction of the project	Rigorous working periods, insufficient allowances	They expect personal benefits from their work in the project	No Influence	Indifferent or undecided	The future of the project will depend on the works of the employees

All these targets had to be met within a time span of around 2 years (Tonkin 2014). Hence, suitable management was necessary in order to meet all the targets successfully. In this project, step by step planning was undertaken. The following key events were planned and implemented (in numerical order):

1. Closing of land disputes and acquiring all the necessary lands after analysis and measurements of the required area.
2. Designing the blueprint of the plan.
3. Operation of the expansion parts.
4. Operation of the removal of unwanted structures.
5. Building of infrastructures for new proposed structures.
6. Other proposed building plans.

The budget for the initial airport upgrade was $10.5 million and was funded by a $6m grant from NSW government’s Resources for Regions contribution to Narrabri Shire Council, $3m from Whitehaven Coal and $1.5m in loan funds.

After the steps were taken one after another, the project went on successfully and was finally finished within the specified timeline in 2015. With the step by step implementation, each of the parts of the project was completed successfully. Throughout the implementation phase, a risk analysis process was undertaken in order to identify possible risks and loopholes in the project (Tonkin 2014). This helped the authority to take necessary steps to remove any issues and other problems before it was too late. Moreover, suitable planning led the team to proceed with the next phase of the project successfully. The project manager was instrumental in whole of the project in this phase (2014-15). He analyzed all the tasks, delegated every task to the employees and workers and created a suitable timeline accordingly. He also added some extra time space periodically for risk analysis and other extra works. This enabled the employees to complete all the tasks effectively and successfully (Castro and Lohmann 2014). From this planning, the project manager had a number of benefits:

Zero Extra Expenses – As the timeline was produced according to plan, the project manager did not have to spend extra funds during the course of the project.

Future Arrangements – Due to successful implementation of the timeline, the project manager was able to analyze the success of the current phase and the requirements of the next phase.

Sponsor Bonus – Since the project was completed successfully in time, project manager earned some amount of sponsor bonus.

The project was conducted successfully according to plan and no deviations from the main objectives were reported.

From this project, as a manager, a lot of things has been learnt. Firstly, it was learnt that every project has to be carried out within a specified time. However, this needs efficient management and delegation of tasks. Implementation is another important factor. It was learnt that the implementations are to be done in a specific order in order to undertake a project successfully. Another important thing learnt was that risk assessment is always necessary in any project so that no problem is encountered in the future. As a manager, one should be able to show good leadership and management skills. One should be able to take suitable actions and decisions throughout the project. Again, from this project, it has been learnt that one should not proceed with any project that has no future. One should also not avoid his duties and delegate his tasks to someone else. The success of this project has helped to gain all the positives and the meaning of a true leader as a project manager.

Conclusion

In this report, an overall idea of the project and its details has been documented. The project targets, stakeholder analysis, implementations and benefits have been discussed. According to the Narrabri Airport Master Plan, several projects were set to be undertaken in a number of phases starting from 2014. In the first phase (2015-16), several targets were acquired and a timeline was set. The project manager and the whole management team sub-divided the tasks and revised the timeline for the implementation of each step one by one. Due to very efficient management, the initial phase of the project was completed within the specified timeline successfully. 

Reference List

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