The Arabian Agriculture and Livestock Investment Company (AALICO) provides landscaping services across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). AALICO was expanding to take on larger Landscaping and Irrigation System Implementation projects within KSA and won a $22M bid for soft landscaping (delivery and implementation of living plants) and irrigation construction for Princess Noura University for Women (PNUFW).
The PNUFW project alone expanded AALICO’s revenue by more than twelve times their previous company revenues. Such larger projects bring a higher risk of performance and higher cost due to the infrastructure required to ensure the project can be completely responsive to contract requirements and standards that are not normally present in smaller projects. The focus for AALICO was Landscaping and Secondary Irrigation installation to be completed in two years for the entire University while it was under construction. With the risks of managing and implementing one of the largest single site landscaping projects in the world, AALICO partnered with Delegata to prepare itself for such larger projects through the establishment of a Project Management Office (PMO).
PNU: Project Profiles
The Challenge
AALICO was awarded a very large contract by Princess Noura University that presented considerable execution challenges. During initial realization of the project there were significant conflicts and misunderstandings with the prime contractor that indicated a need to correct internal engineering practices, project management execution, contract management and communications management to prevent termination. The focus for AALICO was Landscaping and Secondary Irrigation installation to be completed in two years for the entire University while it was under construction. This presented significant challenges for time constraints and interdependent impacts between other construction companies.
The Solution
Initially focused on preventing contract termination, the Delegata program and project management solutions for contract, configuration, risk, and scope change management were introduced. Relationship management solutions were put in place to help the prime contractor begin to see the responsiveness and accountability of the organization to requirements as well as the ability to hold the prime contractor accountable for their responsibilities. As the relationship and performance stabilized, the work effort was sustained and additional effort was placed into development of project management standards for large project performance, definition of technical support systems, analysis of job cost systems to support large jobs as well as hiring assistance and training in the various aspects of individual performance required to execute the contract. The PMO documentation was delivered and put on hold while contract execution and relationship management were sustained through contract project end dates. (This aspect continued for some time due to scheduling extensions from the prime contractor for issues in providing areas for work to be completed.)
The Benefits
BUSINESS BENEFITS
With the Delegata solution, AALICO was able to retain the large contract and stabilized the execution of the project performing to a set of standards for large projects. Even though performance was not supported with a business system for job cost project management, records were manually kept and were sufficient to defend AALICO and to prove performance that kept pace with the prime contractor. Significant revenue was preserved and the PMO documentation in itself is an investment to help perform on large projects in a more consistent manner in future initiatives.
TECHNICAL BENEFITS
AALICO incorporated improved communications capability for project execution on a project site both among the delivery team members as well as with the prime contractor with better access to e-mail, improved planning desktop tools and tracking capabilities that provided an acceptable communication capability for the prime contractor. A job cost system recommendation was also made to help build the future technology infrastructure required for large projects.
