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Project management technology keeps transportation project at the busiest commercial airport in America on time and under budget.
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is considered the busiest commercial airport in the United States - with good reason. A total of 88 million passengers, traveling on nearly one million flights, went through the airport just last year alone. While all of this activity was taking place, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta pulled off a major development coup that can be considered a textbook case of efficient and economical land development.
In 1999, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta embarked on a $6.2 billion, 15-year capital improvement plan to expand the airport’s services to meet increasing demand. Unlike the many development projects that fall behind schedule and go over budget almost immediately out of the gate, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta exceeded expectations right away. The completion of Runway 10-28, a $1.3 billion project to build a fifth runway for the airport, was the program’s first major milestone. It was a big one. The runway came in 11 days early and $102 million under budget.
Dwight Pullen, director of Runway 10-28 for H. J. Russell & Company (HJR) in Atlanta, oversaw the Runway10-28 project. HJR is a member of the LLC, International Aviation Consultants (IAC). IAC is the Program Management Consultant for the City of Atlanta, Department of Aviation for the Capital Improvement Program. Pullen was responsible for ultimately managing five separate firms and more than 200 people working on 22 separate sub-projects. Project managers had to work with the three cities and two counties on which the airport is located as well as state and federal agencies to obtain the permits necessary to start runway construction.
“I wouldn’t be exaggerating when I say that all eyes were watching us,” said Pullen. “We were very aware that building this runway was a project of national significance.”
A Mammoth Task
The 9,000-foot runway was the first of five major components in the airport’s development program, which was commissioned in 1999. Other major enhancements include a new air traffic control tower, an international terminal, improvements to the central passenger terminal complex, and a $450 million consolidated rental car facility.
“Runway 10-28’s completion provided us with an excellent template for success,” observed HJR’s Curtis Wilson, Cost and Scheduling Manager for the Hartsfield-Jackson Development Program. “We plan to take what we’ve learned there and apply it to the remaining airport improvements.”
The runway construction itself posed significant challenges. In addition to relocating residences and businesses and rerouting local roads to make room for the runway, the team worked closely with the five utility providers (Georgia Power Corporation, Atlanta Gas Light, Bellsouth, College Park Power, College Park Water & Sewer) to ensure a safe and reliable infrastructure, including the removal of overhead power lines and the building of a new power substation underground. To prepare for construction, they moved 17 million cubic yards of fill material for embankment using a five mile-long conveyor belt, a more environmentally and cost-friendly alternative to trucking the fill.
Runway 10-28 is the airport’s much-needed fifth runway, and quite literally, the entire country needed its construction to be a success.
“Delays were estimated to cost the airline industry about $5 million a week,” said Pullen. “It was absolutely paramount to complete the runway first and give the airport additional capacity for more flights.”
The stakes were also high for the contractors. Every day that the runway remained incomplete after May 27, 2006 – the slated completion date – would have cost contractors an additional $5 million in penalties.
Lessons Learned
While the bottom line figures are impressive to this success story, it is the details behind them that are intriguing. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International hit these numbers based primarily on sound project management and scheduling practices that can be applied to general land development projects to achieve the same results. Specifically, four main areas have been cited for the project’s success:
- Solution standardization
- Scheduling
- Group collaboration
- Allowing for unexpected change
Solution Standardization
Wilson and Pullen recognized immediately that they needed to have everyone involved in the project on the same page. They needed a project management tool that could provide a holistic view of the runway program and its 23 subprojects.
The ideal project management tool had to let resource managers effectively track work and monitor performance, while enabling managers to see how changes in one subproject could affect work across the entire program. That may sound easy, but in practice it is not.
Wilson and Pullen selected Primavera.
“We are able to manage the runway program’s entire schedule using Primavera and see the status of all of the projects in one view,” Pullen said. “It’s a very intuitive solution that helps us keep track of where we are on the program at any given time.”
Wilson was confident they had made the right decision based on Primavera’s reputation. “I knew the contracting community regarded Primavera as the industry standard,” Wilson said. “The solution’s flexibility is great – it allowed us to do risk assessments and conduct ‘what if’ analyses so we could see the impact of both real and hypothetical schedule delays. By laying out alternate plans side-by-side, we could see how to cut the project back by six or eight months.”
As a prerequisite to bid, all contractors had to agree to use Primavera. Once selected, they then were required to resource- and cost-load their schedules in Primavera so that it was possible to see whether work performed matched each contractor’s application for payment. Payment was contingent on compliance, and contractors were told that if they submitted monthly or biweekly reports using other software, payments would be held up until appropriate adjustments were made.
“I can’t stress enough the correlation between standardization and success,” Wilson said. “I wrote a scheduling specification that detailed all of the information that would be required – everything from coding to how you resource-load the schedule. The contractors knew they were signing up to adhere to those specifications, and by doing so, ease-of-communication and project efficiency were enhanced.”
Standardizing on Primavera was only part of the bigger picture. Before even assigning contracts, the project team standardized all operating, business, and construction processes and reports, ensuring that expectations were clear from the start.
Scheduling is Key
At the onset of the Runway 10-28 project, Wilson created a master project schedule with more than 15,000 schedule activities. Planners, designers, engineers and contactors had to use Primavera to outline their resource schedules for people, equipment and materials. Every month contractors’ schedules were imported into Primavera, which allowed Pullen and Wilson to assess and analyze schedules at a glance, tie work performed to contractor invoices, predict future activities and take immediate corrective actions.
In addition, the master schedule was progressively augmented. Whenever someone submitted a schedule update to the construction manager, the manager had to perform a preliminary analysis of the schedule. Once the construction manager accepted the insertion, it was sent to Wilson for final review and then incorporated into the master schedule in Primavera. At that point, payment applications were approved.
“The collaboration between all entities was essential if we wanted to get information into the master schedule in a timely fashion,” Wilson said. “The process took time and a good deal of training, but it was definitely worth it. We became an efficient, schedule-driven organization.”
Collaboration Essential to Success
“We knew all the projects were going to interface with one another, and we were going to have multiple contractors together on site – on a small site,” Wilson said. “During this time-sensitive project, we had to avoid scheduling conflicts and make sure everyone received access to the airfield.”
In addition to working on an active airfield, construction workers also found themselves confronted with a unique situation – building Runway 10-28 directly over Interstate 285, a 10-lane thoroughfare moving through the Metro Atlanta area. The construction process required road changes and lane shifts to avoid completely bringing commuter traffic to a standstill.
“We knew we were going to have lane closures,” Pullen said. “We also knew it would be extremely difficult to construct a runway over active traffic. Throughout this process, we needed to closely collaborate with the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) to ensure the structure was completed safely, without impeding traffic flow.”
Project teams eventually built a highway tunnel measuring 1,264 feet from end-to-end to meet Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requirements. They used 140-foot beams to reinforce the tunnel since the roof needed to be able to hold planes like an Airbus A-380 or a Boeing 747, which can weigh over 400 tons.
Expecting the Unexpected
Pullen and Wilson knew that, inevitably, even the best laid plans can go astray. Taking that into account, they realized flexibility would be key for its project management solution, which Primavera provides. As expected, Runway 10-28 construction did encounter some issues along the way, but project teams were able to address them smoothly and easily modify schedules.
According to Wilson, upon identifying a potential problem, action was swift and decisive. The department assembled a SWAT team, comprised of program managers and executives, that was quick to jump into action as issues arose.
“When there was an issue or problem we noticed in the costs or schedules, the SWAT team assembled in a room and would go through different scenarios to keep the project on schedule,” said Curtis.
By using Primavera to run and evaluate different scenarios – even before they occurred – Wilson was able to make appropriate adjustments and prioritizations.
“Based on issues that could pop up, we would run risk scenarios,” Wilson said. “We would make corrective actions in pre-plan based on that.”
Some of the setbacks that crews experienced were expected, and “float” – or leeway time and miscellaneous expenses – had already been built into the schedule to compensate. For example, whenever construction crews hit hard rock sites – a problem that plagued them throughout – they had to account for additional time to conduct blasting operations.
Other problems of geography and weather were out of their control. For example, although it was important to implement a trunk drainage system, which would serve as a springboard for launching other projects, constant heavy rains proved this to be difficult. In fact, because of the rain and silt, one contractor reported irreparable damage to several pieces of equipment. According to Wilson, by performing “what if” analyses and by logging in extra hours, the team was able to minimize the weather’s impact on the schedule.
Summary
Even though the entire capital improvement campaign is far from being over, its first leg serves a great example of how sound project management can enable any development project, regardless of industry sector, to be a resounding success. It also demonstrates how development teams can build public goodwill by defeating stereotypes (i.e., blown budgets and missed completion dates) that are typically associated with major development projects. By choosing the right project management tools, standardizing on solutions, focusing on scheduling, maintaining constant collaboration and keeping unanticipated change top-of-mind, development managers will be well positioned to replicate the success of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. SLDT
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