THE WEST KOWLOON TERMINAL – QUESTIONS ANYONE?

If you thought that my post yesterday had little to do with you, please take another look…

The headline was “WEST KOWLOON TERMINUS LATE BY A YEAR AND A HALF” …

followed by a LOT of writing and references…

What on earth has happened to Zolna’s blog?

You may have wondered if I had finally and totally lost it.

If longwinded, I wanted the korero to set up the facts and framework for a simple yet extremely powerful story.

A case, which should be of interest to anyone that has a stake in construction – project owners, public or private funders, consultants and contractors of every sort, anywhere in the world.

BIM could be in the mix.

Today, I’ll give the concise version of it, with a new title

THE WEST KOWLOON TERMINAL – QUESTIONS ANYONE?

MTR runs the Hong Kong metro rail network. MTR Corporation Limited is a company listed on the Hong Kong Exchange and Hang Seng Index; it is also a major landlord and property developer in Hong Kong and internationally.

MTR has called for the development of The Shatin to Central Link (SCL) as a strategic metro line.

The railway scheme was gazetted on 26 November 2010 under the Railways Ordinance and authorised by the Chief Executive in Council on 27 March 2012. The Finance Committee of the Legislative Council endorsed the funding of the SCL project on 11 May 2012. 

Construction of the SCL has commenced in 2012. The project is expected to be completed in 2020.

The total construction cost of the entire SCL project is estimated to be about HK$64.9 billion

(in September 2011 prices)

14 contracts have already been awarded to individual contractors or joint ventures.

Most, if not all of those tenders have likely included a contractual obligation to deliver a BIM model, based on the design/tendered documents produced within 3 months of their contract being awarded to them.

This BIM model had to be fully compliant with MTR’s prescribed standards. The intention was that there would be 3 months to identify troubles i.e. all possible causes of project delays.

For 13 out of the 14 contracts the 3 month cut off has passed, on average by about 8 months.

The question is this:

Can the MTR publicly confirm that each contractor that accepted the obligation to deliver a BIM model within its SCL contract has delivered it and if not, what remedial measures have been taken by MTR?