10005

1
Blanca Aguirre Selgas

Caso de studio 2: Nicoll Highway

Questions:

1. In what ways were the projects planning and scope management
appropriate? When did the planners begin knowing taking unnecessary
risks? Discuss the issue of project constraints and other unique aspects of
the tunnel in the risk management process. Were these issues taken into
consideration? Why or why not?

The planning and the scope of the project were clearly not good enough defined
because of the large number of entities involved in the project. This was one of the
principle causes of the final collapse of the structure. The communication and the
teamwork were not good enough planned, let alone developed.
NLC tried out to minimize costs by doing a vaguely precise study of the soil. Besides,
LTAs engineer agreed with this calculating method, which assures that both of them
were aware of the risks assumed. The calculations were pretty adjusted (minimal
clearance) and they knew it from the very beginning.
One of the project constraints was, as in any project, the budget, and so they decided
to assume a risk in order to save money in the definition of the project phase. The risk
management process was not good enough studied and the hazards were not taken
into account. This way, the workers were not ready to react to the failure, let alone to
prevent it.
2. Conduct a qualitative risk assessment on this project. Identify the risk
factors that you consider most important for underground tunnel
construction. How would you assess the riskiness of the project? Why?
I would first develop a qualitative assessment of the risks, in order to came up with us
many hypothetical risks as possible. For that aim, I would define a table of risks factors,
considering a probability and an impact of each. Multiplying the probability by the
impact, it is possible to obtain a list of risks ordered by importance, as showed bellow:

Type of risk

Possible risks

Traffic and machinery movement

Contents and Electricity
use
Hazardous material and stored items
Human behavior
Collapse
Structure
Underfoot conditions
Restricted spaces/accesses
Complexity Loss of communication

Impact (1Probability 6)
Importance
20%
5
1
5%
3
0.15
30%
2
0.6
50%
4
2
15%
6
0.9
20%
5
1
60%
3
1.8
30%
2
0.6

2 Direccin Integrada de Proyectos

Casualties
Difficulties associated with evacuation
or firefighting tactics
Temperature
Humidity
Physiological
Fatigue
Restricted space
Heat
Smoke
Environmental Oxygen deficiency
Inundation
Fire

2%

0.12

45%
20%
10%
70%
60%
30%
40%
45%
10%
15%

5
2
2
3
3
4
5
6
5
6

2.25
0.4
0.2
2.1
1.8
1.2
2
2.7
0.5
0.9

Order by importance:

Possible risks
Importance
Oxygen deficiency
2.7
Difficulties associated with evacuation
or firefighting tactics
2.25
Fatigue
2.1
Human behavior
2
Smoke
2
Restricted spaces/accesses
1.8
Restricted space
1.8
Heat
1.2
Traffic and machinery movement
1
Underfoot conditions
Collapse
Fire
Hazardous material and stored items
Loss of communication
Inundation
Temperature
Humidity
Electricity
Casualties

1
0.9
0.9
0.6
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.2
0.15
0.12

In order to assess the riskiness of the project in a quantitative way, I would consider
looking into the historic data of similar projects, and taking into account any possible
risk that happened in those projects. Besides, I would also consider the risks that came
from the lack of planning, which also affect in the risk assessment of the project.

10005 3
Blanca Aguirre Selgas

Last of all, I would look into manuals that teach how to calculate these risks, taking into
account their chance of happening and their haziness.

3. What strategy of risk response would you consider appropriate for this
project?
First of all, it is extremely necessary to define a global risk management plan and to
assure all the companies follow it. It is not permissible that only one person had been
prosecuted for their part in the disaster.
It is very interesting to highline that NLC admits it was a collapse caused by a failure
that triggered the final damage. One of the most important things to be done in a
project like this is to consider this possibility and develop a way to stop this triggering
during the process, to avoid this kind of disaster.
The strategy of risk response should be defined taking into account the possible risks,
and its importance. A risk management plan cannot consider the possibility of
responding at each risk, so it the first step is to decide up to which importance
threshold we are willing to respond to.
After this consideration, the risk management plan can be define. In this project, we
could respond only to risks with an importance value of 2 or higher. This way, the
responses could be the ones gathered in the table bellow:

Possible risks
Oxygen deficiency
Difficulties
associated with
evacuation or
firefighting tactics
Fatigue

Importance Response
Install oxygen masks and inform
2.7 workers of how to use them

2.25
2.1

Human behavior

Smoke

Develop an evacuation plan and

install clear signalization
Permit breaks and respect the
working hours
Instructions about security and
behavior importance. Reduced
work shifts
Install an appropriate extraction
system