Construction Of Modern Superhighway In Nairobi-Limuru Roadway, Kenya

Details of the Project

Delhi Construction Company is located in Nairobi the capital city of Kenya. The citizens of Kenya have in the past six months complained of mad traffic congestions along Nairobi – Limuru roadway. Limuru being a very fast developing industrial town in Kenya has seen many people move from their rural areas to the town of Limuru in search of jobs. The citizens have staged several demonstrations on the streets of regarding the traffic congestions along the Nairobi – Limuru roadway. With only one and half years left for Kenya to have another election, the politicians are now having a lot of pressure to solve the problem so as to be able to defend their seats in the coming elections. The government has on several occasions promised the public to correct the problem but has failed to fulfill the promise. The public is now accusing the government of corruption and embezzlement of development funds. The government due to this pressure has now decided to construct a modern superhighway connecting Nairobi and Limuru to solve the problem for the last time. The government has requested submission of various bids by interested construction companies.  The meeting we called therefore was to discuss whether to bid or not bid.  We were to discuss the project requirements and see whether it would be wise for the company to submit the bid. Coming up with the best working team and strategy was part of the meeting objectives.

The project, which is construction of a modern superhighway, is located in Nairobi – Limuru Roadway, Kenya. The highway is 55 km and it is anticipated that it will greatly improve the economy of the East African countries in general. It is eight-lane highway, which will start in Nairobi and end in the suburbs of Limuru. Kenya aims at attaining the middle – income status by constructing the highway (Sherekar, Tatikonda, & Student, 2016). Along the Nairobi – Limuru way is a university with over 50 000 students. Therefore, the project involves expansion of the University way so as to have eight lanes and a four lane flyover is to be constructed across the University Roundabout. The urban zones along the roadway are now many hence the Globe Road is to be widened so as to have 6 lanes.

An underpass is to be constructed at Kiserian and a flyover with footpaths will be built at Thika Roundabout. The river road is to be constructed so as to have a 6 lane stretch and an additional flyover across the river road. The Thika Roundabout – University stretch will be built to be a high-speed highway, it will have limited exits, and the access will be restricted. The project also involves construction of other lanes and other advancements such as increase of traffic lanes and the construction of the flyovers that did not exist (Mok, Shen, & Yang, 2015).  An addition planting of grass along the highway will also be done. 

Benefits of the Project

Completion of this project will help solve the severe traffic congestion experienced over the past few years. The frequent road accidents caused by the heavy traffic will also reduce greatly along the Nairobi – Limuru Roadway as the project involves construction of wider and a safer highway. The high cost of fuel consumption by vehicles which is caused by the traffic congestion will also reduce.  Pollution caused by the vehicles is also expected to reduce by a small percentage. Consequently, time of travel will be shorter will be shorter as there won’t be much time wasted due to the heavy traffic being experienced currently. The superhighway will connect Nairobi to other towns especially those in Northern Kenya that are commercial centers of Kenya. It will be a very reliable route, as it will also connect Kenya with its neighboring countries. The students will also benefit highly because of the readily available and reliable transportation system. The highway will be of so much value to trades transporting perishable goods such as horticultural products.

Delhi Construction Company is a large construction firm that mainly undertakes major infrastructure projects. We have operated in Kenya for ten years now. Our company has both locally trained employees and foreign expatriates from well developed countries. Over the years we have won several tenders that have involved major infrastructure project. For example, the expansion of Mombasa port which is the busiest port in the country. In addition, the building of a modern bridge at cost which is well known as the Nyali Bridge. In the early stages, that is ten years ago, we portrayed excellent workmanship and this has led to great demand for our construction services and we have earned a lot of experience over the years through acquiring of new equipment and plant. We have combined expertise, speed and quality controls and therefore we are able to deliver within the stated period and we do not compromise on quality at all. We have made a lot of profit over the years which has helped us increase our workforce and also hire and train very well skilled personnel (Smith, 2017). Our mission is to provide quality services to the citizens of Kenya by offering professional expertise and applying modern technology in all that we do. Our vision is to be the best service providers of construction services in the country.

In any tender that we have been awarded, we have criteria in which we choose our project team members as our projects mainly involve a considerable amount of time, use of many resources and tools of varied complexities and if the project team is not selected well, it can be very disastrous. Primarily, we consider; training and certifications of every member and those that are up-to-date with safety training and handling of equipment are taken to deal with the most crucial parts (Brook, 2016). We also choose projects team members depending on the time scheduled for the completion of the any construction work. We also consider physical characteristics of some workers before allocating them jobs on certain projects. As a company, our workforce is highly trained on the use of construction machines as training is a thing we do each and every year to ensure every worker is up to date with all the construction information in the modern world. In addition to annual training and training when necessary, we conduct a performance appraisal  of every employee so as to access the qualitative as well as the quantitative aspects of job performance (Wimalasena, & Gunatilake, 2018). We access the employee’s degree of accomplishment of his or her tasks that make up his or her job.  We are fully committed as management to the process of job. We have clear objectives about the process which is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of an individual. Our performance appraisal is also consistent where we do it annually. Every member of the company is fully involved in the process (Carlson, Greenstein, & Neuberger, 2017). We do the performance appraisal throughout the year that is, it is not a once a year event. The performance appraisal has helped us as management to develop the employees in a better way by working on their weaknesses and also working to develop their strengths. 

Delhi Construction Company’s Profile

As the managing director of Delhi Construction Company, I called upon my management team to decide whether to submit the tender for building of a modern superhighway in Kenya. Tendering equally means bidding.  There are several terms that are used in this process such as bidding and estimation. In bidding, you offer the final price that you will charge that is the total cost and in estimation where you only calculate the internal cost of the contractor. In government construction, it is always best for one to choose the lowest bid. The construction tender process involves the below activities; Bid solicitation- this is where the owner in our case the government bids, that is makes a request to tender by providing materials with drawings and other specifications of the tender. Bid submission- builders submit their  bids before the set deadline date. Bid selection- the owner chooses a winner. Contract formation- here the owner and the winner of the bid lay out the legal groundwork for the project. Project delivery- the actual work or construction begins.

We analyzed various factors so as to make a decision on whether to bid or not bid. We have analyzed our own experience and expertise in construction. As a result, we concluded that we were good in terms of expertise because we had both very well trained local employees and we had the advantage of having foreign expertise that had been trained in the developed countries where training is better because of availability of better resources (El-Sabek, & McCabe, 2018). Through our training sessions we have also ensured that our employees are up to date with modern construction developments. Therefore , we conclude that in terms of expertise we were in a good position. In terms of experience, we have offered construction services for ten years now. Through the years we have learnt so much in all the tenders that we won before. That is in the works that we have done. We can say that we have had enough experience that will also guide us in the construction of the 55km superhighway.

 We have also looked at some various factors to see whether to bid or not bid. We looked at the size of the work that is to be accomplished. The work is enormous considering that it involves expanding a one-lane road to a eight lane roadway. In addition it is a superhighway which is modern. Delhi Construction Company is a large company that deals with construction of large infrastructure projects, i.e. megaprojects (Oyeyipo, et al 2016). We also analyzed the complexity of the work by drawing the architectural sketches of how the highway will look like. The superhighway requires a lot of work and is complex because it not only involves building expanding the road but also building the  road through a very busy town and in other  areas where no road exists (Lewis, et al 2016). Through the performance appraisal that we had conducted that showed the job capabilities of the employees we could tell that the employees who had the skill to meet the complexity of the job were enough to form project team members to do the work. We also looked at the timing of the work that is, the time the government intended for the work to begin (Matheson, Schwab, & Koval, 2018). 

Project Team Selection Process

The project we were working on was coming to a completion in seven days time so the timing for the job of building the superhighway was so convenient.  We also looked at the location of the project and it was very convenient. We are situated in Nairobi and the project takes place in Nairobi which therefore is very good for our company (He, et al 2015). We won’t have to incur much transportation cost and accommodation is also very convenient as many workers can go home after the work every day.  Storage of equipment will also be easy as we can take them back to our offices which are not so far away from where we are suppose to do the construction, this will be for  safety purposes.

We have looked at the profitability of the project since the bottom line of this all is to make profit. Our aim is to make profit. Our financial team has through estimation calculated the labor and equipment cost almost accurately. The labor cost was inclusive of all taxes, insurance and other benefits given to the employees of this company.  In addition we have analyzed the our previous bids both the ones we won and those that we lost so as to know what to put in our tender and what not to do (Wijk, & Fischhendler, 2017). We looked at them so as to look at our previous failures and learn from them and avoid making the same mistakes as this is a very competitive tender and any mistake will not be compromised. In as much as the owner of this bid that is the government will look at the cost they will also need to see the strengths of the company in other aspect so our tender should be so strong. We mission is to ensure provision of  quality construction services to the citizens of Kenya and our vision is to be the best construction company in Kenya. If we win this tender it will be one project it will fulfill our goals and our mission and vision (Brooks, & Rich, 2016). This is because our company will have contributed to solving one very major transportation problem to the people of Kenya and will help the country’s economy greatly. We will have accomplished our goal of providing professional services to the people of this country.

We did a vote as the management and all of us agreed for the company to bid. We came to a conclusion that we had the capability of completing the project through analysis of various. We therefore embarked on the process of tender preparation and we agreed that a total cost of 360 million dollars would be our bid price. 

Factors for Deciding on Bid Submission

Conclusion

We as Delhi Construction Company would be very proud if we won this tender. This is because we take pride in accomplishing tasks that meet the needs of the people in general. We really like providing services to the people and are very proud when we are able to solve problems facing citizens through accomplishments of our tasks (Brookes, & Locatelli, 2015). Our records show clearly that we have always offered quality services and all our projects were able to meet the quality standards set by the clients. We as Delhi Construction Company are not only objected to make profits but also value the citizens and would like to deliver services worth their money (Caprotti, 2014). Through the use of the foreign expatriates that we have who have so much advanced skills and many of them having been involved in construction projects in the developed nations we promise to build a superhighway that matches that of those in the developed nations (Buswell, et al 2007). This will help accomplish the goal of the Kenya people of becoming middle income earning country through the construction of the superhighway. This also will give the government and the people of Kenya an additional value for their money. One of the values that we always follow in all our jobs is that of ensuring safety in all that we do. We have enough safety equipment and you can be sure that the risks involved will be very minimal. One of the factors we always consider while choosing project team members is that of speed therefore we can assure you that we will meet the deadline (Othman, & Ahmed, 2013). Your maintenance costs will also be very low as all that we do quality is usually at the back of our minds. 

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