CASE STUDY

Construction Management and Quantity Surveying



Construction Management and Quantity Surveying

Introduction

The topic under study includes a case study of a successful project. It involves the identification of the parties involved in the project, drivers that caused the client to instigate the project, risks that associated at the time of project initiation and how the project went.

About the Case

“Sheep-connect Tasmania and Its Impact on Capacity and Resilience Building”

Tasmania is a highly rural and regionalized state with around 60 percent of its population living outside its capital, Hobart. Compared with other states, it characterized by a dispersed population and a proportionally greater reliance on revenue from rural industries. Extensive grazing industries, principally sheep (producing meat, fine apparel wools or coarser carpet wools), constitute a large portion of the land use and employment generation in the inland and east coast districts of the island.

Drivers that caused to instigate the Project

The 2006-09 drought in Tasmania (the most severe on record), forced considerable stock reductions throughout the state which has resulted in a low of around 2 million sheep. This prompted sheep industry Agri-political interests in the Tasmanian Farmers and Association (TFGA) to lobby their corporation, for an extension program to ensure local industry knowledge needs were satisfied. Its aim was to provide an industry owned extension service to AWI levy payers in the state. It intended to realize for its clients an eight percent per annum return on capital within five years but, as a consequence of the drought in 2006-09, this expectation was overly optimistic with farm financial returns being predominantly negative because of the drought. At the time of writing, the AWI-TIAR extension effort was in its third three-year phase and rebranded to be consistent with other programs in the national extension network; it is now known as Sheep Connect-Tasmania, the name by which we will refer to the program unless we specifically mean its earlier incarnation (8×5WPP) .

An explanation of how the program functions is necessary to understand the context of the extension initiative. Sheep Connect-Tasmania operates as a multifaceted program that employs both passive and interactive methods in its extension approach. The program segments its clients according to their learning preferences and/or sectoral interests, an approach that is akin to the 'styles of farming' approach. It adopts different strategies for different segments. About 60 sheep graziers work within a network of small groups that operate in a manner consistent with the concept of continuous improvement and innovation. These groups have acted as a 'compass' for guiding the program in the direction of relevant themes for farmers at a given time. Another 235 graziers segmented as 'industry-active' producers. These people engage periodically in seminars and forums also receive monthly electronic newsletters. The remaining 485 titled the 'industry non-active' group whose only link with the program is receiving a quarterly newsletter via conventional mail. Some 180 associated service sector individuals also receive monthly e-newsletter correspondence. The program overseen by an advisory panel of ten stakeholders, including three TIAR staff (including the program ...