It seems as if New Zealand's ASR, Ltd. (Almagates Solutions and Research) are much better sales people than project planners and managers. Since Dr. Kerry Black, then with the University of Waikato and now managing director of ASR,Ltd., participated in the development of the first constructed artificial reef at Narrowneck on the Gold Coast of Australia, ASR, Ltd. has undertaken three new projects, two in New Zealand and one in Great Britain. While Narrowneck is generally considered a success, they have yet to complete one of the three newest reefs on time, within budget or up to specifications. Of the three, only Mt. Maunganui has produced one much touted day of impressive surf. Truth be told, even Narrowneck had to be further tweaked after it had been considered completed.
Though ASR, Ltd. claims Narrowneck as one of their successes, Dr. Black and The University of Waikato were involved in the modeling and not the construction of the reef. The reef itself was part of the Northern Gold Coast Protection Strategy developed by Angus Jackson of Coastal Management International and John McGrath. This included a beach fill project that included the placement of 1.3 million cubic meters of sand and the placement of the reef to "anchor" the beach. The purpose of the reef was to dampen incoming wave energy and lessen their erosive effects.
Melanie Vass of The Daily Echo reported today in an article titled, "Surf's Up", that the projected cost of ASR, Ltd's latest project in Bournemouth, England has already doubled. The original project was to cost 1.35 million pounds and now has ballooned to 2.68 million pounds. Most of the escalation is blamed on construction costs spiraling upwards and delays in the project which has resulted in the project being 700,000 pounds over budget. Other costs include a higher specification reef that would maximize the reef's surfing performance. The extra money has also procured a performance based contract that ASR, Ltd. will complete the reef by the end of the year and compensate the Bournemouth Council if the reef does not work.
Now I do not know what a "higher specification" reef means since part of ASR, Ltd.'s sales pitch is that they are going to bring you a reef that will bring exceptionally improved surf conditions all by itself. The fact that they refer to their product as a Multipurpose Artificial Surfing Reef would imply that you would be getting surf as part of the base price.
The smartest thing that the Bournemouth Council may have done though is to procure the clause that guarantees that the project will be done this year. Unfortunately for ASR, Ltd. their previous two projects at Opunake and Mt. Maunganui in New Zealand have also run into huge construction budget overruns and completion delays. Both projects that were to take a matter of months to complete are now years along into their construction without being finished or producing improved surfing waves.
In addition, another article titled "Strings to Surf Reef Payment; Trust Wants Satisfaction Before Signing Last Cheque" by Richard Woodd, dated June 16, in the Taranaki Daily News it was reported that the problem plagued Opunake Reef project in New Zealand had hit another snag. The project that was supposed to be completed in three months has been grinding on now for 3 years. The Opunake Reef Trust is holding final payment from ASR, Ltd. until the reef is proved to work.
Finally, Mt. Maunganui, which has been declared complete several times, is into it's third year of construction and tweaking. According to a June 16 article in the Bay of Plenty Times, ASR, Ltd. has replaced 5 split geotubes. Project Manager Shaw Meade also was reported as saying that a few smaller bags were needed to fill in the gaps that were left over after construction.
Delays are obviously going to happen on any large scale construction project and this is especially true when you add that these reefs must be constructed in the surf zone. My concern is that ASR, Ltd. is not entirely honest about these delays and rarely, if ever, assume responsibility for them as project managers. It is always a subcontractor's fault or the weather and never error on their part. I am sorry, but as the head contractor and visionary, you can not take all the glory when a project is successful but turn around and blame everyone else under your supervision and direction when things go bad. If that is the case, then you are a pretty sorry project manager.
ASR, Ltd.'s real problem may lie in the fact that they are such great salesmen. Their presentations are very impressive with video and computer modeling and definitely catch the eye of city councils and residents. Basically, they come in and say they can have this reef done for said price in so many months. The pitch goes on to claim that the reef will bring world class surf, increased tourism and will even keep your beach from eroding to boot! This in turn gets sucked up by the local media and they spew it out to the town residents and everyone gets very excited. When things do not go as planned, as they so far have on 75% of their projects, people start getting disillusioned and nothing spreads faster than bad press.
Maybe the key for ASR, Ltd. would be to back off on the sales pitch and provide their perspective clients with a more conservative estimate on the reefs performance and possible effect on the local economy. If anything results beyond that expectation, then they are sitting pretty and have an exceptionally pleased client. If the results are mediocre, they would still have a a satisfied client as they had only moderate expectations anyway.
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