Large Hadron Collider Project Failure - Nasa

COVENTRY UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING & COMPUTING

BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING (HONS)

IN

ENGINEERING BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

A303KM – PROJECT MANAGEMENT

COURSEWORK

STUDENT NAME : K.A. GIMHANI S. KARUNARATHNE

STUDENT ID NUMBER : 4956765

SUPERVISOR : MR. INHAM HASSEN

Declaration of Originality

This coursework is my own effort and has not been copied in part or in whole from any other source except where duly acknowledged. As such, all use of previously published work (books, journals, magazines, internet etc.) has been acknowledged within the main report to an item in the list of references. This project is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the award Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) in Engineering Business Management.

Copyright Acknowledgement

We acknowledge that the joint copyright of this project report belongs to Auston Institute of Management – Sri Lanka, Coventry University and me.

Student Name: ___________________________________ Signature: _______________

Office Stamp

ABSTRACT

Proper Project Management is the giant behind the success of all Projects and when it comes to Large Scale Engineering Projects, this factor which leads the project to success, is very important to consider about. This coursework encircles the "Large Hadron Collider (LHC)" project done by NASA with team Fermilab's partnership. After sixteen years and billions of dollars of development, LHC suffered a serious failure during the final testing phase, due to a simple engineering miscalculation. After six months of additional rebuilding work, the LHC celebrated the success of its first particle collision experiment on March 30, 2010. This coursework analyses the key reasons that led the project to fail, in a project management aspect and the potential solutions and prevention methodologies to manage such a huge edge engineering project in a better way in relation to two major successful projects in the Engineering World.

Table of Content

Abstract …………………………………………………………………….……………….. 3

1. Causes for the failure of Large Hadron Collider ……………………………….….………5

1.1 Poor Procedures ………………………………………………………….…….……...5

1.2 Failure to follow Processes……………………………………………….…………....6

1.3 Failure to follow Best Practices …………………………………………….………..10

1.4 Flaws in General Procedures ………………………………………...…….…………13

2. Reference to other cases similar in nature and explanation on how they

have been better managed……………………………………………………………...…16

2.1 The Ares I-X Upper Stage Simulator – NASA ………………………………………16

2.2 MSTI – NASA ………………………………….…………………………………….17

3. Trade-offs between Scope, Time, Cost and Quality ………………………….…………...19

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………...…….…….20

List of References …………………………………………………………………………... 21