Heathrow Terminal Case Study On Nature Of Problem And Solutions

HEATHROW TERMINAL CASE STUDY ON NATURE OF PROBLEM AND SOLUTIONS
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HEATHROW TERMINAL CASE STUDY ON NATURE OF PROBLEM AND SOLUTIONS
Introduction
This paper will explore the case of Heathrow Terminal 5 to explore the concept of teamwork in an organization. It will demonstrate how stress, well-being, job design, and teamwork often impair performance, thereby exacerbating challenges that impede organizational goals, mission, and core purpose. The Heathrow Terminal 5 phenomenon raises grave concerns regarding the concept of organizational management. The failures in Heathrow Terminal 5 unravel complex issues dealing with human resources, motivation, job designs, psychological contracts, justice, and teamwork in work environmental and organizational processes. Many organizational approaches focus on strategic innovation processes while executing various projects and programs. A spectrum of dynamic capabilities is necessary to deliver large, complex, and risky projects revolving around multiple parties in the context of stress, well-being, job design, and teamwork.
The Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 by the British Airports Authority (BAA) demonstrates dynamic capabilities, including BAA’s “T5 Agreement,” strategic behaviors, and collaborative processes (Davies, Dodgson, and Gann, 2016. Pp.26-32). These capabilities are nurtured via a three‐phase process involving learning, codifying, and mobilizing to support intricate programs' strategic management involving various teams and stakeholders. Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 illustrates the importance of successfully managing complex projects while keeping the fragility of dynamic capabilities in check.
Nature of the Problem and Causes
Heathrow Terminal 5project problem is quite complicated.  From the general purview, organizational challenges emanate from the poor reconfiguration of project capabilities, poor adaptation to project capabilities, and improper maintenance of project capabilities in light of teamwork and organization challenges (Zerjav, Edkins and Davies, 2018, pp. 444-459). The Heathrow Terminal 5 was a joint project between British Airways (BA) and the British Airport Authority (BAA), with an estimated cost of approximately 4.3 billion pounds (Davies, Dodgson. and Gann, 2016. Pp.26-32). The terminal's actual development commenced in September 2002 and took about six years before its opening. The project involved multiple contractors, projects, and sub-projects marked by adopting the “Lean” model for time management and service delivery. The costs were allocated to technology and information systems with the fundamental goal of redefining the passenger experience at Heathrow and setting high standards in terminal design and customer satisfaction. The outcome has unsatisfactory due to an intricate interplay of many factors, including job designs, stress, and employee well-being. For instance, employees in Heathrow Terminal 5 project were poorly trained, yet training plays a fundamental role in attaining organizational success.
The wave of troubles that face Heathrow Terminal 5 could have mainly emanated from an information systems failure revolving around stress, well-being, job design, and teamwork. Information systems can fail in the development stage or the actual usage or application. Heathrow Terminal 5 information systems lead to failure at various stages, including development and operation cease, leading to widespread dissatisfaction.
With the relatively high capital start of a cost of £4.3bn, Heathrow Fifth terminal's construction was completed within six years, which was a feat falling within the budget and timelines. This construction was aimed at improving customers' experience by streamlining various processes that bolster efficiency. Despite its completion, Heathrow Terminal 5 did not resolve the problems which occasioned its construction. It was quite an embarrassing experience marked by the improper parking spaces, unclear road signs outside the terminal, wrong directing or directions, and chaotic rushes. The spectrum of the problem revolves around baggage system, car parking, the terminal design, and security searches, which lead to baggage pilling, manual luggage sorting, delays occasioned by luggage handling procedure, and clogged luggage conveyors. The worsening situations contributed to adverse outcomes, including some flights leaving the station without the luggage, cancellation of flights, clients seeking refunds owing to canceled flights, clients sourcing alternative flights, and suspension of all check-in at the new BA Terminal 5 was due to bottlenecks with the baggage system. British Airways lost millions of dollars in costs and profit in terms of refunds, flight rescheduling, and hotel reservations. Besides, the Heathrow Five Terminal challenges led to two senior managers' resignations and a cascade of other outcomes, including a drop in the share price. Information systems failures often elicit a negative effect on the market shares of affected organizations.
The House of Commons' inquiry raised concerns over mismanagement of resources and failure to plan sufficiently for contingencies. The investigation established various challenges. First, technical glitches were present with the sophisticated new baggage set-up designed to handle 12,000 bags per hour. Before the construction of Heathrow Terminal 5, trials were carried out to identify the operational flaws but these trials were not exhaustive to expose the realities of handling luggage. Second, employees' issues, especially on car parking and security checks, were linked to insufficient familiarization with relevant systems leading to baggage mishandling, flight cancellations, and undue delays. It appears that many workers had been inadequately trained where training time was short, resulting in a poor grasp on skill and knowledge regarding operations. Many challenges emanate from a lack of sufficient staff training where many of them were not conversant with security and parking. The staff also did not know when and how to unload the processed baggage effectively, leading to system overload and clog. Finally, the baggage system had a technical hitch that made it impossible to recognize the baggage of the actual scenario. Generally, the system lacked server capacity to generate baggage messages and did not effectively detect many bags, leading to transfer to the storage facility for manual sorting.
This wide spectrum of challenges facing the development of Heathrow Terminal 5 emerges from different focal points. These may include poor teamwork, malfunction reward and motivation systems, ineffective job designs, job-related stress, the flawed justice system, and unfavorable psycho-social contracts. The sources of these problems reflect intricate and intertwining backgrounds, which are challenging to single out.
Teamwork could be one of the critical difficulties underlying Heathrow Terminal 5 undesirable performance. The concept of teamwork is a frequently mentioned idea in the organization. However, it has received thought-provoking perceptions. Coutu and Beschloss (2009. pp. 98-105) criticize the over-emphasis on teamwork, where people think that teams that are often democratic and efficient get things done. The authors do not underestimate the possibilities of teamwork but caution against its underperformance despite the immense resources invested in teamwork. Research shows that teams underperform, despite all the extra resources they have. The underperformance from teams results from problems associated with coordination and motivation, leading to deranged collaboration. Coutu and Beschloss argued that even in cases where there is a strong and cohesive team, there is increased risk for competition with other groups, impeding real progress. The difficulties experienced at the launch of Heathrow Terminal 5 could point to perceived teams and groups which underperformed due to unhealthy competition, improper coordination, and collaboration. The Program initiation, designs, and implementation could have been marked by teams who work with little attention to a fruitful cooperation. Why did the problems that Heathrow Terminal 5 intended to resolve persisted despite immense investment in terms of time, labor, knowledge, skill, and resources? From this perspective, Coutu and Beschloss (2009. pp. 98-105) argue that team members don’t even agree on what the team is supposed to be doing. Furthermore, the authors noted in a study that every senior team had set unambiguous boundaries, yet when we asked members to describe their team, fewer than 10% agreed of the members could describe what they know about their teams. A team's idea is often conceptualized and theorized under a model comprising three core elements. First, it entails norms, including acceptable standards of behavior that are shared by group members. Second, it is the idea of conformity that espouses a change in belief or behavior to fit with a group. Finally, there is a concept of conflict in teamwork. When the three elements are deranged, there is an increased risk for underperformance.
Work environments, like in Heathrow Terminal 5, where there is increased customer dissatisfaction, dissatisfaction in the workflow, and staff dissatisfaction, often lead to work stress. Stress can occur due to personal conflicts. The underperformance and the inability to meet expectations in Heathrow Terminal 5 could lead to substantial stress amongst employees due to malfunctioning systems and conflicts. The issues surrounding job designs include role ambiguity, role conflict, role overload, interpersonal conflict, and poor managerial support. These issues present with stressful effects on the personnel. It is unlikely that a malfunctioning project such as Heathrow Terminal 5 could be devoid of interpersonal conflict, insufficient managerial support, work overloads, role conflict, and role ambiguity. Why did the project malfunction by failing to achieve desired outcomes? There could have been many challenges spanning the whole systems in the Heathrow Terminal 5 project that impaired job designs, leading to stress with far-reaching implications on performance. Sustained physical and psychological stress leads to chronic activation of the sympathetic nervous system, which has negative health consequences and burnout characterized by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, sense of ineffectiveness, and lack of accomplishment. Like in the case of Heathrow, mediocre performance could not miss a wave of physiological and psychological stress that hampered personnel well-being.
The transactional mod...