A sound and effective management mechanism has ensured solid, world-class quality for the mega Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, managers of the HZMB Authority told China Daily.

The bridge - the world's longest sea crossing - spans 55 kilometers across the Pearl River Estuary, where the 6.7-km island and tunnel project was built with some of the world's most complicated and advanced technologies.

To effectively manage the high-risk project and to ensure its quality, the HZMB Authority applied the "design and build" contract, whereby the contractor - China Communications Construction Company - has to contract out both the designing and building work, which are the two key factors that dictate the quality of engineering projects.

This would ensure that the contractor takes full responsibility for the project, said Yang Weiguo, deputy director of the HZMB Authority's project management department.

Yang was one of the key directors in charge of quality supervision of the island-tunnel segment. This type of contract could also effectively control the project's duration and costs, he said.

For such a complicated and difficult project like the island-and-tunnel part, there was no one-off design, Yang said. Instead, it needed to be constantly changed according to the actual situation in day-to-day construction.

So, the mode of the "design and build" contract allowed the contractor to make changes whenever necessary and reduce time and costs on waiting for the proprietor to re-evaluate the whole situation, Yang said.

Although the HZMB is about one year behind schedule and costing an extra 9.95 billion yuan ($1.43 billion, or HK$11.25 billion), it's generally argued that the project could have cost more due to the unprecedented difficulties involved in constructing the first sea-crossing project across the Pearl River Estuary.

Thanks to the comprehensive contract and effective communication in between, the project has met the expectations of all parties, Yang said.

Wu Zesheng, a team leader in Yang's department who's in charge of the island-tunnel quality, agreed with Yang.

Besides the management system, Wu said HZMB Authority also encouraged the culture for people in different positions, no matter senior or junior, to speak out when things went wrong.

Sometimes, it took them a lot of courage to tell people, especially those who are very experienced and authoritative, that they were wrong, Wu said.

"But, we have to ensure the good quality and not be afraid of offending people sometimes. It's about your conscience," he added.

heshusi@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 10/23/2018 page12)