Feasibility Study

Abstract

Recourses distributions during the lifetime of a project.

A Feasibility Study (FS) serves as a holistic decision basis for determining the practicality of a project idea. “There is nothing more unproductive than to build something efficiently that should not have been built at all.” Tim Bryce, Managing Director of M. Bryce & Associates. Worthwhileness is the essential focus of a FS, meaning it aims to determine whether a project is possible and/or reasonable. The distributions of recourses during the lifetime of a project are naturally negatively skewed, consequently it is most beneficial to address adjustments, optimizations, risks, limitations etc. related to a project at the very start. Hence a FS is an optional first stage of a project, where all major aspects of pursuing a given project are studied on a high level.

Conducting a FS enables an objective analysis of a project idea on several measurable aspects. The exact steps of a FS may vary depending a given project type. Typically it will include scope specifications defining the objectives of the project, analysation of the current market stating availible solutions and the potential value of completing the project, an investigation of alternative solutions which satisfy the project objectives and a financial study covering among others the total cost and benefit estimation.

Since a FS requires a considirable investment at an early stage of a project it will mainly be sensible for large projects, where early changes potentially lead to profit in the long run. Moreover the project need to be of a certain open characteristic and/or hold unknown factors in order to potentially benefit from a FS.

Conducting a Feasibility Study

There are several steps included in a FS, here four of the most versatile are addressed, i.e. scoping, current market analysis, addressing alternatives solutions and financial study. Bear in mind that a FS is time dependent and thus will only be applicable for a certain project at a specific time. To illustrate the essence of each of the four steps an example of a rail- and highway water crossing will be used.

• Scope

To ensure the quality of a FS specifications of objectives need to be established. This includes the background and the purpose of the project, requirements which need to be met once the project is finalised, the budget and the time frame. Scoping at this stage may be of open as well as well defined characteristics depending on the requirements needed to be satisfied. All other steps of the FS will be based on the scope, therefore an inadequate scope will lead to misleading results and a too narrow scope may result in sufficient alternative solutions being overlooked. In some cases it may be recommended to carry out initial studies in order to roughly estimate if the objectives of the scope are sensible. This mainly concerns projects where data from similar cases are not available or simply do not exist.

In our rail- and highway water crossing example a scope should specify who will benefit from it, what the problem is with the current solution, it could be a ferry line or a crossing at a different geological location. The location should also be stated as this will be governing for the length and the foundation of the structure. Clearly the contents of the project need to be addressed, which are the number of lanes, speed limits, safety requirements etc. Lastly a rough estimation of effects should be included, such as the reduction of travelling time, how many travellers and the like.

• Current market

Analysing the current solutions to the problem may cover investigating copyrights, regulations and faults in current system. This step will uncover how relevant the new project idea is.

• Alternatives

• Economic Feasibility