Recipe for disaster

From the looks of things the ceiling collapse stems from multiple failures in a process:

• Designers failed in their design of the ceiling and whether or not the epoxy bolt system would work
  
• Project Managers failed to verify and test the design, overconfidence and hubris exudes from this action
  
• Installers failed to install the ceiling system correctly as the designer specified, some bolts missing epoxy and some of the epoxy cracked on other bolts
• Installers concerns were not verified and/or taken notice
• Project Managers failed to verify and test the proper installation of the epoxy bolt system
• Follow up inspections weren't timely and failed to catch the failed bolts

This begins to look more and more like a project management failure at both the government and hired project management levels. I think we can attribute this to the cozy relationship between the Mass Pike Authority and Bechtel. The ultimate authority at the end was the Mass Pike Authority who should have had more oversight than what was displayed. All of the project's failures can be stemmed from the Mass Pike Authority and it's Big Dig management structure. These problems, detailed in a Globe article in 2001, were said to continue even after they were reported and unsurprisingly, continued when Matt Amorello took over.

Question of the day:

• Why does the Mass Pike Authority still exist today? It's purpose seems redundant to the Mass Highway department. And when it comes to government accountability, quasi-governmental bodies are terrible at that.