Modelling and Simulation of Cross-Border Operations: A Case of Phase II Lesotho Highlands Water Project

Construction projects requires accurate planning to prevent planned schedule over-running with time which results in additional financial requirements, thus disturbing the allocated budget. Similarly, the Lesotho highlands Phase II water project required sufficient planning and one of key planning aspects feeding into this was the cross-border operations processes. Most of construction related materials such as cement and fly ash will be imported from Republic of South Africa to Kingdom of Lesotho in large quantities. The estimated annual requirement of cement and fly ash on schedule at year one and year two is 58kt, 45kt and 17.6kt, 13.5kt respectively. This means a monthly average of 4.83kt, 3.75kt for cement , while fly ash is 1.5kt and 1.13kt at year one and year two respectively. The average daily number of cement and fly ash trucks at 22 monthly working days will be 7 and 2 trucks at year one respectively, while in year two it will be 6 and 2 trucks respectively. These further meant total number of trucks of 9 and 8 to cross border daily at year one and year two respectively. Assessment of the current cross border operations to accommodate this new influx was required. Simulation using Arena software 16.10.00002 student version was used to model the current 16 hours operations of potential migrant crossing the border, which was a border closer to the project site by about 210 km relative to other three borders. The simulation results indicated that current operations can potentially service 64 migrants to cross the border relative to 55 migrants crossing the border on average daily. The extra 9 migrants indicated that the border has the capacity to handle the number of trucks. However, at the peak point of the project, about 14 trucks are anticipated to cross the border, the extra 5 trucks can be accommodated by elimination of export-import paperwork clearance as part of operations process step when trucks are onsite by sending necessary paperwork to clearing agents at both South Africa and Lesotho border sites, prior to arriving at the border. This potentially increase migrants crossing the border to Lesotho to a total of 101, that is, 57.81%. In case of an unpredicted peak, other borders can be accessed as alternatives; however, this will increase turnaround time of trucks reaching the project site and additional financial expenses due to extra distance to be travelled. Further research needs to be conducted to assess human resource and financial requirements for the case of increased operating times. Feasibility studies also need to be conducted in the case of use of alternative borders to handle the additional migrants in case of an unpredicted peak at the preferred border.