Unit - 17
Industrial lectures
The construction industry is the largest industry in the world. It is more of a service than a manufacturing industry. Growth in this industry in fact is an indicator of the economic conditions of a country. This is because the construction industry consumes a wide employment circle of labor. While the manufacturing industry exhibit high-quality products, timelines of service delivery, reasonable cost of service, and low failure rates, the construction industry, on the other hand, is generally the opposite. Most projects exhibit cost overruns, time extensions, and conflicts among parties. Figure 1.1 is an example of a complicated project. Table 1.1, also, exhibits some magnificent projects that suffered from huge cost overruns. In general, the construction industry is more challenging than other industries due to: its unique nature; every project is one-of a kind; many conflicting parties are involved;
projects are constrained by time, money and quality; and high risk.
The Construction Project
A project is defined, whether it is in construction or not, by the following characteristics:
The goal of construction project is to build something. What differentiate the construction industry from other industries is that its projects are large, built on-site, and generally unique. Time, money, labor, equipment, and, materials are all examples of the kinds of resources that are consumed by the project.
Projects begin with a stated goal established by the owner and accomplished by the project team. As the team begins to design, estimate, and plan out the project, the members learn more about the project than was known when the goal was first established. This often leads to a redefinition of the stated project goals.
The Project Scope and Goals
Project Goal Setting
You can’t hit a target if you don’t know what it looks like. Similarly, you can’t possibly reach your project’s goal if you don’t know what it is. When you understand how your project fits in with the broader company direction, it’s time to really pin down your goal. “But,” you say, “I know exactly what my goal is, because my boss told me.” However, a set of deliverables isn’t necessarily a goal. On first consideration, you might say the goal of expanding the railroad westward in the United States was to enable a train to go from coast to coast. But was it? Perhaps the goal of those railroad barons was not to get a train to go cross country, but to open up opportunities for commerce in the West. It’s time to put the same kind of thought to your project’s goal.
Getting your goal straight
Say your project involves training new employees in a new software system. Your goal in training them on this software could be to:
These goals suggest different priorities as well as different measurements for gauging the degree to which your project has succeeded in meeting its goal. How, exactly, do you go about determining your goal? First, go back to the person who asked you to take on the project and grill him or her about what’s expected of this project. Should the training have a measurable impact on job performance, customer satisfaction, employee retention, or cost of delivery? The answer you get might be that the project should do all of these things. But think about whether that’s realistic and whether one of these goals should be paramount in guiding you and your project team. If overall training program cost reduction is the biggest goal factor, for example, employee productivity might have to take a back seat when you’re making choices along the way. If customer satisfaction is the real goal, training costs might have to be adjusted accordingly.
Writing a goal statement
After you get more specifics about your project’s goal, it’s a good idea to put your goal in writing in a goal statement. A goal statement outlines why you’re doing this project and what you hope to accomplish at the end. You don’t get down to specific deliverables and parameters in a goal statement. For now, focus on the why and the desired result.
Here are a few samples’ goal statements:
Using the example of a training project, consider for a moment what such a project might involve. Are you supposed to write new training materials, hire staff to deliver classes, analyse the training’s effectiveness, update training materials as needed, and promote the training internally? In that case, the scope of your project involves managing the entire creation, delivery, and maintenance of a training program. Or is your goal to simply create the training materials? Or should your focus be limited to launching the new training, including promoting it to management and staff? These goals indicate very different projects, each with its own set of deliverables, tasks, resources, schedule, and costs. Writing a goal statement helps you focus on such a project from the outset.
Project scope
When you understand your goal, you can begin to define the specific parameters of the project. This is often referred to as a project’s scope. It is necessary to know that a scope is not a goal. Take a look again at this goal statement from the previous section: The goal of the project is to upgrade the shopping cart feature Web site to be easier to use to increase online sales by 25 percent. A scope statement for this project might read: This project will involve all the steps to design and implement a new shopping cart feature (but does not include maintaining or refining it once launched). The cost of the project will not exceed $25,000 and implementation must be completed before October 1 accommodates holiday sales traffic. The new shopping cart feature should help to increase sales by allowing customers more options to review their orders, give them more frequent opportunities to shop for more items after they have added a product to the cart, and allow them to save their cart contents and come back to complete the sale at a future date.
The new feature must function on our existing Web technology infrastructure.
Writing a scope statement
Scope statements define both what a project will involve and what it will not involve. In our example, the scope statement specifies that the maintenance of the shopping cart, once launched, will be handled by other project team. You typically get into specifics about the project budget, timeframe, and deliverables in a scope statement. You shouldn’t include every single detail, but you should have enough information that a project team can understand the most important parameters of the project. Together, a goal statement and a scope statement are two valuable tools for focusing yourself and your team and keeping you on track as you proceed. If you take the next logical step in pinning down your project at the outset, at this point you would create what’s called a project charter. This would include specifying a project name, getting authorization in writing to begin the project as of a certain date and to draw on a specified budget, creating a list of responsibilities, and having those with an interest in the project (called stakeholders) sign off giving you authority to run the project. You can use your goal and scope statements to help you obtain the various pieces of your project charter.
Breaking Your Project into Phases
How does all this goal and scope analysis relate to Project? When you start a new project schedule, one of the first things you will do is to enter individual tasks. Knowing your goal and scope helps you to identify the steps you should be performing to accomplish them. Before you create your first task, you should probably begin to think beyond the scope of your project to more detailed project parameters. These parameters help you determine what tasks to include in your project. For example, you might consider:
The Project Life-Cycle
The acquisition of a constructed facility usually represents a major capital investment, whether its owner happens to be an individual, a private corporation or a public agency. Since the commitment of resources for such an investment is motivated by market demands or perceived needs, the facility is expected to satisfy certain objectives within the constraints specified by the owner and relevant regulations. From the perspective of an owner, the project life cycle for a constructed facility may be illustrated schematically in Figure 1.2. A project is expected to meet market demands or needs in a timely fashion. Various possibilities may be considered in the conceptual planning stage, and the technological and economic feasibility of each alternative will be assessed and compared in order to select the best possible project. The financing schemes for the proposed alternatives must also be examined, and the project will be programmed with respect to the timing for its completion and for available cash flows. After the scope of the project is clearly defined, detailed engineering design will provide the blueprint for construction, and the definitive cost estimate will serve as the baseline for cost control. In the procurement and construction stage, the delivery of materials and the erection of the project on site must be carefully planned and controlled. After the construction is completed, there is usually a brief period of start-up of the constructed facility when it is first occupied. Finally, the management of the facility is turned over to the owner for full occupancy until the facility lives out its useful life and is designated for demolition or conversion. Of course, the stages of development in Figure 1.2 may not be strictly sequential. Some of the stages require iteration, and others may be carried out in parallel or with overlapping time frames, depending on the nature, size and urgency of the project. Furthermore, an owner may have in-house capacities to handle the work in every stage of the entire process. By examining the project life cycle from an owner's perspective, we can focus on the proper roles of various activities and participants in all stages regardless of the contractual arrangements for different types of work.
The project life cycle may be viewed as a process through which a project is implemented from beginning to end. This process is often very complex; however, it can be decomposed into several stages as indicated by the general outline in Figure 1.2. The solutions at various stages are then integrated to obtain the final outcome. Although each stage requires different expertise, it usually includes both technical and managerial activities in the knowledge domain of the specialist. The owner may choose to decompose the entire process into more or less stages based on the size and nature of the project. Very often, the owner retains direct control of work in the planning stages, but increasingly outside planners and financial experts are used as consultants because of the complexities of projects. Since operation and maintenance of a facility will go on long after the completion and acceptance of a project, it is usually treated as a separate problem except in the consideration of the life cycle cost of a facility. All stages from conceptual planning and feasibility studies to the acceptance of a facility for occupancy may be broadly lumped together and referred to as the Design/Construct process, while the procurement and construction alone are traditionally regarded as the province of the construction industry.
There is no single best approach in organizing project management throughout a project's life cycle. All organizational approaches have advantages and disadvantages, depending on the knowledge of the owner in construction management as well as the type, size and location of the project. It is important for the owner to be aware of the approach which is most appropriate and beneficial for a particular project. In making choices, owners should be concerned with the life cycle costs of constructed facilities rather than simply the initial construction costs. Saving small amounts of money during construction may not be worthwhile if the result is much larger operating costs or not meeting the functional requirements for the new facility satisfactorily. Thus, owners must be very concerned with the quality of the finished product as well as the cost of construction itself. Since facility operation and maintenance is a part of the project life cycle, the owners' expectation to satisfy investment objectives during the project life cycle will require consideration of the cost of operation and maintenance. Therefore, the facility's operating management should also be considered as early as possible, just as the construction process should be kept in mind at the early stages of planning and programming. In summary the project phases can be summarized as follows:
Preconstruction phase
The preconstruction phase of a project can be broken into conceptual planning, schematic
design, design development, and contract documents.
Conceptual design:
Schematic design:
Design development:
Contract documents:
Procurement phase (Bidding and award phase)
Construction phase
Closeout phase
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
1 Site Selection and Landscaping
Considered to be the first step in planning of a mega project, site selection and landscaping is also the most important step in development of any mega-project. Apart from determining the cost and completion time, it also affects the quality and overall impact of the project. Almost all the factors that contribute to the project cost depend on location of the sites, as it determines impact on environment, impact on the overall development of nearby area and impact on human/material resources. The main factors that influence the selection of sites for megaprojects are availability of distribution or transmission lines of electricity, availability of raw material sources and availability of transmission facilities like roads, rail, airport and waterways.
2 Basic Infrastructures
Multiple basic infrastructure support is needed for the development of any mega-project. These supports should be developed in parallel with the project itself as the project progresses. The major points to be kept in mind for development of basic infrastructure are water supply, power supply, roads and hospitals, entertainment and shopping facilities.
3 Contract Management
Management of contracts is one of the important aspects of construction management. Contractors engaged for the specific purpose usually execute civil engineering construction projects. Even when large-scale turnkey contracts of large projects are awarded to big contacting agencies, sub-contractors execute the works.
In some instances, the owner of the project does not have control over these subcontractors, as they are normally accountable only to the main contractor, resulting in delays and poor-quality output. Problems of contract management in civil engineering constructions in India can be minimized to a great extent, if management of contracts is taken up even before drafting the contract documents. In fact, this should be done while carrying out the planning and investigations of the project and estimation of items of work at tender stage. Therefore, it should be ensured that what is likely to be asked for, is possible to be performed, well before formulation of the contract documents. A good contract document should therefore have fairness or equity to either parties to the contract, clarity or un-ambiguity of all items of work, avoidance of redundancy due to lack of knowledge or in attention to details and general and detailed specifications.
4 Consultancy Services
It is absolutely necessary to ensure optimum involvement of consultants in construction projects, as the decision makers cannot be master of all the jobs. A sound advice and proper guidance is required for the execution of the project in right direction. Hence evolution of a system where the contribution of the consultant is optimized and the scarce resources are utilized to their fullest potential is very important. Today, consultancy services are available in India for proper site selection, for planning and design of project, for financial resources, for legal aspects, for environmental impact assessment and rehabilitation, and for realization of benefits of projects.
5 Project Control
Time and cost over-runs in Indian projects often discouraged owners from undertaking such projects. Control of mega-projects must be catered-for in the planning stage itself. The parameters to be measured or assessed, the method and frequency of reporting, and the levels at which corrective decisions are to be taken, should all be planned in advance. Client owners of projects in India will benefit immensely by drawing their attention to some important aspects of project control such as:
1. Resource Scheduling – The completion of a construction project is mainly governed by resource constraints. It is essential to develop a systematic method for the allocation of resources when the resources are limited and conflicting demands are made for same type of resource. This can be attained through proper resource smoothing or resource levelling. Procurement of resources must relate closely to the project schedule for operations and other resources.
2. Financial Control – It ensures that permissible limits are not exceeded in the total estimates for each project. Expenditures or liabilities are not incurred until funds are made available. The funds should be utilized in those duly authorized projects for which they are allotted and no others. Finally, it ensures that funds allotted in any particular year are spent within limits. Therefore, it is essential to maintain correct and meticulous account of expenditure and liabilities to exercise effective financial control.
3. Budget Formulations and Periodic Review - Determining the planned the progress of each contract along with the requirement of stores is essential before the budget projection for capital works is made.
4. Expenditure reporting and Monitoring - Financial control over construction projects is exercised by all levels of engineering authorities from the expenditure return. From these returns, deviations if any, are detected by analysing the trends of expenditure, vis-à-vis allotments. Thereafter remedial actions are initiated to ensure that the final expenditure in the financial year is contained within the budgetary allocation for the year.
DESIGN STAGE MANAGEMENTOnce a design team has been agreed upon and assembled, the owner needs to coordinate and manage the project's design phases. Design management requires the oversight of schedules and budgets; review of key submissions and deliverables for compliance with program goals and design objectives; verification of stakeholder input for inclusion; verification of construction phase functional testing requirements; and appropriate application of the owner's design standards and criteria. This stage should also define the criteria for assessing quality measurement to ensure the project's success. Determining appropriate goals and objectives at the beginning of the process, during a visioning session, and measuring their implementation over the life cycle of building and construction has been proven to increase overall building quality and reduce project costs and timing to delivery.
There are many approaches to achieve successful project design and construction. The Delivery Methods are driven by the project's scope, budget, and schedule. Some of these methods include Traditional (Design/Bid/Build), Integrated Delivery Process (where all stakeholders have a financial incentive to work together to produce the desired results), CM (also called CMc, or Construction Manager), Design-Build, Bridging, Lease/Build and Lease Buy Back. The selection of a delivery method will in turn influence the team composition, schedule, budget, and management plans to be followed throughout the process.
SCOPE IDENTIFICATION MANAGEMENTProject scope is the work that must be performed to meet a client's program goals for space, function, features, impact, and level of quality. Scope management sets the boundaries for the project and is the foundation on which the other project elements are built. From the beginning it helps identify the work tasks and their requirements for completion.
Effective scope management requires accurate definition of a client's requirements in the Planning and Development stage and a systematic process for monitoring and managing all the factors that may impact or change the program requirements throughout the project design and construction phases through delivery of the finished project.
A Project Management Plan (PMP) documents key management and oversight tasks and is updated throughout the project as changes occur. The plan includes definition of an owner's program goals, technical requirements, schedules, resources, budgets, and management programs. It also provides a vehicle for including efficiencies in the design and construction phases of all buildings. It will also serve as the basis for completed construction documents and outline the commissioning plan for finished execution.
USING BUILDING INFORMATION MODELING (BIM)Building Information Modeling (BIM) is the process of generating and managing building data during its life cycle typically it uses three-dimensional, real-time, dynamic building modeling software to increase productivity in building design and construction. The process produces the Building Information Model (also abbreviated BIM), which encompasses building geometry, spatial relationships, geographic information, and the quantities and properties of building components. Utilizing BIM has the potential to save project time and cost and increase overall productivity of construction and delivery of building projects with less rework, design, and construction errors.
The advantages of BIM over the traditional design and construction process are significant:
Overall, the BIM digital model becomes a rehearsal of construction and can help identify conflicts and their resolution before actual construction dollars are spent.
Types of Commissioning There are four primary types of Cx: New construction commissioning — This begins when the building is just an idea, a drawing or a schematic and is typically just called “commissioning.” It is a systematic process of verifying and documenting that a facility and all of its systems and assemblies are planned, designed, installed, tested, operated and maintained to meet the owner’s project requirements (OPR). Ideally, the commissioning process begins in predesign, continues into the warranty period for a minimum of one year after construction, and involves the proper preparation of operations personnel. Re-commissioning — Also known as on-going Cx, the Cx process is repeated after a project has been commissioned previously. This may be preferred option as system performance drifts and/or technologies change and advance over time, making it possible to restore the efficiency of a previously commissioned building and potentially enhance optimization further. Retro-commissioning — When the Cx process begins after a building has already been built but has not been put through the commissioning process, a building’s systems are tested and tuned to perform optimally for the current facility requirements. Low-cost and no-cost improvements such as energy conservation measures or reliability enhancements are also recommended, implemented and then commissioned to ensure proper performance. Monitoring-based commissioning — Known as MBCX, this process involves innovative commissioning techniques combined with new technology to integrate energy management, utility and building automation data with analytical and diagnostic algorithms that identify actual energy savings and performance enhancement opportunities in real time and ongoing. MBCx seeks to resolve performance issues as they surface and continually refine facilities so that greater than design performance (i.e., technical potential) is achieved over time. Commissioning first gained prominence in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Walt Disney Co. included commissioning in the design, construction and start-up of Epcot Center in 1981. In 1984, the University of Wisconsin-Madison began to offer classes in commissioning, and in 1989, the University of Michigan established a commissioning group as part of its institution. And in 1994, Executive Order 12902 established that a commissioning program is required for all federal agency buildings. Commissioning has become an integral piece of sustainable building practice, and some level of functional commissioning is required for a building to attain LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.
Implementing Commissioning the Building Commissioning Association (BCA) publishes a series of best practices to aid the successful implementation of Cx for design-build, retro-commissioning or recommissioning projects. The BCA is a non-profit organization with the stated purpose of “creating and supporting the highest standards for the commissioning profession” and a charge to “champion industry standards, policies and building codes that meet the future as challenges arise.” The material that follows is derived from the BCA’s publication, “New Construction Building Commissioning Best Practice.” The commissioning authority (CxA) leads the Cx process like a coach leads a sports team, so the selection of a CxA is a critical decision. When evaluating who to hire as the CxA for your project, consider: • Previous experience as a CxA on similar projects. • Ability to serve as your advocate independent of the desires and opinions of the design or construction team; the CxA should understand the owner’s goals. • Communication and interpersonal skills — a CxA should be able to point out inconsistencies and make suggestions for improvement with diplomacy and without confrontation. A CxA should be able to communicate effectively to work cohesively with the project team to help build trust and create an environment where creative ideas and problem solving are welcomed and encouraged. • Field experience in construction, O&M, testing and troubleshooting building systems. • Credentials, background and education, company focus, client testimonials, and local presence for accessibility. Cx is most effective when it begins in the predesign phase. A building owner or the owner’s representative should assemble the commissioning team and begin to define the OPR. The commissioning team includes the owner or an owner’s representative, a commissioning authority (CxA), the design team, operations and maintenance (O&M) personnel, the construction team, and, preferably, someone to speak for the occupants who will use the building once it’s complete. The OPR communicates the owner’s expectations, goals and success criteria with measurable benchmarks to the rest of the team. It should be developed during the predesign phase with the input and guidance of the CxA, who will help the owner objectively incorporate input from the design team, construction team, O&M personnel and the building’s occupants. The CxA also defines the scope of Cx for the project as part of the Cx plan and incorporates this information into the project’s overall schedule and budget. During the design phase, the CxA verifies the design development is consistent with the OPR. The CxA’s objectives are to communicate the Cx requirements to the project team members, perform an independent review of the design documentation, verify that Cx is included in construction documents, and facilitate cooperation among the project team members. The Cx A creates a Cx plan to document the Cx process, roles and responsibilities, systems commissioned, and Cx schedule, and communicates the Cx plan to the contractor during a commissioning kick off meeting. During the construction phase, the Cx A verifies that equipment and systems are properly installed and integrated per the design to meet the OPR by performing installation site observations, witnessing system start-ups and third-party evaluations such as testing and balancing (TAB) or Inter National Electrical Testing Association (NETA) testing, and verifying pre functional checklists completed by the contractor. As the building nears substantial completion, the acceptance phase of commissioning begins. The CxA works with the project team to complete functional performance testing, integrated systems testing, and training to verify successful turnover to O&M personnel, optimize building performance and evaluate project success. The CxA works with facility maintenance personnel to develop a commissioning manual for on-going maintenance. Finally, during the occupancy phase, the commissioning authority makes periodic trips to the project site to perform any deferred or seasonal testing. A review of the entire facility is conducted 10 months into the warranty period and a final commissioning record is developed. This outline represents a typical approach to commissioning a new facility. An appropriately planned and executed process should be adapted suit project scale, complexity, criticality and unique client needs regarding level of assurance required. Variants of the process exist for specialty industries such as mission critical, health care, pharmaceutical and others; they should be considered when scoping commissioning and selecting a CxA.
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