FIGURE 1
Introduction
A unique synthesis of science, technology, and even liberal arts is necessary for the multidisciplinary field of construction management. The majority of construction management staff members have engineering expertise, particularly in civil engineering. The Construction Management professional should be knowledgeable in fields including economics, sociology, psychology, law, and communications in addition to having a solid technical background.
A construction manager often controls the entire construction project and is in charge of the construction management company. The Construction Management organisation may contain various subject matter experts (SMEs), such as a cost engineer, scheduler, quality manager, safety engineer, and others, depending on the scope and complexity of the project. The Construction Manager is in charge of turning the engineered design on the drawings into a physical structure, such a building, a bridge, or a power plant.
Before they were commercially available, the majority of the engineered items we see around us—such as houses, vehicles, roads, bridges, buildings, aeroplanes, and ships—went through four stages of evolution. These steps or stages are 1:
Initial Phase
This is the initial phase of any project, when an individual or company has a concept to create a product to fill a market need as a result of necessity or strategic planning.
FEED (Front End Engineering & Design) (Front End Engineering & Design)
Engineers conduct basic engineering and financial analysis to further investigate this proposal when it gains traction based on management's interest in a potential project.
Engineering in depth
The organisation may opt to stop the project or continue with the project to develop it based on the results of the FEED. The following stage in the later scenario is detail engineering, during which the engineering is completed and drawings are created. After that, a builder or contractor is chosen to complete the project.
Phase of execution
Engineering in detail, manufacturing, building, commissioning, and startup
In the oil and gas sector, the Execution phase begins before the Detail Design phase actually ends. This is also the time when the construction contractor is chosen and the Construction Management organisation is founded.
The construction portion of the fourth phase is when the typical "Rubber meets the Road" cliché' applies, even if all of the phases as stated above are equally important. It is crucial to keep in mind that during this stage, the initial ideas and concepts are polished and the technical plans and specifications are turned into tangible objects.
For each of these four phases to be successfully completed before going on to the next, careful planning and control of operations are required. Even more accuracy is needed for the planning and administration required for construction. This emphasis is necessary because, while faults in the first three phases are not common, they can be corrected more simply and affordably on paper than they can be corrected during construction. Errors made during the construction process, particularly in offshore construction, can be ten to several hundred times more expensive than those made during previous phases.
Here are a few real-world instances when owners had to spend millions of dollars to remedy construction errors. It would have cost much less if these errors had been found earlier in the process.
to correct these following the construction.
An initial underwater pipeline design had made the assumption that the gas being delivered through this offshore pipeline would be "sweet," or devoid of H2S gas. This was an incorrect assumption that resulted in the corporation having to spend tens of millions of dollars replacing the pipeline with one that could handle the transportation of "sour" gas with traces of H2S gas.
In the second case, the error was brought on by poor pipeline construction. While the pipeline was in use, cladding put inside the line-pipe separated. As a result, this pipeline started to corrode and had to be removed. The installation of a new pipeline system, which cost the corporation hundreds of millions of dollars, was necessary. The price tag might have been a tenth of what it ultimately cost to replace the pipeline if the error had been discovered during manufacture.
Although all projects go through the same four stages of development, they all face different difficulties. A team building a high-rise building faces quite different challenges than, say, a team building an offshore pipeline.
All project types can benefit from the fundamental construction management capabilities of cost control, time control, quality control, and safety. Nevertheless, in addition to the fundamental tools outlined above, tailored and unique management tools are required to address the variations in a project and mitigate their own issues. For instance, there will be different needs for construction and construction management in each of the project's four phases for the projects listed below:
The following topics covered in this ARTICLE (OF BHADANIS INSTITUTE) are additions to management tools and crucial for managing construction projects, including2:
Long-lead products
Sparring tactics
When does the phase of building begin?
The obvious response is following step four's "Detail Design." It is not true, though, as construction input often starts at least during the FEED phase. Reason being that if construction SMEs are involved at the pre-construction planning and engineering phase1, many potential construction-related problems can be prevented early on.
Therefore, before engineering plans are finalised, numerous studies relevant to construction and constructability, as defined below, are carried out, such as3:
The following pertinent chapters define and go over these concepts. Potential issues during the construction phase can be identified and predicted by the studies stated above. Consequently, the possible issues detected can be reduced.
by altering engineering specifications, measurements, materials, or any other factors required to complete the project.
Another benefit is that involving both the engineering and construction management teams at the same time would best promote future interaction and communication among the entire project team. As you can see when studying this ARTICLE, engineering and construction management are closely related (OF BHADANIS INSTITUTE). The fundamentals of the engineering phase must consequently be taught to the Construction Management professional.
of an endeavour. In truth, the construction industry often has a full workforce of design engineers and designers from all relevant disciplines to support the Construction Management. The "Construction/Field Engineering Team" is this group.
Getting a general understanding of the industrial sector that the project under consideration belongs to is another part of construction management. For instance, building a petrochemical facility differs greatly from building an offshore platform or a pipeline. All three of the aforementioned cases have different equipment specifications, material specifications, testing requirements, and even contractual stipulations.
Because of this, this ARTICLE (OF BHADANIS INSTITUTE) contains important information addressing the fundamental ideas of engineering and construction approaches used in both onshore and offshore sector construction. In fact, this ARTICLE (OF BHADANIS INSTITUTE) covers enough information about the offshore industry to fill three semesters of a college course.
In order to address the necessary quality and strength criteria, this ARTICLE (OF BHADANIS INSTITUTE) also examines the various material testing needs. Another specialisation in the realm of construction management is materials testing.
The reader should be aware that construction management is a difficult subject that necessitates technical expertise, a great deal of common sense, and familiarity with other topics as stated at the beginning of this chapter.
Section 2
Building management
TERMINOLOGY & DEFINITIONS
The skill of turning an asset's engineered design, which exists on paper or in electronic form, into a physical reality is known as construction management. To meet the client needs as provided in the form of specifications, drawings, and other documentation, this is performed by applying technical competence and various project execution methods. Effective performance of construction management necessitates a thorough understanding of the specialised vocabulary and language used throughout the field, in addition to its many technical aspects (which will be covered later). This chapter discusses a variety of construction management-related entities, concepts, thoughts, phrases, and expressions, all of which must be fully understood in order for a project to be successful.
construction supervisor
The term "construction manager" refers to the person who is in charge of overseeing a specific project utilising the expertise and methods of construction management. The construction sector is made up of several sectors (e.g., residential, commercial, and industrial). A construction manager has the same duties and typically performs the same activities regardless of the industry. The cost, time, quality, and safety related to a construction project are managed by the construction manager. Additionally, he or she is in charge of carrying out the project's entire responsibilities.
The construction manager represents the owner's or client's best interests at all times.
help from a team of professionals for various project management and execution tasks. The personnel of diverse contractors are often a source of support for the project manager. The biggest benefit to a customer comes from extensive subject matter expert (SMEs) involvement in the early stages of the building project, starting with the original concept and project specification, as shown in Chapter 1.
A construction manager needs to have a broad range of skills. In addition to limitless patience and steely nerves, s/he should at the very least have excellent communication, time management, negotiation, decision-making, and problem-solving skills. Even if this is a difficult task to do, the majority of construction managers have access to staff specialists (SMEs), who have specialised knowledge and a range of tools at their disposal to help a project.
Patience may be the most crucial quality of all that a construction manager should possess. Every part of a construction project is subject to "Murphy's Law," hence it is crucial to keep one's emotions under control. More so than management skills, the construction manager's emotional control is often the deciding factor in make-or-break situations1.
Budget
What is commonly referred to as "the budget" is the expected overall cost of a construction project. All costs related to finishing a project are included in the total projected cost, often known as the total installed cost (TIC).
The cost is determined by preliminary engineering by the owner's engineers.
cost analysis, too. The selected project manager submits this expense for review, consideration, and approval to senior management and other stakeholders. The budget therefore becomes a key performance criterion and the centre of attention for all project activities once it has been authorised.
The degree to which cumulative expenditures stay within the allocated budget is one of the key elements that determines whether a project is successfully completed. However, it is uncommon for the planned amount to be exceeded or even precisely fulfilled. Budgets are typically exceeded by the time a project is finished. This deficiency has various causes, but they are typically project- and personnel-specific. Sometimes the gap might be attributed to a justified adjustment in the project's scope (Construction Executive magazine, 2017). A later chapter will go into more depth about some of these causes.
Bid
The engineering contractor creates an estimate of the cost to construct what has been engineered when Phase 3 (detailed engineering) is almost finished. The owner's cost estimate is what it is called. The owner or client then creates a request for quotation (RFQ) that contains all the project's designs and specifications as well as directions for prospective construction-contractors or bidders on what should be in any bid package. Then, bidders reply to the RFQ with all necessary paperwork, including how much it will cost them to carry out the project and build the asset. A bid package or just a bid refers to something.
The three primary categories of bids are as follows:
1. Closed bids
2. Open offer
3. A bargained bid
The most typical type is the closed bid. When bids are handed to the owner's representative in sealed envelopes as per the owner's instructions, closed bids take place. Since the bid amounts are unknown until the owners open the envelopes, the bids are considered "closed." A bid evaluation committee is present when all bids are opened at once, and each member is required to sign a form attesting that no changes were made to any bid before or after it was opened. The committee members then evaluate each bid and perform a side-by-side comparison. The "best" bidder is chosen and given the contract after the committee members have discussed and evaluated the bids. The winning bidder subsequently takes on the role of project construction contractor.
As the term implies, open bids are those where the owner/client requests that the bidders' pricing be made public. These kinds of bids are solely focused on qualifications, not price. This includes some highly specialised public projects like creating weaponry for the military forces.
When the owner opens negotiations with one or two bidders for cost and/or scope revisions following the opening of the bids, this is referred to as a negotiated bid. Simply "Horse trade" is being done here. Once both parties are content, they can sign a project contract.
Contractor
A contractor is an organisation that wins a project's bid process and has the knowledge and skills necessary to complete a specific type of construction-related work. General contractors and subcontractors are the two main types of contractors.
The general (or main) contractor is the organisation that enters into a contract with the project's owner to complete the project's construction.
When working on a large construction project, the general contractor will frequently break the project up into smaller tasks and hire smaller specialty contractors or subcontractors to complete them. The owner/client may or may not have any input in choosing the subcontractors, depending on the terms of the contract that was signed between them and the general contractor. Regarding the performance of their portions of the project, subcontractors are directly responsible and answerable to the general contractor.
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