Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Remington and Pollack (2007) cite the complexity of projects and man-
aging the supply chain in creating situations in which problems are
inevitable. Egan (1998) found that the lack of attention to client needs
leads to disappointment in the building process. However it has been
noted, by Artto and Dietrich (2004), Danilovic and Borjesson (2001) and
Payne (1995), that many of those involved in the construction and devel-
opment process do not themselves understand the problems that arise
in managing projects alongside other projects. Few are ever given the
opportunity to gain an overview of the aggregate effect of simultaneous
and confl icting projects competing for limited resources. There are
numerous aspects of complexity that need to be taken into account and
understood. This topic is concerned with practical approaches for dealing
with the complexities that arise at different stages in the delivery of
large programmes. However, the techniques and methods described here
can be applied equally well across a client's portfolio of projects, or
within a business that manages multiple projects and also, to varying
but lesser degrees, on individual and smaller projects.
The key difference between a client responsible for a very large pro-
gramme, as described in this topic, compared with an individual contrac-
tor forming part of the supply chain on a programme, is that the client
team is in a position to gain an overview of their total demand and thus
a large proportion of a market in a given industry, sector or location. This
means that the client team can observe what competing contractors and
their supply chains are doing in a way that individual contractors cannot
see, because tier 1 contractors (main contractors) are in competition with
the other tier 1 contractors across the programme. Thus vital informa-
tion is always denied to main contractors for reasons of market dynam-
ics, commercial confi dentiality and competitive secrecy. The client
commissioning a large programme or portfolio of projects, however, is in
a position of necessity and needs to know the capacity of potential tier 1
and tier 2 contractors (subcontractors) before work can be let. This gives
the client an opportunity to see what overlaps exist, what clashes in
timing might be avoided and what capacity each contractor can draw
upon to meet its obligations. Only the client can gain this more strategic
and holistic view of the micro-market they create through the scale of
their demand. The supply side is in competition with itself, and both tier
1 and tier 2 contractors need to form strategic alliances in certain areas
to secure exclusive specialist input to their offer and therefore they
cannot share information - which in any case could be seen as anti-
competitive collusion in terms of the Competition Act, 1998 in the UK.
