Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Project Management published by the CIOB (2009). Success in project
and programme management is often measured in terms of cost and
timely delivery. For example, the National Audit Offi ce (NAO, 2003)
compared traditionally procured projects for the public sector with those
procured using the private fi nance initiative (PFI). According to the
NAO, almost 75 per cent of construction work using traditional procure-
ment methods exceeded the agreed contract price and 70 per cent
involved late completion, compared with 22 per cent and 24 per cent,
respectively, using PFI. However, many other criteria - often qualitative
in nature - also contribute to programme success, especially as a large
number of diverse stakeholders with confl icting interests all have to be
served when undertaking large public-sector construction projects.
In his report
Rethinking Construction
, Egan (1998) also advocated
'effective measurement of performance' as an essential prerequisite for
managing and improving performance. This was reinforced by the NAO
(2001), who suggested that failure to defi ne requirements, poor briefi ng
and inadequate quality assurance all inhibited construction perform-
ance. In a later report, the NAO (2005) advocated investing time and
resources in the early planning phase of construction, clear communica-
tion from the very beginning of the tender evaluation process giving
relative weightings to the different criteria to be used, and improving
measures of performance.
In later chapters we describe both the long and deliberate lead-in
period required for programme preparation and the proper full monitor-
ing processes required to execute the plans to reach a satisfactory com-
pletion of a programme. Nothing can guarantee success, of course, but
the fundamental challenge of major construction projects is to be focused
on the overall aims and objectives while still dealing with the many
thousands of details and individual decisions that need to be taken.
Nothing of any signifi cance can be left to chance. Risk has to be identi-
fi ed, and then it can be managed.
As Loosemore (2006) states, the fundamental key to risk management
is the need to communicate, consult and involve all fi rms in the supply
chain in the decision-making process to a greater or lesser extent. In
terms of the organisation of the construction process, this may be
achieved through supply chain management. There are two types of
supply chain interaction: based on projects or on organisations. Project
supply chains describe the supply chain involved in a particular project
for a specifi c client. Organisational supply chains are established by
main contractors, who may use the same specialist contractors on a
