Question

PROJECT SUMMARY

A multiprime contract for the construction of a new high school for the New State Building Commission

KEY PLAYERS

Concrete Services Corp. (CSP)

Concrete Contractors

CSP did not have much experience working on public projects, but it did have vast experience as a concrete subcontractor.

Steel Contractor Inc. (SCI)

Steel contractor responsible for supplying the steel columns and erecting the steel frame of the building

Corporal Construction and Management Services, Inc. (CCMS)

Management service responsible for creating and managing the schedule for the project, including:

• Reviewing and coordinating work schedules to eliminate any potential conflicts
• Visiting the job site regularly
• Communicating with the different trades throughout the duration of the project
• Conducting job site meetings to resolve any conflicts that do arise

CCMS is the project’s construction manager under the standard CM Agreement and General Conditions issued by the New State Building Commission. They are a relatively new company and did not have much experience in a construction management role.

Paul Manager

Assigned by CCMS as the lead project manager on the construction project

CCMS needed to quickly fill the lead construction management role on the project or face termination, so they hired Paul Manager. Paul was recommended to CCMS by the owner of SCI.

THE CHALLENGE

Throughout the project, CSP complained to Paul that SCI was hindering its work progress because SCI was experiencing delays in erecting the steel and often did not get the steel columns delivered in time. On a regular basis, the CSP crew would show up for work and would be forced to wait around because SCI had not completed its erection of the steel due to delays in the delivery of SCI’s materials.

When CSP brought the situation to Paul Manager’s attention, Paul told CSP not to worry about it and that he was confident that SCI would come through and complete its scope of work in a timely manner. Paul Manager never conducted a job site meeting to address the situation and he never documented any of CSP’s concerns. On one occasion, CSP’s concrete pump was crushed by one of SCI’s cranes because Paul had arranged to have both crews on the job at the same time working in the same area.

The construction project’s completion date was delayed several months, in part due to an unusually rainy season, but also due in part to schedule delays experienced by several of the contractors on the project.

CSP filed a lawsuit in federal district court alleging that CCMS’s mismanagement of its oversight responsibilities caused CSP to experience a number of delays and to work inefficiently, resulting in extra costs. As evidence of CCMS’s mismanagement of the entire project, CSP alleged that:

• CCMS abandoned the critical path schedule, forcing contractors to do work out of sequence
• Access to the job site often prevented its crew from working at all
• The process for submitting and approving extra work orders took too long, and they often remained unresolved

Question

1. What management technique would you recommend to Paul to mitigate the risk of future disputes?

2. What documentation could either side provide to support their claim?

Answer 1

Introduction

1)Paul being the lead project manager for construction project , thus had the duty and obligation to ensure that the project is completed within the stipulated period with the coordination and cooperation of CSP and SCI which was must to carry out the work smoothly but as such it is witnesses that due to the delays of supplying steel by SCI , CSP has been encountering a lots of problems. Due to irregular deliveries by SCI , the progress of project was hindered which eventually lead to risks of raised costs, exceeding deadlines , etc

In order to mitigate the risk Paul , the lead manager should initiate Some of the most suitable strategies to mitigate the risks associated with the project which can be:

Avoiding the risk :
It might be the least option considered in case there is no other profitable option left. If Paul feels that the continuation of this projects will result in nothing but losses , then it will be better for him to call off the project to prevent the future complexities, financial problems or liquidity crunch etc.

Paul needs to mitigate the risk is to formulate such procedures and policies that will enable the project completion within the time limits and budget through applying techniques to forecast uncertainities , predicting delays in advance through monitoring and evalauting the work of steel errection periodically in order to ensure these delays are proactively avoided by ivertime arrangement or similar methods ,
To reduce collisions between SCI and CSP , and thus ensuring each work interdependently through synchronizing their efforts and promoting coordination.
These techniques will help to minimize or eradicate the risky situation creating complexities

Accepting risk and handling it:
The another method to mitigate the risk is to accept that the risks exist and identifying the root cause that result in a particular outcome.
It involves designing out the the reasoning behind unwanted risk that jas the maximum possibility to arise and thus initiating steps to curb these risks efficiently
It will incorporate closely monitoring the field performance and initiating early problem detection and warnings systems that will enable to get the efforts and operations on line if are deviated or derailed

controlling or reducing risks
It involves using the risk reduction techniques to keep ceratin things at place that will enable to reduce risks. Although it will involve certain amount of cost , but it will lead to prioritizing the risks to combat them in advance so that the construction project runs smoothly with mutual efforts and coordination.
It also involves reducing the occurrence of risks by avoiding such situations that have been encountered in pasy or are more common in the project so far

2) CSP can provide the claim that due to lack of due diligence, efforts and hardwork SCP never makes deliveries on time which eventually hampers the operations and affects the smooth flow of activities .
The delays in supplying steel leads to not being able to work as per the set schedule ,and meeting the standards set, may it be the budget or the time frame .
Because due to SCP delays occur that increase the life cycle of project due to which labour need to attend more to work than the prescribed time resulting in cost hike creating complexities for project completion and affecting efficiency.
To further support their claim they can also include the situation of work collision between SCP And CPI which lead to Crushing of concrete pump build by them

Morover CCMS has also been reported to abandon the critical path schedule, forcing contractors to do work out of sequence
Access to the job site often prevented its crew from working at all
Further due to these prevailing situation the process for submitting and approving extra work orders took too long, and they thus remained unresolved mostly.

On the other hand SCP can argue through claiming that It has always tried to complete the scope of project in timely manner by being enough digent towards the work but the construction project’s completion date was delayed several months beacuse of an unusually rainy season due to which it took time for them to come back to routine as it made processes grow complex and undermined the speed of work for employees resulting in inefficient outcome otherwise their efforts and work schedule was taken into due consideration
Further they can claim that because of having relatively less experience in construction projects and such roles , created certain discrepancies , thus nothing was done deliberately

Hope i explained well in the time frame given

God bless and good luck :) sorry for typing mistakes

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