1

CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT AT THE ONSET OF THE DESIGN

PHASE

- Programme Clarification

- Methods and Materials

- Value Analysis and Preparation for bidding

- Onboard design review

- Construction Material Cost

- CPM for Design Schedule

- Skeptic Process
 2

INTRODUCTION

Several studies have pointed out that a large percentage of defects in

building arise through decisions or actions in design stages (Cornick 1991).
In recent years, the increasing complexity of modern buildings in a very
competitive market-place has significantly increased the pressure for
improving the performance of the design process in terms of time and
quality. For instance, it has been fairly common to overlap the design and
the production stages in order to reduce project duration and increase
the flexibility of product design.

Despite its importance, relatively little research has been made on the
management of the design process, in relation to the research time and
effort which has been dedicated to production management and
project management in general.

To some extent, the fact that design management has been neglected is
understandable. Building design is a very difficult process to manage. It
involves thousands of decisions, sometimes over a period of years, with
numerous interdependencies, under a highly uncertain environment. A
large number of personnel are implicated, such as architects, project
managers, structural engineers, service engineers and marketing
consultants. Each category of professional has a distinct background,
culture and learning style (Powell and Newland 1994).

The design process needs to be planned and controlled more effectively,

in order to minimize the effects of complexity and uncertainty. The lack of
design planning, results in insufficient information being available to
complete design tasks and inconsistencies within construction documents.
 3

Poor communication, lack of adequate documentation, deficient or

missing input information, unbalanced resource allocation, lack of
coordination between disciplines, and erratic decision making have been
pointed out as the main problems in design management (Cornick 1991,
Austin et al. 1994, Koskela et al. 1997).

THE DESIGN PHASE

Design is the process by which information about a Clients needs is

translated into three dimensional physical solutions. For building projects,
design should be used not only as a tool to achieve user requirements
and fitness for purpose but also to achieve aesthetically pleasing solutions
for society as a whole. Aside the visual impact of designs on the
surrounding landscape, the overriding criteria that should be applied to
design are functionality and value for money.

The primary goal of this phase is to develop a clearly defined design

based upon the clients requirements, as defined by the facility program
developed during Predesign. Project quality, scope, budget, and
schedule will also be confirmed and refined as well as the materials and
methods of construction.

During this phase the team must continually communicate and consult on
all substantive issues. There should be periodic constructability reviews by
the team. The client and the project manager should agree on the scope
and number of constructability reviews required. The project manager
should also coordinate with any needed Value Engineering and
alternative studies. The goal is to complete a set of documents defining a
 4

project which can be bid in the current local marketplace within the
client's budget and time requirements. The design professional has total
responsibility for design implementation and execution. The role of the
project manager during this phase should be to assist the team by
carrying out the activities listed below. Although the designer is
responsible for design decisions to meet the project requirements, the
client as well as project manager and other stakeholders can also have
decision making responsibility.

PROGRAMME CLARIFICATION

Project definition is the single most important exercise in the design

process. It consists of a set of activities that have as their final purpose the
development of a Definitive Project Brief that can enable a responsive
and efficient design process, with a minimum number of iterations. When
clear project objectives are set, a mechanism for cost control can also be
established. The importance of the role of the project definition cannot be
emphasized enough.

Although defining exact requirements for a project may take time;

however it is important that clients should make sufficient effort and
allocate enough time and resources at this stage as it is at this point
where key decisions taken can incur the greatest costs. Furthermore, a
fitting design solution can be achieved more easily when a project is well
defined and a clear and suitable brief is established. In order to attain an
optimum design solution, the design process generally involves a number
of iterations.
 5

PROJECT DELIVERY METHODS

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
client in construction management as well as the type, size and location
of the project. It is important for the client to be aware of the approach
which is most appropriate and beneficial for a particular project. In
making choices, clients should be concerned with the life cycle costs of
constructed facilities (including their operation and maintenance cost)
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, clients must be very concerned with the
quality of the finished product as well as the cost of construction itself. This
should be considered as early as possible, just as the construction process
should be kept in mind at the early stages of planning and programming.

It should be noted that the strategy to be employed in delivering the

project is a key determinant as to who should be responsible for design.
Terefore, the project delivery methods include:

DESIGN-BID-BUILD METHOD (Employer):

Traditional Design-Bid-Build (D-B-B) project delivery process: Under this

process, all state bonded projects are required for bid publicly and
awarded to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder.

Design-Bid-Build (D-B-B) is the process used for the procurement of Capital

Improvement projects. In the case of traditional procurement, the client
 6

initiates the design process and the design is carried out on behalf of the
client by the Design Team. The design team may be internal or external to
the client organisation, depending on the in-house resources and
technical knowledge available. Typically the design team is led by the
architect (building projects) or the engineer (civil engineering projects).
This type of procurement can allow the contractor to carry responsibility
for designing part of the project where this arises it should be explicitly
defined in the contract as specialist work or as a specific type of
temporary works.

It is worthy of note that, there are separate prime contracts for the design
team and the general Contractor. The selected design team prepares a
set of construction documents based on the client's requirements. The
scope of the entire project will typically be included in the bid documents
so that one general Contractor will be responsible for all the requirements
of a project. Therefore, the Project Manager only needs to manage one
contract for construction. Furniture, fixtures, and equipment and/or
telecommunications may be bid as separate contracts if the Project
Manager desires.

Under the D-B-B process there is no contractual relationship between the

design team and the general Contractor. The interested general
Contractors submit a lump sum price to perform all of the work as
specified in the bid documents. The construction contract is awarded to
the lowest responsive and responsible bidder.
 7

DESIGN-AND-BUILD METHOD (Contractor):

A contractor-designed (or design-and-build) project is one where a

contractor is responsible (subject to the terms of contract) for the design,
management and delivery of the project, on time and within budget,
taking into account whole-life costs and fitness for purpose in accordance
with a pre-defined output specification provided by the Client.

If a client decides to pursue the design-and-build route, a precise

definition of requirements and a comprehensive output specification
should be developed so that the quality, design and performance of the
completed facility are not compromised. The clients output specification
must be provided in the tender documents.

With this type of procurement, contractors offer the client an integrated

project team, which includes designers and construction personnel. For
such projects clients have less input in the design process, being involved
only at the initial or preliminary design stages, in the output specification
and in the tender process. They may need to produce a feasibility study,
outline sketches, specimen designs or output specifications, and to obtain
Compulsory Purchase Orders, and they may also decide to obtain certain
statutory approvals.

Most (if not all) of the design responsibility, however, is transferred to the
contractor. The early involvement and commitment of the construction
contractor in the design process improves buildability and ensures that risk
in the execution of the design and any conflict that might arise between
the designer and the contractor is a matter for those parties and does not
involve the Client. Clients should retain their own technical advisers (for
 8

design services) throughout the delivery process to protect their interests

and to ensure that the construction quality meets Clients specified design
standards.

MATERIALS MANAGEMENT

Materials management is an important element in project planning and

control. Materials represent a major expense in construction, so minimizing
procurement or purchase costs presents important opportunities for
reducing costs. Poor materials management can also result in large and
avoidable costs during construction. First, if materials are purchased early,
 9

capital may be tied up and interest charges incurred on the excess

inventory of materials. Even worse, materials may deteriorate during
storage or be stolen unless special care is taken. For example, electrical
equipment often must be stored in waterproof locations. Second, delays
and extra expenses may be incurred if materials required for particular
activities are not available. Accordingly, insuring a timely flow of material
is an important concern of project managers.

Materials management is not just a concern during the monitoring stage

in which construction is taking place. Decisions about material
procurement are also required during the initial planning and scheduling
stages. For example, activities can be inserted in the project schedule to
represent purchasing of major items such as elevators for buildings. The
availability of materials may greatly influence the schedule in projects
with a fast track or very tight time schedule: sufficient time for obtaining
the necessary materials must be allowed.

Materials management is also a problem at the organization level if

central purchasing and inventory control is used for standard items. In this
case, the various projects undertaken by the organization would present
requests to the central purchasing group. In turn, this group would
maintain inventories of standard items to reduce the delay in providing
material or to obtain lower costs due to bulk purchasing. This
organizational materials management problem is analogous to inventory
control in any organization facing continuing demand for particular items.
 10

VALUE ANALYSIS

Value analysis is the systematic and critical assessment by an organisation

of every feature of a product to ensure that its cost is no greater than is
necessary to carry out its functions. Different design solutions must be
assessed to ensure optimal design and value for money.

VA is an explicit set of disciplined procedures designed to seek optimum

monetary value for both early and long-term investment. Value analysis
uses tools such as function analysis and risk analysis and relies on
collaboration and creativity coupled with accurate cost estimating.

As defined by the Office of Management and Budget, value analysis (VA)

is an organized effort directed at analyzing the functions of systems,
equipment, facilities, services, and supplies for the purpose of achieving
essential functions at the lowest life-cycle cost consistent with the required
performance, reliability, quality, and safety.

Value analysis is the most generalized term associated with the

application of value-based processes. Other terms include value
management and value engineering.

Todays owners are demanding that designers and builders pay more
attention to their clients financial and economic objectives. Owners want
their design and construction team to demonstrate effective
management of cost and, ultimately, of value.

The purpose of value analysis is to improve the value an owner receives

from a constructed project. This value can be shown as the relationship
between the functional benefits of a project and the cost required to
 11

obtain them. Improved value results from optimizing this relationship as

expressed in this equation:

Value = Functional benefits Cost

To improve value, the relationship between the elements of the equation

can be manipulated in a number of ways:

Improve benefits, maintain cost

Maintain benefits, reduce cost
Improve benefits, reduce cost
Reduce benefits, reduce cost*
Increase benefits, increase cost*

Although cost is relatively easy to measure, benefits can be difficult to

interpret. Functional benefits may include reliability, maintainability,
security, expandability, sustainability, safety, durability, convenience,
accessibility, flexibility, and adaptability. The owner is responsible for
defining quality expectations, and the designer is responsible for
delivering a design that meets them. Realistically, owner criteria,
standards, and program requirements usually define only the lower limits.
Designers, with good intentions, often exceed these minimums because
they believe better quality is always better value. This is not necessarily
true, however, since value is cost-dependent and the relationship
between cost and quality is usually not linear. An incremental
improvement in quality may come at an incremental cost two to three
times greater.

Value analysis focuses attention on the quality-cost relationship by seeking

solutions that provide required quality at minimal life-cycle cost. Increasing
 12

the quality of a facility or items in a facility is certainly desirable, especially

when added quality can be obtained at a low incremental cost.

However, when added quality incurs a large incremental cost, decisions

must be made with care. Often, value analysis proposals present a client
with the cost implications associated with improving quality. Therefore, a
sound overall goal for the architect is to balance quality and cost in a
design to achieve the best life-cycle cost.

Simply reducing cost at the expense of quality, performance, and scope

is not value analysis. Reducing costs without consideration of value is
simple cost cutting. Problems and fractured relationships often result when
cost cutting masquerades as VA. Nonetheless, if cost reduction becomes
necessary because of limited funds, VA can be an excellent tool. A
 13

careful assessment of which aspects of quality, performance, or scope

are above minimum needs can guide sensible cost reduction. The
distinction is between reducing cost to achieve desired ends and cost
reduction as an end in itself.

DESIGN REVIEWS

For a design/bid/build project, the project manager coordinates and

oversees reviews at the design criteria, conceptual, preliminary
engineering, 30 percent, 60 percent, 90 percent, 100 percent, and bid
documents stages. The percent refers to the approximate ratio of design
budget spent over total design budget. Reviews at these points in design
are key control points to the design management process. Thus a design
review is a detailed, analytical, and unbiased approach used to verify
that the appropriate deliverables (e.g., studies, final drawings, technical
specifications, and construction bid documents) are being prepared and
that the design consultant is maintaining pace with the budget and
project schedule. In addition, during each review, a current construction
cost estimate should be reviewed and compared against the anticipated
cost.

For each design review, you make certain that the design manager will
ensure the following key objectives are accomplished, as applicable to
the particular review:

Adherence to design criteria, environmental documents

Quality of the design
Identification of errors and omissions
 14

Building codes compliance

Operational and functional objectives are met
Coordination between engineering disciplines
Adherence of cost estimates to the budget
Designers feedback before progressing further
Design is biddable, constructible, and cost-effective
Interface compatibility: adjacent project elements and the existing
transit system
Final construction contract documents comply with the design
criteria, environmental document, codes, and regulations.

All Design Review is focused on outcomes for people. It explores how a

building or place can better meet the needs of the people who will use it
and of everyone who will be affected by it. It does this by constructively
endeavoring to improve the quality of architecture, urban design,
landscape and highway design.

For Design Review to succeed, it must be carried out using a robust and
defensible process. It must also offer consistently high standards in the
quality of its advice. These standards can be summarized in the following
ten principles.

Principles of Design Review

Proportionate: It is used on projects whose significance, either at local or

national level, warrants the investment needed to provide the service.

Timely: It takes place as early as possible in the design process, because

this can avoid a great deal of wasted time. It also costs less to make
changes at an early stage.
 15

Advisory: A design review panel does not make decisions, but it offers
impartial advice for the people who do.

Objective: It appraises schemes according to reasoned, objective criteria

rather than the stylistic tastes of individual panel members.

Accessible: Its findings and advice are clearly expressed in terms that
design teams, decision makers and clients can all understand and make
use of.

Independent: It is conducted by people who are unconnected with the

schemes promoters and decision makers, and it ensures that conflicts of
interest do not arise.

Expert: It is carried out by suitably trained people who are experienced in

design and know how to criticize constructively. Review is usually most
respected where it is carried out by professional peers of the project
designers, because their standing and expertise will be acknowledged.

Multidisciplinary: It combines the different perspectives of architects,

urban designers, urban and rural planners, landscape architects,
engineers and other specialist experts to provide a complete, rounded
assessment.

Accountable: The Review Panel and its advice must be clearly seen to
work for the benefit of the public. This should be ingrained within the
panels terms of reference.

Transparent: The panels remit, membership, governance processes and

funding should always be in the public domain.
 16

The onboard design review in the onset of the design phase ha a principle
that planning should: always seek to secure high quality design and a
good standard of amenity for all existing and future occupants of land
and buildings

PROJECT / DESIGN SHEDULING

Scheduling is an application of special knowledge or judgment of the

mathematical, physical, or engineering sciences to the conception or
implementation of creative work. Scheduling, formally or informally, is
practiced in the planning, progress, and completion of designs, analyses,
or implementation performed in connection with utilities, structures,
buildings, etc. All projects must have a definite beginning and end. Once
there is a well-defined scope, the client/design team needs to determine
the time it will take to complete the project by developing the project
schedule. Developing the schedule involves breaking down the work into
manageable activities needed to accomplish the scope of each
deliverable, estimating the duration of each activity, and placing them in
a logical sequence. Scheduling results in understanding the expected
duration of the project and the logical relationships between the
activities, including activities on the critical path, that controls the end
date.
 17

SCHEDULE CONTROL [CRITICAL PATH METHOD]

The work breakdown structure [WBS] is again the starting point for
schedule control. Work activities are identified for each of the WBS work
package elements and form the building blocks of the project schedule.
For relatively simple projects you can represent the activities using a bar
chart schedule and the time from the beginning of the first bar (start) and
the end of the last bar (finish) is the duration of the project but more
complex projects, such as building construction project require a critical
path method (CPM) schedule.

To develop a critical path method schedule, the activities are arranged

into a precedence diagram network that shows the logical start and finish
relationships between each activity along with the estimated duration of
each activity. The critical path is the path through the network that has
the longest duration and therefore determines the duration of the project.
The sums of the durations along all other paths through the network are
shorter than the critical path. The figure below shows a simplified
precedence and critical path for a construction project.
 18

The critical path is important because it focuses managements attention

on the activities that contribute to the longest path through the schedule.
If the critical activities are completed on time then the project will finish on
schedule. In practice it is prudent to focus schedule control on critical
and near critical activities on other paths. A near critical activity is
identified by the size of its float. The float is the number of days the
activity can be delayed before it becomes critical. Activities with little
float are near critical (and by definition activities on the critical path have
zero float).

As with the scope and cost baseline, the schedule baseline should be
developed at the close of conceptual design/preliminary engineering. As
the project progresses through final design and construction the schedule
performance is monitored, the outstanding durations of incomplete
activities estimated, the critical path updated and compared to baseline.
You should then take management action to address schedule slippages
of critical and near critical activities.

When changes to the project occur it is important to assess their impact

on the schedule along with their scope and cost impact. If a change
results in a delay to a contractor, where the change is not due to the
contractors own non-performance, then in addition to compensating the
contractor for the cost impact of the change, the contractor should also
be allowed the additional time to complete the work brought about by
the delay. Consequently, it is important that you understand and
manage the schedule relationships between contractors in addition to
overseeing the schedule performance of each specific contract.
 19

RISK MANAGEMENT

Risk is the possibility of loss or injury.1 Project risk is an uncertain event or

condition that, if it occurs, has an effect on at least one project
objective.2 Risk management focuses on identifying and assessing the
risks to the project and managing those risks to minimize the impact on
the project. There are no risk-free projects because there are an infinite
number of events that can have a negative effect on the project. Risk
management is not about eliminating risk but about identifying, assessing,
and managing risk.

According to Smith (2006) the peak of risk impact on the building project
is when the design phase is finished and the construction phase is going to
be started. Then the theory becomes a real structure, and every mistake
made in the previous phase will have an influence on the construction
phase and the service life. To minimize this impact two parts; design and
construction should be overlapped. Very often the final design of the
details takes place during the construction phase duration, with
consultation of contractor engineers. It results in gaining more economical
solutions, enlarges ability of potential need of change in this point without
project disturbances and develops the cooperation between the project
participants.

Typical Risks in Building Projects

Different projects bring different risks to consider, although, among

different types of risks in the projects, the typical construction risks can be
distinguished with the groups and classification according to the
allocation in individual project phases.
 20

Conceptual design phase the risk can be related to incorrectly selected

alternatives for final solutions, lack of information or information transfer
with wrongly estimated objectives of the project, system of organisation
process, utilization of gained experience and knowledge management,
bad decision making and risk identification and environmental risk.

Detailed design phase risks can occur in badly estimated or incomplete

designs, difficulties in dealing specification and standards concerning
existing conditions and clients requirements, prediction of possible
changes in design during the construction phase, weak or lack of
knowledge about technical conditions.

Construction (Implementation phase) relations between participants,

damage and failure of structure or equipment, delays, construction
organisation and techniques, technology, type of contract, quality,
resource management, labour, weather conditions, ground conditions,
physical obstructions.

UNCERTAINTY: THE SKEPTICAL PROCESS

In a building project and in the service life there are many situations that
cannot be predicted. The execution of the construction process can
become even more difficult than it was assumed before and unexpected
events can take place. This state of lack of information is called
uncertainty.

In almost every field in the construction process there are uncertainties.

Even the best prepared risk management, organisation of work or good
 21

decision making will not protect the project from uncertainties. The
uncertainties can be related to new critical events, so also to risks that
these events represent. It is important to bear in mind that not only known
critical events exist in building projects, but also these ones that were not
identified and can occur unexpectedly.

The amount of uncertainties is largest at the beginning of a building

project, because of lack of detailed information see Figure 3.4. However,
the amount of uncertainties decreases more the project is advanced and
it reaches minimum in the end of the service life.

A building project is a process where each aspect in organisation and

work should be carefully considered and planned. To achieve the final
result with a well-designed structure and completed construction work on
time within budget and schedule, adequate knowledge about critical
events, systematic work and management skills are necessary to
coordinate the whole organisation from the beginning of the building
project.
 22

CONCLUSION

To ensure that optimal design, value for money and buildability are
achieved, due care and attention need to be given to the proper
management and coordination of all design activities throughout the
design process. In particular, the interaction between the different design
disciplines requires a well-coordinated teamwork structure. Design
management encompasses all of the coordination, analysis and design
testing activities that a project requires. For effective design management
and coordination it is necessary to appoint a manager with appropriate
management skills to ensure the design process operates efficiently. Such
a person is usually the design team leader.

To ensure its effectiveness, the Project Coordinator should draw up a

programme which includes the main areas of activity (i.e. Planning,
Implementation and Review) up to project occupation. In relation to the
design development activity (part of the Planning Stage) the Design Team
Leader should, as soon as the other principal consultants are appointed,
draw up details of design responsibilities and milestones for each
consultant and illustrate them on a project programme which should be
part of the Project Execution Plan.
 23

REFERENCES

Bourdon, C.C., and R.W. Levitt, Union and Open Shop Construction,
Lexington Books, D.C. Heath and Co., Lexington, MA, 1980.

Caterpillar Performance Handbook, 18@+(th) Edition, Caterpillar, Inc.,

Peoria, IL, 1987.

Charles N. Juliana, Esq., Alann M. Ramirez, PE and Brian J. Larkin, PE :

Construction Management/Design-Build

Cordell, R.H., "Construction Productivity Management," Cost Engineering,

Vol. 28, No. 2, February 1986, pp. 14-23.

Emad Elbeltagi, Ph.D., P.Eng., (Professor of Construction Management) -

Lecture Notes On Construction Project Management

Fondahl, John W., Non-Computer Approach to the Critical Path Method

for the Construction Industry, Report #9, Stanford University, 1961

Hendrickson, Chris & Au, Tung, Project Management for Construction,

Prentice Hall, 1989

http://pmbook.ce.cmu.edu/04_Labor,_Material,_And_Equipment_Utilizati
on.html : Construction and Project Management: Labor, Material and
Equipment Utilization

JOANNA GORAL : Risk Management in the Conceptual Design Phase of

Building Projects

Lange, J.E., and D.Q. Mills, The Construction Industry, Lexington Books, D.C.
Heath and Co., Lexington, MA, 1979.
 24

Nunnally, S.W., Construction Methods and Management, Prentice-Hall,

Englewoood Cliffs, NJ, 2nd Ed., 1987.

Peurifoy, R.L., Construction Planning, Equipment and Methods, 2nd Edition,

McGraw-Hill, New York, 1970.

Tersine, R.J., Principles of Inventory and Materials Management, North

Holland, New York, 1982.

R. Chudley MCIOB and R. Greeno BA (Hons) FCIOB FIPHE FRSA : Building

Construction Handbook (Seventh edition)

Robert C. Mutchler, FAIA, and Christopher R. Widener, AIA: Construction

Management - Excerpt from The Architects Handbook of Professional
Practice, 13th edition 2000

Sidney M. Levy: Construction Process, Planning and Management - An

Owner s Guide to Successful Projects

TRIGON General Contractors & Construction Managers, Inc.: Construction

Management Points of Value

Weber, Sandra C., Scheduling Construction Projects: Principles and

Practices, Prentice Hall, 2005