The successful integration of People, Process, Information, and Technology leads to the consistent delivery of quality repair, renovation, maintenance, sustainability, and new construction projects on-time and on-budget.
While technology is an enabler, its primary function is to reduce the cost of process deployment, improve overall consistency, reduce waste, and enable cost-effective proper oversight.. with the result being improved overall productivity. That said, PROCESS and desired OUTCOMES must be the primary focus, not technology! Automating traditional or ‘ad hoc’ ways of doing things doesn’t offer a path towards best value outcomes.
I have dedicated a fair portion of my life to improving physical asset life-cycle total cost of ownership management. This has enabled me to work with commercial property owners and associated service partners of all sizes, including the largest. Architects, engineers, builders, and owners would benefit by fundamentally changing the way projects are conceived, budgeted, procured, organized and executed. In fact, a shift from Project Management to Program Management is needed.
The issue with the endemic lack of productivity across the AECOO sector has little to do with technology related issues. The real problem is a fundamental lack of understanding of life-cycle asset management and LEAN planning, procurement, and project delivery processes.
Tools and support services are readily available today that virtually assure consistent delivery of of all repair, renovation, and construction projects on-time, on-budget, and to the satisfaction of all participants and stakeholders. This level of performance if clearly better than the industry norm of 20%!
The barrier lies in that organizations must be ready to shift from inefficiently operating in adversarial silos and process that don’t provide financial visibility. Real property owners should seriously consider best value processes such as Integrated Project Delivery, IPD, for major new construction, and LEAN Job Order Contracting, JOC, for repair, renovation, maintenance, sustainability, and minor new construction.
Both IPD and JOC, when properly deployed, assure an environment in which clearly structured information is shared on an early and ongoing basis with all. A locally researched detailed unit price book, organized using a standard data architecture such as CSI Masterformat, provides a granular list of all construction related activities complete with task description, and labor, material, equipment, and crew information. This level of standardized information sharing assures a clear scope of work and full financial and technical transparency.
Both IPD and JOC also require best value procurement and detailed associated workflows. Roles, responsibilities, workflow, and deliverables are known up front and documented via a multi-party contract and associated Execution Guide or Operations Manual.
Traditional planning, procurement, and project delivery methods are incompatible with best value outcomes, and remain the primary cause for AECOO waste and dysfunction. Until organizations, especially real property owners understand this fundamental fact, technology offers little respite.
Learn more… A SImple Guide to LEAN Construction
2 thoughts on “Improve AECOO Performance Today!”
The key statement is “…when properly deployed…”. My concern is that this rarely happens. There is a tendency to leave out, intentionally or otherwise, some of the jigsaw pieces. This not only leaves a hole but, because of the inter connectivity of the pieces, the entire process becomes unstable. Your model should look like a structural arrangement (Bridge?) so that people understand the critical nature of the connectivity. One of the main components of IPD is “shared risk/reward”, it’s not just another piece of the puzzle.
In reality “when properly deployed” is the secret to project success regardless of the preferred management model.
True Peter. That said, LEAN process purposely build a culture that is results-drive. Furthermore, frameworks such as the OpenJOC LEAN Solution, assure each stage is met satisfactorily before moving to the next and have mandatory audits for each project. In short, the LEAN planning, procurement, project delivery method has proven to work. Connectivity must be part of the solution as noted.
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