The 7 Proven Steps to Systemize and Automate the Construction Project Delivery Processes

Similar to all other business, systemizing and automating the construction project delivery processes helps to bring the very much needed transparency, accountability, consistency, project’s performance real-time reporting, improved insight to make better and faster informed decisions and capturing knowledge to ensure continuous improvement. Systemizing the construction project delivery processes give the project team the wisdom to predict the impact of today’s actions on future results rather than wasting effort on firefighting the results of wrongly performed project’s processes.

The availability of project management information systems (PMIS) like PMWeb helps in systemizing and automating the construction project delivery processes. This will be achieved by adopting the 7 steps that will be detailed in this article.

Step #1 Roles

The first step is to identify the different roles involved in the construction project delivery. Since projects are unique by nature, there could be different entities that could be involved in project delivery that could vary from one project to another. Those would usually include the project sponsor, project owner, project management consultant, engineering consultant, supervision consultant, contractor and public authorities. The next step is to identify the different project team roles that could be played in delivering the different project management processes. For example, the project management consultant could have the roles of construction manager, design manager, planning engineer, cost engineer, QA/QC manager, HSE manager and interface/NOC manager among others. It is highly recommended that an organization chart is created for each project entity to identify the project roles within each entity.

Step # 2 Processes

The second step is to identify the project management processes that needs to be performed during the project’s planning, concept design, schematic design, design development, bid and award, construction and defects liability stages. The extent of processes to be implemented indicates the project management maturity level of the organization responsible for delivering projects. Those would usually include processes for managing the project scope, schedule, cost, quality, resources, communications, risks, procurement, stakeholders and safety among others. For example, the project management processes could include developing the project cost estimate, project budget, budget adjustments, awarding of contracts, potential change orders, change orders, progress invoices, payment of progress invoices, request for information, technical submittals, transmittals, meeting minutes, daily reports, punch lists, letter of award, substantial completion, site inspections, non-compliance reports among many others.

#3 Responsibility

The third step is to clearly define the responsibilities of the project team members, lines of authority and flow of approvals and information among the team members. The responsibility assignment matrix (RAM) will be used to define the project management processes and identifies the team member responsible for their performance, review, comments and who to be informed. The abbreviations for the different project team members responsibilities need to be properly agreed upon to avoid any miss communication.

#4 Template

In the construction industry, it is a very common practice that for each project management process there will be a standard document template that will be used by the project management entities to perform the process. Those document templates are usually provided as a printed copy so it can be manually completed. Others might have an electronic version using MS Excel, MS Word or PDF version which will be filled and then printed. The issue here is that the data captured in each document template will be wasted unless someone manually capture those data fields in MS Excel, MS Access or other database application. Using PMWeb, most of those forms are either readily available out of the box or can be created using PMWeb custom form builder. The benefit of having an application like PMWeb, access rights to the form fields can be aligned with the responsibilities set in the RAM. In addition, predefined values can be assigned to fields that require the project team member to select from.

Unlike other types of businesses, projects and in particular construction projects, the delivery of processes for a specific project might involve team members that have no past experience in performing the processes as required by this specific project. Accordingly, the document template can be designed in a format to include predefined checklists to help in ensuring that each process is performed exactly as specified for the project. For example, the Request for Inspection form can be designed to be specific for each type of work to be inspected rather than using a generic form for all types of site inspections.

Another advantage for using a PMIS solution like PMWeb is that in addition to the data captured in the document template, all supportive documents such as drawings, pictures, catalogues, certificates, manuals among others can be attached to the document template. Those documents will be usually uploaded and stored in PMWeb document management repository under it is designated folder to match the project filing system.

It should be noted that some of the processes could depend on executing another process. For example, the completion of a request for information (RFI) could result in starting the process for a change order if the RFI could result in additional scope of work that has time and/or cost impact on the project’s completion date and/or budget. Another example would be to generate the project budget from the approved project cost estimate. PMWeb PMIS allows the organization to select what process document template to be generated from another process document template or at least to be linked to the relevant process.

#5 Workflow

The next step is to identify the sequence of steps to perform each process including approval authorities and conditions. Usually a flow diagram will be created to detail a step by step the project team who will use the process.  The flow diagram needs to respect the terms and conditions of the contract agreements between the project entities. Those conditions will identify the duration allowed for each entity to act on a process. In addition, those flow diagram will also incorporate the approval authorities usually set in the project execution plan, which are project specific. PMWeb visual workflow will be used to create the conditional workflow needed for each project management process.

#6 Report

The information captured in the project management processes need to be shared to with the project team members some of them could be directly involved in performing the process while others could be interested in being kept informed of the status of the processes. Those reports are critical not only to communicate what has been performed but also to communicate delayed actions for performing those processes. Those reports are important to display the captured information in a form and format that provides the project team with the insight to make better and faster informed decisions. PMWeb report writer will be used to design the different tabular and graphical reports in the desired form and format.

#7 Alerts

The final setup is to Identify the key performance indicators (KPI) to alert the project team members on favorable and unfavorable performance of a process as well as the content captured in a process. The KPIs could be related to the time elapsed in performing a process, time withheld with one of those involved in reviewing and approving the process, the needed approval or completion date for a process, monetary value captured in cost-related processes like budget adjustment, change orders, contract value, invoice value among others.

Conclusion

PMIS applications like PMWeb helps in systemizing and automating the construction project delivery processes which will bring the very much needed transparency, accountability, consistency, real-time reporting of project’s performance, improved insight to make better and faster informed decisions and capturing knowledge to ensure continuous improvement. In addition, it gives the project team the wisdom to predict the impact of today’s actions on future results rather than wasting effort on firefighting the results of wrongly performed project’s processes.