Best Practices in Construction
The standard and planned practices followed in the construction industry that will guarantee optimal outcome and profit are regarded as best practices in construction. These practices can be a policy, procedure or a complete system implemented at a given period of time.
The practices best for one project won’t be very much helpful for a different project. But in general, there are common practices that when done with complete excellence will boost any construction project. Looking back, over a decade, the construction activities have changed, new technologies came up and the way of project procurement and management too changed.
Among all economy, the construction industry is the largest and the important sector in the company that employs over 7% of the workforce. The national investment valued from the construction industry is $300 billion.
A study by BERL shows that a 10% efficiency gain in this sector results in a 1% increase in GDP.
The procurement practice involves:
Contracting by focusing on lowest price tendering and lump sum contracts is a better practice.
Below diagram shows the process diagram for a Integrated Project Team (IPT). This is a project lifecycle that can be followed for any project. The procurement practice must follow the project life cycle.
When compared to the traditional approach of working, the partnering is an different working style. This takes a collaborative approach in working.
It has been proved through great projects that working through partnering helps in acheiveing
The characteristics of partnering are:
Partnering is currently a great aspect in the construction industry.
Risk in projected are always expected and it is necessary to maintain a “risk register”. This will help to enter all the risk faced from the starting of the project to its end. Along the risk encountered, the method used to manage is also recorded. This helps to be applied in other projects.
Risk assessing and analysing will help to assign appropriate actions to different project team. The risk assessment is an activity that have to be performed in a regular basis and in no case be ignored. For all risk residual items, it is necessary to have some financial allowance. The cost of this item can be avoided by selecting a best solution for the problem faced.
This key practice takes into account time, cost and risk constraints, in order to meet the clients’s business needs. The method of value management will involve complete collaboration with the team. The team is in charge of design and delivery of the project. This team will also include the end-users and the stake holders.
The steps in value management are:
Value management is a systematic approach. This helps in generating different options to satisfy the requirements of the clients. Value management is practiced through the project life. In parallel the risk management is also followed. At the end of every project, it is analysed and found how the value management helps in satisfying the requirements of the clients and the stakeholders.
This method is practised by comparing with other completed projects. The performance of different projects are compared each other. The lessons from each project is used to make best performances for new projects.
Benchmarking is a method that improves the performance of the project in a logical and systematic way. It determines the following question:
The practice of benchmarking will focus on the efforts on successful critical issues. The basis of comparison in the benchmarking process is based on the following criterias:
In construction, this term is new. Here, all the operations of the organisations are integrated that is associated with the delivery of a product or a service. Hence, from the primary producer till the end user this is analysed.
Supply chain management in construction will involve analysing from:
The supply chain management helps in providing prospect for achieving cost saving and the improvement of value. This will make the company to work effectively throughout the entire supply chain. Hence, supply chain management is now a central issue for many construction clients and companies. Two main practices necessary to make a supply chain work properly are Operation practices and Management practices.
The operational practices monitor, how materials are ordered and delivered to the site, selection of the trade contractors, their involvement in design and planning, methods to reduce invoice and transaction costs.
The Management practices will support collaborative methods, in order to support the working system. It enables systems to ensure proper accountability, support and incentives to the supply chain partners.
Here, the cost of ownership is measured of a building. This will take into consideration the sum of:
The cost of maintenance of the building is practically more when compared to the initial capital cost. This make the whole life costing an essential practice in construction. As per studies, for a building of capital cost £100 , the operational procedure will account for £500 over the life period of the building.
The two main criteria while considering the health and safety in construction are that:
The primary step in health and safety practice in construction is proper planning. The designing stage should also take into consideration that no health and safety issues are followed in the design.
The secondary is planning and scheduling. Thus the execution process are clearly understood and performed safely.
Finally to organise and control the works on the construction site. Along with we need to ensure that:
In this practice, after analysing a approach, the process that adds cost is reduced or removed by keeping the process that will add value. Value is given more priority and cost. Thus, lean construction is a practice to manage the production activity.
The 5 main principles of lean construction are:
Sustainable construction focuses to have social, economic and environmental performance of the industry. The practices focus on:
Fig.1:Sustainable Construction