Chapter 1
Introduction

Modern management in construction addresses four principal areas of the industry:

• Management of the physical production phase or site construction management;
• Management of the various functions that make up and contribute to the delivery of projects, or total project and programme management;
• Management of the corporate establishments involved in the delivery of the constructed facilities and services or organisational management;
• Management of the industry to create an enabling commercial, regulatory, and conducive socio-economic environment, or sector management.

Construction Management addresses the effective planning, organisation, application, coordination, monitoring, control, and reporting of the core business processes of marketing, procurement, production, administration, accounts, and finance necessary to achieve economic success and/or profitability for an enterprise or organisation engaged in the provision of construction facilities. The functions may be performed by a client, contracting company, consultant firm, public body or a combination of such stakeholders contracted to bring a project or series of projects to safe completion on time, to budget, to the set quality and expected innovative, aesthetic, socially responsible, and environmental impact.

Construction Project Management focuses on the delivery of a specific solution by contracting with stakeholders who undertake combinations of the following indicative sub-processes relating to a specific project:

1. Scoping and budgeting the project;
2. Design coordination/management;
3. Establishing the management structure of the management team;
4. Marketing and procurement;
5. Defining roles and responsibilities;
6. Estimating and tendering;
7. Stakeholder management;
8. Project and construction methods planning, coordination, and control;
9. Value and risk management;
10. Organising, leading, and implementing controls;
11. Production and productivity management;
12. Management of labour resources, temporary works provision, equipment, plant, subcontractors, and suppliers;
13. Time and subcontractor interface management;
14. Cost and budgetary control, including cash flow forecasting;
15. Quality management;
16. Contract and progress payments administration;
17. Legal issues;
18. Information and communications technology (ICT) management;
19. Health and Safety management, education, training and welfare provision;
20. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR);
21. Management of the potential environmental impacts of construction;
22. Commissioning, auditing, and recording of the project(s).

The Chartered Institute of Buildings, CIOB, provide a comprehensive set of definitions of Construction (Project) Management (CIOB 2014).

Significantly, as recent Constructing Excellence (CE) and government reports emphasise, the marked shift towards modern forms of contracting, rapid technological change, and greater environmental, social and economic accountability of construction pose ever-growing competition in a world of intensified global trading - not least the Corporate Social Responsibility notion of 'doing well by doing good' to enhance competitive advantage. Hence, an intelligent client will increasingly need to focus on achieving value at the operational and business levels through the appointment of a robust integrated 'best in class' supply chain of stakeholders, able to deliver the listed project services with the fresh, practicable, robust, measurable and auditable core competences and management processes.

Structure of the book

This book covers the principal responsibilities of Construction Management divided into four main sections; in addition, Chapters 1 and 2, which do not form part of the main sections, give specific consideration at the outset to the philosophy of the book as a means of explaining the succeeding chapters.

In particular, Chapter 2, Quality management in construction provides the platform for the succeeding chapters and describes the evolution of quality management from quality control through quality assurance to total quality management (TQM), as well as the current standards employed by construction organisations. It illustrates how quality is intertwined as a thread running through all subsequent sections and explores the emerging strategic role of quality as a driver for competitive advantage in construction. Looking at quality from the project perspective, it advocates a concerted effort by both client and contractor to make any quality agenda a reality, and explores a systems approach to attaining such an agenda. It concludes with a look at initiatives by the professional bodies associated with the construction to support and promote quality attainment and management.

• Section I deals with techniques relating to project production management.
• Section II covers the business aspects of management at both project and company levels, including environmental management and legislation guidelines.
• Section III addresses the executive management responsibilities for overall corporate control.
• Section IV brings together a selection of self-learning problems complemented with complete worked solutions for use in the classroom environment, tutorial exercises and seminar discussions, which are provided on the companion website.

The reasons for this particular presentation are:

1. (1) Successful construction industry executives have distinct phases in their careers: the initial period is spent on site, followed by middle-management duties at the project level, culminating in a career with executive head-office activities. The sections are intended to cater for these phases.
2. (2) The construction industry is inherently uncertain as a result of the nature of the industry itself - the competitive tendering process, the company's turnover, site production rates and the weather are all features that are characterised by variability and a degree of uncertainty. To be able to cope with such uncertainty, construction executives need to be acquainted with the relevant knowledge and tools for addressing these features. The management techniques described in this book help reduce variability and thus provide the basis for sound and effective decisions by aspiring executives. For example, with proper planning, the duration of a project is not just an experienced guess. The inevitable residual variability in even the best-run company needs to be controlled by:
   1. (a) Planning and setting targets;
   2. (b) Choosing methods to achieve such plans and targets;
   3. (c) Monitoring progress;
   4. (d) Taking corrective action when necessary.

This continual monitoring and revision is ultimately the only way to cope with uncertainty and variability.

Objectives and contents

Each chapter deals with a specific topic (which could, if exhaustively treated, form the basis of a whole book; suggestions for further reading appear at the end of each chapter, while references appear in the bibliography at the end of the book).

The level of detail aimed at is that which will provide the reader with a basic working knowledge of the topic, rather than with specialist expertise. For example, the planning section of the book explains the major techniques available for planning both repetitive and non-repetitive works in sufficient detail to allow intelligent engineers to apply them, providing sufficient comprehension for them to converse sensibly with a specialist support group such as a planning department. Engineers and builders need enough knowledge to understand, appreciate and, where necessary, question the work of specialist support staff such as accountants, cost clerks, planners, and plant managers. A grasp of the techniques described in the sections should help in achieving this skill. Specialists must not be allowed to hide safely in their own specialisms. Participation in the exercises in Section IV covering the numerical-based aspects of these techniques provides a deeper and better understanding of the implications of the various approaches to decision making.

The contents of each section are now discussed briefly below.

Section I

Section I relates specifically to project production management, including planning techniques, production process improvement, estimating and tendering, workforce motivation and cost control.

• Chapter 3: Production process improvement provides a foundation to the efficient delivery for the operational aspects of construction. The basis for evaluating such efficiency has shifted to include energy use, productivity, and national productivity reports, Building Information modelling (BIM), quality management, lean construction, benchmarking, digital technologies, waste management, asset management, Six Sigma, production measurement and sampling. The chapter also provides examples of the application of the production measurement.
• Chapter 4: Planning techniques and methods...