Dispute Potential Index or Scoring Grid - Case Study Example

CONTEMPORARY ENGINEERING ORGANISATION & MANAGEMENT PRACTICE CONTEMPORARY ENGINEERING ORGANISATION & MANAGEMENT PRACTICE Insert name: Insert course code: Instructor’s name: 21 January, 2011 Introduction In civil and construction organizations (and U.S Army Corps of Engineers in particular), there are various departments such as: design, construction, management, as well as the supervision of building construction. Management of various levels in the civil engineering and construction engineering firms, as well as in realization of investment projects, makes in average 90% of all activities of the civil engineers and construction engineers in their ever day’s practice. Thus for U.S Army Corps of Engineers to run smoothly, they must come up with dispute recognition techniques which will enable them to overcome the management as well as performance challenges. A significant aspect of dispute resolution is the ability of parties to recognize emerging problems so that they can be resolved and the potential for disputes can be minimized. A civil and construction engineering company ought to develop techniques that permit early recognition of the disputes most common to highway construction, such as utility conflicts, design errors, and differing site conditions. Various practices like scoring grid are going to be discussed as forms of management practices of U.S Army Corps of Engineers. Industry developments Recently, the U.S Army Corps of Engineers organization has increased focus on dispute avoidance as well as quick resolution. There are efforts that have been employed to avoid disputes. These efforts mainly revolve around design and pre-construction phases, while efforts to resolve disputes often focus on quality of the relationship between parties. Recognition of potential predicaments entails a different dimension – the ability to monitor the project and anticipate potential problem areas once the project is underway. Industry analysts ought to promote various tools for early problem recognition, the most important one being the regular monitoring and updating of the project schedule. Network schedules (critical path method of scheduling (CPM)) and detailed linear schedules are significant tools to understanding the interrelationship of construction activities. However, the most commonly used tool is the bar chart schedules. Large construction agencies such as the U.S Army Corps of Engineers have developed scheduling techniques and processes to allow the timely identification of potential problems and delays, enabling field staff to respond quickly to events and mitigate the impact of problems as they arise. The other early dispute recognition techniques that can be promoted by the industry analysts entail job cost or payment projection reports (scoring grid), productivity improvement program documentation as well as review of project documentation. Project cost or payment projections compare estimated payments to actual payments to identify overall progress. When divided into work areas or payment categories, these comparisons can identify specific areas that areas that are behind schedule. Productivity improvement documentation, like labour-hour reports, time lapse photography as well as work sampling studies can be used to identify specific activities that are potentially subject to problems and disputes. According to the organization that I was assessing, I found out that such documents are kept by the contractors and are rarely made available to the owner agencies. This results to the potential disputes often being noted in job meetings, progress reports, daily logs as well as memos. Dispute Potential Index (DPI) (or Scoring Grid) The DPI is a statistical model that foretells the likelihood of encountering disputes based on research from 159 projects. Thus the probability of experiencing a serious construction predicament on a project can be predicted long before they occur. The model was developed after carrying out several project types such as highway, commercial, industrial, transportation, heavy civil; various payment terms like lump sum unit price and cost-plus; different sizes ( 20% less than $20 million and 5% over $100 million); as well as different contract types (general contract, construction management and design-build). This led to the development of the DPI into an easy-to-use computer program. There are two significant aspects related to disputes that are reported by the DPI program: (a) an overall numerical score between1 and 100 that predicts the probability of disputes, and (b) an identification of areas of potential weaknesses where disputes may originate. There are three main groups of factors that have been developed to help in predicting disputes: people, process and project. People factor: This entails the evaluation of U.S Army Corps of Engineers project staff, organization and management. In particular, they entail an evaluation of management support and responsiveness, the effectiveness of decision-making as well as responsibility structure, the contractor’s experience with the type of the project, past successes or failures, the experience and competence of the contractor’s staff, the interpersonal skills of the project staff as well as the past history of the agency and contractor working together. These people factors or human factor engineering (HFE) are the most significant in reducing disputes in a project. They begin with scientific investigation of human beings and their reaction to environmental influences (objects, surroundings and situations) from which conclusions can be drawn concerning human skills and limits, behavior and motivation. This is followed by a systematic application of the acquired information to designing products, tools or procedures as well as to environment in which they are used by human beings. A comparative testing of different design concepts is done so as to make sure that they result in the desired influence. Process factor: These factors relate to the probability of disputes involving several pre-construction activities such as financial planning; quality reviews (design evaluation, value engineering (VE) and constructability); definition of project scope; developing adequate plans and specifications; and establishing realistic contract obligations (time, cost); as well as risk allocation in the contract. During the construction phase, disputes can be mitigated by implementing practical management procedures such as schedule updating, submittal control, and regular meetings along with enhanced informal communications. The extent at which these processes are implemented determines how disputes are minimized. Project factors: It has been found that the conditions relating to the type of project, site conditions, environmental concerns, and other project-specific aspects have the least impact relating to disputes. However, these three projects factors are associated with dispute claims: complexity of the design, complexity of the construction methods and whether the project was unusually large for the agency or the contractor. Tools of project planning It is the responsibility of the managers in the U.S Army Corps of Engineers to ensure that projects have a clear beginning and ending. Each project is unique, even though the manager may have carried a similar project in the past. There are two main planning and control models namely: (a) Critical Path Method (CPM) and (b) Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT). (a) Critical Path Method (CPM) CPM is applicable to both small and large projects. It is a technique used for planning and controlling the logical sequence of operations for accomplishing a project. CPM planning technique entails breaking projects down into various activities and determining the required length of time for each activity. CPM follows these steps: Specifying all activities in the projects clearly, arranging activities in logical sequence, developing an arrow diagram that reflects the sequence relationships of events and activities, calculating the time for each activity, marking activity time on arrow diagram so as to estimate early and late, start and finishing times, calculating total float for every activity, marking the critical path on the diagram and estimating the project completion time. (b) Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) PERT is a network technique for planning, monitoring and control of large projects. It is commonly used for conducting the initial review of a project by anticipating potential areas of problem which may disrupt program goals and hence undertaking a timely action to avoid their occurrences. PERT planning method involves breaking projects down into activities and determining the needed length of time for each activity. Accessing the organization Most of people are able to access the U.S Army Corps of Engineers through social engineering, which is the process of using or manipulating people inside the networking environment to gain access to that network from the outside. In this way humans use other humans to gain unauthorized information. These people are able to get information they want through someone who might have legitimate reason for being there, like the cleaning personnel. Another way of accessing the U.S Army Corps of Engineers is through telephone scams, where the attackers make a phone call to someone in the organization to gain information. Business processes and the knowledge management For the U.S Army Corps of Engineers to overcome future challenges, it ought to adhere to some aspects of knowledge: Knowledge of business environment: the U.S Army Corps of Engineers must have a knowledgebase with the information on different contextual factors to guide users on process redesign. The U.S Army Corps of Engineers must also device mechanisms for users to represent contextual information – including process elements, business rules and policies influencing process elements, decisions and explanations. Access to process adaptation knowledge: this is the ability to have a knowledgebase that have the relevant information on process behavior, process pathology detection, as well as guidance for process adaptation and improvement. Flexibility in the range dimension: the ability to provide users with multiple alternatives for process adaptation and improvement, based on process pathologies identified. Acquisition, utilization in addition to evolution of contextual process adaptation knowledge: this is a facility to access and review existing contextual information during process design activities as well as updating the existing contextual information during process design deliberations. It is also the facility for multiple stakeholders to actively participate in the process change deliberation. Conclusion For a better future performance of the U.S Army Corps of Engineers, it should apply successful business process change efforts with an external focus and also and emphasis on external performance goals like customer satisfaction and overall product/ service quality. The U.S Army Corps of Engineers should also focus on automating most of its business processes. Furthermore, the organization can use the IT to support the operational aspects redesign. IT would help in the recording of different business processes, analyzing the current and proposed processes, keeping track of deadlines, balancing capabilities with demands as well as the flow of information and documentation among the various participants. Read More