Category: Case Study #1

The biggest problem that the owner is creating for himself here is removing a main head of control, in the contractor. Without the contractor, each subcontractor is required to talk amongst themselves and coordinate things in a timely manner in their own way. The largest issue here is the increase use of communication means lengthy time in understanding each other. The other issue is each subcontractor must talk amongst the architect, making the lack of synergy even worst. The owner doesn’t realize that when one subcontractor talks to another vertically, the information passed implies that the owner is the contractor in this case thereby making construction much more tough. The horizontal method however, allows the architect to talk to the contractor, thereby having the conversation pass through only 2 parties instead of multiple parties with no real person leading the whole project.

How it should beCase Study #2

In this situation, I think there will be a lot of problems.The architect has all the responsibilities to communicate with each supplier because there is no general contractor. the owner expects each firm to communicate with each other rather than having one group reporting to a general contractor, who will then communicate to the architect. So this will cause many delays because in this case the architect has to do most of the work. If there was a general contractor the job will be better and under control.

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The owner might assume the risks of been delay or unable to complete the project. Because the owner contracted directly with different suppliers and subcontractors, there might be lack of management of the project, and owner is responsible for the quality of work performed and the safety of site work. The risks of designers and contractors in this system might be lack of communication between each party which cause costing more budget on materials and slow down the project, because of the lack of professional management from a general contractor.

In this situation, there will be a lack of communication and understanding from all parties. The owner risks many delays and missed deadlines because he has expected individual parties to communicate with each other and organize themselves without a general contractor. This will be chaotic and time-consuming as private designers, material specialists, and subcontractors also have to communicate with the architects. The owner expects each firm to communicate with each other rather than having groups of firms reporting to a general contractor who will then communicate to the architect. The designers and contractors will be delayed in their work because there will be a multitude of parties in which they will need to communicate and confirm plans. This will be very chaotic because each party is specializing in a specific department and in therefore no clear judgment will be established.

Continue reading “Singh2_Case Study #1-2”

An ambitious and inexperienced project manager (PM) was given the opportunity to overlook the construction of a new building for a repeat industrial client. The budget given by the client was $50 million dollars, but the lowest bid came at $51 million dollars. Therefore, the PM was informed by the hired architects to do whatever possible to bring the cost down to $50 million and clear the deficit of million dollars. PM being young, ambitious and inexperienced accepted the opportunity in hope of gaining a reputation in the industry. However, he didn’t care about his relationship with his clients in this process and ended up being the target of the client’s frustration and blame. Even though he managed to finish the project under the given budget; he lost his main project engineer in 1^st year of construction and struggled to find needed consultants to support him. The architects kept their distance with him from the beginning and only met him with once in a month.

To continue, PM worked 24/7 sacrificing is health and family time just to assure the completion of the project in the given budget. However, I believe to save a million dollars, poor construction materials and applications were used. The project was completed but it must have faced multiple technical issues throughout the process. Due to the lack of experience, PM was not efficient and organized compared to experienced PM would have been. Multiple city violations and subcontractor’s difficulties must have occurred, contributing to the damaged relationship with the clients. In the end, PM delivered what he was supposed to but the lack of experience, quality of work, distance with architects, and lack of experience really contributed to him taking all the blame for everything.

                              If I was in the position of the PM, I would have made sure to keep my contact with the architects often as possible because once a month contact is not acceptable. I would have informed about the money deficit to the client from the beginning so they would decide if they wanted to continue the project with a minimum bid budget. Before starting the project, I will assemble a team of consultants and subcontractors to discuss the plans and schedule clearly and continuing holding these meetings throughout the construction. I would ask for help or advice from other known experienced project managers to get more insight into what I’m getting into from the beginning.

Through the research some of the risks of an owner hiring consultants without consulting the architect would be as fallows. There is a high risk of poor communication between all parties. This would be caused by a lack of leadership with in the project if the necessary protocols aren’t fallowed where the architect is the team coordinator with a General Contractor. If they are not using the resource of the architects professional hiring experience and knowledge for finding a reliable contractor or trades people, there could be trade issues during the build faze. The architect could be taking on certain risks as well if they are not familiar with the consultants being hired. One example would be if they must chase down these consultants to finish the project, this could result in a loss of profit for the architect later. If something goes wrong during the project, it is more complicated to find the source and resolve. Each party I believe would be taking on a high-risk for-profit loss or issues related to a lack of communication caused by poor management.

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