Chapter Two

Preconstruction Aspects of Construction Management

Introduction

Construction management involves the oversight of the physical construction of a highway project. While the majority of construction management activities occur during the construction phase, a successful construction management process begins long before contracts are executed and physical work begins. The framework for construction management success begins in the planning and design phases. It is at this point when staffing issues are addressed, project delivery methods are chosen, procurement processes are defined, and risk allocation and management strategies are determined. These construction management planning issues allow for successful construction management to occurring during the construction execution stage.

This purpose of this chapter is to present the findings from the international case studies on the preconstruction aspects of construction management. This chapter begins with a description of the general context of transportation in the countries involved in the scan to provide a better understanding of why some of their construction management practices exist. The remaining sections of this chapter detail the most important aspects of preconstruction planning for construction management. A discussion of staffing finds that many U.S. construction management functions traditionally performed by highway agencies are being performed by private sector partners abroad. Project delivery is the next point of discussion, and the scan team found a strategic application of multiple project delivery methods by international agencies, as opposed to the traditional one-size-fits-all approach in the United States. Procurement turned out to be a major topic with all countries. The scan team found that international transportation organizations use many factors in addition to price when selecting contractors. The chapter concludes with observations on risk allocation and management. Examples of sophisticated risk analysis tools are presented and could have immediate application in the United States.

General Context

The general context of construction management involves the key aspects of how transportation construction management is positioned within the political, economic, and technological structure of a country. To adequately discuss international construction management procedures, it is important to understand such items as owner structure, market structure, market competition, contractor associations, funding structure, and the roles and responsibilities of the other primary stakeholders in the transportation life cycle in each country. Table 1 provides a link to the Web site of each transportation organization the scan team studied. Table 2 provides a summary of the various countries’ characteristics that relate to construction management.

Although the environments vary, as seen in table 2, the international countries are surprisingly similar to the United States. All of the countries have a free market economy. Most have similar central government structures for funding, setting policy, and planning. All of the countries rely on private contractors for construction of capital facilities. The scan team also quickly realized that the drivers for change in Europe are similar to those in the United States. The most significant drivers of change confronting Europe include the following:

Some notable differences that exist between the United States and a number of the host countries merit discussion. The level at which the central government participates in the development of specifications and designs varies. Germany exhibits the most control over plans and specifications in traditionally delivered projects, while England or Scotland may give the most latitude to the industry in this area. In the area of public-private partnership (PPP) projects, England has the most aggressive program with a target of 25 percent of the 10-year plan works dedicated to PPPs. It yields much of the design work to the private sector on its nonpublic projects, working to published standards or agreed-on deviations from these standards. With the exception of Scotland, all of the other countries have relatively little experience with private finance initiative/public-private partnership (PFI/ PPP) projects. All of the other countries have relatively little experience with PPP projects.

The current U.S. system varies, but might be most closely related to the German or Dutch system of design and construction. The most significant difference between the host countries and the United States is the other countries’ allocation of maintenance operations to the private sector. Germany most closely resembles the United States in that it maintains its highway networks through government employees. The rest of the countries rely on the private sector for essentially all highway maintenance. This is accomplished through a series of term maintenance agreements in which routine maintenance and repair is done in accordance with performance contracts