Project parameters 1 Introduction

Smallwood (2006: 68) amplifies the importance for construction contracting organisations to use the eleven parameters of construction management in their businesses in order to record success. The eleven project quality, project cost, project time, project health and safety, public health and safety, labour productivity, natural environment, worker satisfaction, designer satisfaction and contractor satisfaction. Emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisations need to have individuals who are adequately qualified with the requisite skills and knowledge to manage the eleven project parameters.

Table 3 indicates the importance attached to eleven traditional and non-traditional project parameters to project management practices in terms of percentages relative to importance on a scale of 1 (not) to 5 (very), and a ranking based upon an importance index (II) value, ranging between a minimum of 0.00 and 4.00 (Smallwood and Venter, 2002). Given that all the project parameters have II values above the midpoint value of 2.0, the parameters can be deemed to be important to practices. It is notable that four of the five project parameters have II values > 3.2 ≤ 4.00, which indicates that they are perceived to be between more

than important to very important / very important. It is notable that the three traditional project parameters (quality, cost, and time) achieved rankings in the top four. Client satisfaction, which was ranked first, is a function of general performance; certainly cost, quality, and time, but increasingly, project H&S, public H&S, and environment (natural).

Given the importance of the eleven project parameters, construction managers need to manage and optimise performance relative thereto, which in turn requires that they have the requisite knowledge and skills.

Table 3: Importance of various project parameters to project management practices.

Parameter Not ………. Very Response (%) II Rank

1 2 3 4 5

Client satisfaction 0.0 0.0 0.0 23.3 76.7 3.77 1

Project quality 0.0 0.0 3.3 23.3 73.3 3.70 2

Project cost 0.0 0.0 6.7 23.3 70.0 3.63 3

Project time 0.0 0.0 6.7 33.3 60.0 3.53 4

Project health and safety 0.0 3.3 16.7 20.0 60.0 3.37 5

Public health and safety 0.0 6.7 30.0 6.7 56.7 3.13 6

Labour productivity 0.0 10.0 13.3 40.0 36.7 3.03 7 Environment (natural) 0.0 10.0 23.3 23.3 40.0 2.97 8 Worker satisfaction 0.0 13.3 23.3 43.3 20.0 2.70 9 Designer satisfaction 0.0 13.3 26.7 40.0 20.0 2.67 10 Contractor satisfaction 0.0 13.3 33.3 36.7 16.7 2.56 11 Source: Smallwood (2006: 4) 2.5.2 Worker satisfaction

Applebaum (1999: 89) emphasises the need for construction contracting organisations to acknowledge worker satisfaction as it entails values and individual characteristics of workers and the nature and organisational structure of jobs, organisations, and industries. When the characteristics of individuals interact in a positive way with the characteristics of the job, there is a high degree of job satisfaction. Emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisations’ management need to ensure that worker satisfaction is achieved by formulating job related attributes such as job control by management, worker autonomy, skill levels, specialisation, socialisation on the job, promotional opportunities, hours of work, wage levels and worker decision making.

2.5.3 Public health and safety

Singh et al. (1999: 693) highlight the importance of public health and safety in construction as it deals mainly with precautionary measures that are needed to be taken on site to ensure that safety of nearby public or visiting public is maintained. These include any incident at a construction site that causes injury to a member of the public and later requires medical treatment. Emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisations’ management need to task individuals that can prohibits public access to the site failing which the construction site must be fenced or must be hoarded.

2.5.4 Productivity

Schwartzkop (2004: 5) stresses the importance of labour productivity in construction as it is the units of work accomplished for the units of labour. Greater productivity is an indication of greater output for the same level of input. In the construction industry, the reciprocal is how productivity is frequently expressed, that is, manhours per unit of work. Emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisations need to aim at achieving fewer manhours expended per unit of work.

2.5.5 Designer satisfaction

Jang et al. (2003: 1 133) stress the importance of designer satisfaction in construction as it entails personnel, schedule adherence, and information flow. Schedule adherence and information flow complement construction operating procedures. An overall understanding and proper planning of the project are factors necessary to optimise the satisfaction of the designer.

2.5.6 Client satisfaction

Adanan (2006: 7) highlights the importance of client satisfaction in construction as it is an indication that the contracting organisation has met the client’s expectation. Emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisations aim at the same targets includes adequate staff competency, timely completion, resources supervision and monitoring, quality consciousness and safety compliance.

2.5.7 Contractor satisfaction

Soetanto and Proverbs (2002: 460) indicate the importance of contractor satisfaction as it instills confidence to complete an intended job within time, quality and cost. Construction contracting organisations prefer to have all design information in time as it allows more effective planning and removes the possibility of delays caused by lack of information. Such enables construction contracting organisations’ management to take informed decisions and formulate work strategies applicable to the situation of the intended project. Emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisations’ managers need to put in place effective communication channels to ensure successful project implementation. This includes lines of communication between the engineer, client and the construction contracting organisation.

2.5.8 Project cost

Dai et al. (2006: 617) stress the importance of project cost in construction as it outlines expenditure patterns of the project. Expenditure patterns include monthly projected costs. Project cost entails price escalation which are calculated based on the construction duration period. Emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisations need to have individuals who can perform price difference adjustment using the applicable indices of plant, labour and material. Such will enable emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisations to detect any difference in their tender rate whenever there is a hike in labour pay rates, fuel and material prices.

2.5.9 Project time

Proverb and Holt (2000: 664) amplify the importance of project time in construction as it determines productivity rates, construction methods to be used and labour utilisation variables. High productivity results in the reduction of project time if skilled labour is utilised. Skilled labour execute construction work by applying experience they have gathered from previous projects. Emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisations need to have individuals who are time conscious as project contract terms do not provide for delays. Construction delays lead to adverse effects as they are costly.

2.5.10 Health and Safety

Huang and Hinze (2006: 164) state that construction health and safety requires monitoring of day to day project health and safety activities in a construction contracting environment. Client bodies and project designers play a pivotal role in the prevention of site accidents in that client bodies become involved during the pre project planning stages. This provides planning of appropriate responses to accident constraints and the environment. These include financial support to the emerging civil engineering contracting organisation’s health and safety programmes. On the other hand, project designers need to address health and safety issues in their designs so as to help eliminate hazards during the implementation phase of construction. Emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisations need to be involved in matters that relate to construction health and safety in order to avoid the occurrence of liability exposures. These include the rising costs of health care and workers compensation and litigation matters due to safety negligence. Further, emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisations need to consider the health and welfare of its workers in order to improve its image. This it needs to do by recording the frequency rate of construction accident occurrences. Construction accident occurrences is indicated by the number of accidents per million man hours worked. The severity rate of accidents per million also needs to be recorded by emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisation individuals as it indicates the number of man days lost per million hours worked. The number of persons suffering from minor injuries, permanent disability and the occurrence of fatal injuries also needs to be recorded. The records of the latter and the former needs to be kept by the project safety and health practitioner who will enforce action or sanction for non compliance in the form of a fine, suspension or deregistration. By doing so an emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisation would be complying with the health and safety requirements.

2.5.11 Project quality

Harris et al. (2006: 6) amplify the need for project quality in construction contracting industry as it provide an environment within which the tools, techniques and procedures of activity implementation leads to operational success in their organisations.

Emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisations need to have inspections to check if what they produce is in accordance with the customer’s requirements and needs. This includes sampling using statistical methods that ensures that conformance to quality control takes place. Emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisations need to have efficient and effective quality measures that ensures that specifications are consistently met. Also, there is a need for emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisations to have quality management systems that present a set of processes that ensure the attainment of defined quality standards. These can be project specific of an ISO 9000 which is an international accredited standard.

2.5.12 Environmental issues

Daily and Huang (2001: 1 539) state the need for emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisations to implement a proactive, and a strategic tool known as an environmental management system (EMS) in order to gain a competitive advantage. Such an initiative results in operational efficiencies that produce long term strategic and sustainable approaches for environmental management. EMS includes the documentation of commitment and policy, planning, implementation, measurement and evaluation, and the review and improvements. Emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisations need to carefully structure and implement EMS to assure success as it is costly. An effective EMS implementation process relies on factors such as top management support, environmental training, employee empowerment, teamwork, and rewards systems.

There is a need to have an environmental policy to ensure that waste in the emerging civil engineering construction sector is reduced. Emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisations need to endeavour in the elimination of incidents of pollution. This they need to achieve by ensuring that the environmental issues are considered during monthly management meetings. These management meetings seek and encourage feedback from the ‘grass roots’ level on problem areas and new initiatives. They also provide the appropriate level of training to all staff members of the emerging civil engineering construction contracting organisation.

2.6 Construction resources