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President's Message
Amid the world’s economic and social challenges, the global design and construction community is facing its own challenges, albeit pale in comparison. Not all sectors of the construction industry are the same. While the majority of owner organizations speak of cost, schedule and quality as their primary metrics, their weighted importance does not put these at the top of the list of what is really important. Safety is a metric arguably spoken about at all levels, on all types of projects, but the talk is often no more than empty rhetoric. I am particularly incensed by most of our industry's lack of regard for the protection of human life. The number of crane accidents and trips and falls on construction sites worldwide is staggering and the extent of the problem is systemic of larger issues.
I am, however, encouraged by the industrial sector and in particular construction in the oil and gas, chemical and pharmaceutical sectors – they get it right. Above cost, above schedule and above quality, safety is the most precious metric. The message is delivered from the CEO downward. The message upward from the field is that we want to be kept from harm’s way. In fact, when recently entering the lobby of ExxonMobil in Houston, I could not help notice the signage displaying a safety message that could save my life in case of an emergency. At a recent ECC (Engineering and Construction Contracting Association; www.ecc-conference.org) conference of industrial contractors and the owners that buy their services, the safety message was not only verbally delivered, but signage everywhere warned of dangers and educated the participants about the importance of safety on projects and in the workplace.
If you have ever been on an offshore platform or on an industrial project in some remote obscure location as I have, the message and enforcement of safety related issues is not to be questioned. The commercial, institutional and governmental markets must stand up and take notice of the industrial sector and immediately change the paradigm that has existed for nearly 100 years.
Some of the other metrics not often spoken of or not given proper consideration are scope and performance. The management of scope, or change management (sometimes referred to as configuration management), is not in the forefront, yet it should precede cost and schedule.
Performance, or maybe we should refer to it as a derivative of customer service, is another metric that is not often discussed and equally difficult to measure. Just because a project comes in on budget, on schedule and it conforms, does not mean that the parties performed. I once had a client regale me with the ills of one of his contractors, telling me about the worst experience of his thirty-year career in construction, even though the project came in as expected. Performance is an individualized metric that needs to be defined project by project because organizations are made up of human assets.
Every project should be planned and executed understanding that the metrics by which success will be measured, in order, are safety, scope, quality, cost, schedule and performance. Arguably, certain projects may warrant re-ordering the last three. While our construction industry issues pale in comparison and importance to many of the global issues we read about everyday, we in the construction industry should control our destiny. As New York lawyer Barry LePatner illustrates in his recent book, the construction industry is “broken”. We at GREYHAWK are working hard to do what we can do to transform the paradigm, but it will take the concerted effort of all -- what can you do?
Gary Berman, PE, FCMAA
President/CEO
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