Adopting a Program versus a Project Approach Improves Facilities Management and Construction Outcomes by… 1. Eliminating redundant costs and activities and 2. Aligning strategies and objectives with processes and workflows.
Volumes have been written about the fragmentation of the AECOO (architecture, engineering, construction, operator, owner) and Facilities Management sectors and their relative high levels of economic and environmental waste.
Traditionally, architects and engineers, prime contractors, specialty subcontractors, and material suppliers come together one time to execute a single project for a specific owner. Clearly, this process “reinvents the wheel” each time, and as a result rarely captures learnings, and in the end is typically characterized with adversarial short-term relationships driven by first-cost driven competitive bidding process. The process is further negatively impacted it the owner is required to select the low bidder, and owner’s “shop” prices before awarding bids. This particular process can be further deteriorated when subcontractors low bid primes to gain awards. The overall is the current “state of the union” in which 95% of participants don’t engage in integrated, collaborative, and efficient planning, procurement, and project delivery practices, and even fewer maximize the associated potential benefits.
What is the most critical factor in facilities management and sector? Time. Every other factor… collaboration, information environment, team members, quality, project delivery method, materials, equipment, environment…. impacts time. Every real property owner has an almost exclusive focus upon time, yet as noted, 95% of them don’t even understand that robust program-based solutions exist to provide higher visibility and control of time and all the other areas combined.
Greater alignment of a program-centric approach with organizational goals integrates all core aspects of FM and associated facilities repair, renovation, maintenance, and new build planning, procurement, and project delivery. This enable over 90% of all projects and work orders to be consistently delivered on-time and on-budget, and to the appropriate specifications. Clearly this level of performance has previously been elusive across the AECOO sector.
All the tools, information, and support service resources are readily available for any owner to deploy robust, integrated planning, procurement, and project delivery via a programmatic environment. The later also provides complete financial visibility and transparency via a locally researched detailed unit price database, versus lump sum, or national price average, or other unverifiable cost source.
Program and outcome based coordination and collaboration between owners, design professionals, prime contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers involved during the life-cycle aspects of the project is accomplished via ongoing training, client specific workflows, and supporting Information environments accessible to all. The traditional situation of information generated by various sources in an environment of chaos, without any viable controls of formats, revisions, level of detail or abstraction… is not tolerated. Early and ongoing sharing of actionable information, a situation required within a program-based environment, resolves issues such as low productivity, cost and time overruns,
change orders, inadequate design specifications, liability claims,
conflicts and disput.
A program-based systematic step-by-step approach to operating a value-driven FM and AECOO sector is the only proven path to significant improvement.
