The construction management industry is a big business that grows at about a 10% rate annually. This is not only because it is a multidisciplinary industry but also because this industry has a generous impact on the infrastructure and facility development of the country.
Globally construction management industry is valued at more than 10 trillion USD. Employing over 7 million workers working in about 800,000 construction companies.
What is construction management?
The core idea of construction management is performing planning, coordination, and controlling a construction process. The key objectives of a construction manager are to successfully carry out the construction works while satisfying the client’s requirements, and budget margins, and meeting quality & safety standards.
How the construction management evolves
Many years ago, the owner, designer, and builder are one entity. With time, owners separated. People hired builders for their work. In some cases the owner played the designer role or the builder played the designer’s role. With the broadening of the industry, designing works immerged as a separate talent. In the 19th century, the skyscraper era, the construction industry expanded largely making numerous new skill streams involved in the construction industry.
Different players in the construction industry
The construction industry is a compilation of different industries. As mentioned, owners, designers, and builders are the primary players. Immediately after this first level of players gather to support the primary players. Sub-contractors, material and machinery suppliers, and skilled and unskilled workers are at this level.
At the next layer, we can see insurance companies, regulatory bodies, planning boards, utilities, and unions helping and guiding the construction to success while satisfying social needs and requirements.
As the third layer, we need financial institutions, neighborhoods, project users, and government agencies to use the project after completion.
How to perform well in construction management
To be a better construction manager you have to efficiently manage the construction work without overstepping the deadlines and material allocations while satisfying the quality standards. A steady progress rate and good far-sightedness abilities will guarantee a successful career.
Better awareness
Construction managers need a better understanding of their roles and responsibilities. In order to do that, he or she has to aware of the parties involves in the project. Those are, the client, architect, designer, financial supporter, and the construction team. It is important to understand why each of them exists in the project and what they are doing. Therefore, a clear idea about the key players is a must!
Most importantly, the construction manager needs to keep in touch with newer construction trends and concepts to perform a good job. Having a good and updated experience in all the stages of construction is mandatory to handle the construction works smoothly. Moreover, a good idea about the construction process and understanding the project requirements which need to be fulfilled by the involving parties is necessary for a construction manager to perform well.
Awesome leader
The construction manager is the leader of partakers in the construction. Construction is teamwork. The manager should clearly understand the goals of the work and guide the team to achieve them. Everyone involved in the project has their purpose and own targets. So, the construction managers have to organize the workforce, subcontractors, materials, and permits to initiate the work site.
Monitoring, updating and action
Ultimately, to be a successful construction manager, it is important to have better interpersonal skills to work with multidisciplinary construction teams. Conducting daily meetings, identifying problems early, and progress monitoring will help you to keep the phase of the construction.
In any construction project, the construction manager has 4 major responsibilities. They are,
Team management
People in the worksite gather for one reason. It is the construction of that project. In most cases, these people are new to each other. Teaming them and guiding them to fulfill common objectives is the leader’s role. The construction manager has to form and handle different types of teams in order to complete the tasks. Different teams that the construction manager has to deal with are,
- procurement team
- operators and drivers
- surveying team
- suppliers
- site management team
- subcontractors,
Material management
In material management, the construction manager has to keep track of the material availability and future requirement. If the project is massive, you need to have a separate team for these tasks. It is important to daily update material availability and checks whether it complies with the demand according to the construction plan.
In managing material, we should always try to put extra care into reusable material such as formworks, scaffolding, ladders, lights, etc. This is so important because reusing not only saves money but also it expedites the work rather than ordering new material.
Maintaining proper storage facility and standards, and a good understanding of order and delivery times makes material management easy.
Equipment management
Machinery and equipment required for the construction need similar monitoring as same as the materials to keep the progress up in the construction project. Arranging required machinery according to the work plan is the main purpose here. In many cases, we do not bring all the equipment to the site at the start.
So keep tracking the progress and work plan and delivering equipment to the site on time is quite a task. When special machinery is involved, it is important to bring a skilled team with them in time.
Machinery released from the site after the work is the same as important as bringing it on time to the site. Then, sent the machinery to another site!
Quality and safety management
Keeping the quality of the work, adhering to proper standards, and maintaining site safety standards is another primary job for the construction manager. Maintaining a good relationship with the consultants and following their guidance will help to complete this job.
