Construction Practice and Management

This report discusses the development of the construction industry, skills required for constructing a school building, stages of construction, comparison of construction companies, and the role of BIM in selecting the design of a school building. It also explores the factors to promote local employment in the construction industry.

Construction Practice and
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1. Discussion on development of construction industry and encompassed the professionalism
within its structures......................................................................................................................1
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................2
1. Skills and specialism required for constructing the junior school on an old factory building
site................................................................................................................................................2
2. Main stages of construction from tendering till handover.......................................................3
3. Comparison of construction companies, contracts and trading...............................................4
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................5
1. Main concerns required to select contractor by local council in any tender document...........5
2. Role of BIM in selecting the design of school........................................................................5
3. Factors to promote local employment while constructing school building.............................6
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................6
1. Role of BIM in controlling building process and help counsellors in selecting school design
.....................................................................................................................................................6
2. Role of BIM in reducing running cost of school building.......................................................6
3. Role of BIM in ensuring safety and health during and after constructing the school building
.....................................................................................................................................................7
4. Role of CDM in construction process and establishment of health and safety rules..............7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Today, construction industry is considered as one of the fastest growing industries, which
represent community’s building blocks and foundation of strong economy (Shepherd, 2019).
Without contribution of this industry, infrastructure of a country cannot be developed as it helps
in building roads, schools, hospitals, commercial and private housing etc. Therefore, construction
industry plays the pivot role in developing, boosting and improving economy of a nation. The
present report is going to make a description of this industry, in context with its company
structure and other activities. While to investigate different types of companies dealing in
construction structure including their relationship in tendering process, a case study has taken,
under which a new Junior School needs to build on a site of old furniture factory. So, considering
this scenario, key stages involve in this project with role of BIM (Building Information
Modelling) is also evaluated. Furthermore, the way suitable collaboration strategies are
developed under this industry, for providing health and safety will also be elaborated.
TASK 1
1. Discussion on development of construction industry and encompassed the professionalism
within its structures
Construction industry has been changed a lot from last few years, with development of
technology, demand of people, health and safety guidelines etc. Among these, technology is
considered as the biggest factor which has completely revolutionised the way of conducting
construction activities (Letcher and Vallero, 2019). With more advanced equipment, manual
work has much reduced as well as revolutionised the manner of entire work also. In context with
UK, this nation is known as world leader within construction sector, with some notable buildings
such as Shard in London and number of affordable housing options to its citizens. This industry
has contributed to near about £90 billion that makes over 6.7% in total economy (How The UK
Construction Industry Has Developed?, 2017). Along with this, it also provides 2.9 million of
employment to local people, with a wide range such as painters, bricklayers, masons, tilers,
mechanical trades, architects and more. With development of technology, UK’s leadership can
also measure in terms of green construction. Construction industry has been developed into
various specialist companies like soil engineering, wood workers, structural engineering, civil
engineering and more (OBE and et. al., 2019). All of these perform their role in professional
1

manner with key skills and facilities as well as work together for building a site. As per present
case, in order to build school on old factory site, soil engineering helps in determining
foundation depth, soil bearing capacity, dry density of soil and more, for keeping the building
safe. Similarly, wood workers after getting information about soil characteristics, takes decision
if making school building by wood is safe or not. In this regard, all major companies perform
their part of role by sharing information to each other, so that high quality of school building can
be constructed.
In terms of company structure, first role is performed by contractors. They employ civil
engineers, soil engineers, amount surveyors and more, to form a brief workplace on site. They
also make entire planning, regarding with practices, budget, maintenance of health and safety,
timeframe and more (Carvajal-Arango and et. al., 2019). So, to build school on mentioned site,
contractor will be selected first then other activities will be conducted.
TASK 2
1. Skills and specialism required for constructing the junior school on an old factory building site
There are many organisations with different-different skills and specialism are associated
with construction industry. It includes civil engineering, soil engineering, contractors and more,
all of these perform several functions, in order to construct a building (Zhang, Oo and Lim,
2019). The main role of these skilled organisations is – to control principles of work within
business; to manage the data like CPD, PDP, guidance and so on; to improve and increase skills
of each organisation to satisfy the potential operation wants; to maintain standard of entire
operations etc. Therefore, for present case i.e. to build school on site of old furniture factory,
firstly contractor will be selected who will then employ next special organisations for conducting
further operations. It includes soil engineer who will check bearing capability of site to hold the
building with full safety. After approval of this specialisation, further operation will be carried
out by structure engineering to oversee if complete factory need to be demolished or certain
resources can be used to build the school with brick structure along with timber framed (Duryan
and Smyth, 2019). Then contractor after getting required information will hire labours, civil
engineer, architecture to design building and more, so that school building will be constructed
with high quality of materials.
2

2. Main stages of construction from tendering till handover
For constructing the school building on old furniture factory, there are some steps and
processes need to follow by the construction companies, to ensure the success of final outcomes,
as given below –
First Stage: Conception of project: This stage begins with client where, requirement of
them can be evaluated first, to understand the manner in which construction has to done (6 stages
of a project in construction, 2020). Therefore, for present project, to build school, how many
floors, rooms and other accommodations on chosen location will be determined.
Second Stage: Design: After determining requirement of project, next step includes
designing structure. This stage therefore, considered as preliminary one because it starts with
bidding process (Enshassi and et. al., Haas, 2019). So, teams who are employed in charge of
design and led by engineer or architecture, take under consideration the state regulations and
entire ethical codes while designing the project plan, which includes vision and structure. For
present project of school construction, programming & feasibility, design development,
schematic design and contract documents will be taken under considerations, bid will be place to
work on project.
Third Stage: Pre-construction stage: Once the bidding process will complete, next stage
begins with selection of contraction and formation of project team to prepare construction site. It
includes contract administrator, project manager, superintendent, field manager, health & safety
manager (Jackson, 2020). The main role of this team is to complete inspect the site location to
detect environmental challenges, which may arise during construction. Including all these steps,
for school building soil testing will also be done to ensure the base of foundation will be kept
strong. After collecting all such information, plans and procedures, these documents will be
reviewed by city authorities or educational department team, for their concerned opinion to build
the school over chosen location.
Forth Stage: Procurement stage: This stage refers to be complex one, where to build
school, project team will concern on collecting the materials, equipment, labours and entire
necessary resources (Gurmu, 2019). For this purpose, either general contractor or subcontractors
will take responsibilities to obtain all such procurement materials.
Fifth Stage: Construction stage: This stage starts with meeting some main objectives like
way to access job site, process to control project quality, management of procurement materials,
3

as well as daily working hours to complete project on desired time-limit. For this purpose,
contractor or project manager will focus on distributing roles and responsibilities to each worker
with schedule time period (Park and et. al., Lee, 2019). Along with this, they will also concern
on avoiding pitfalls by monitoring each and every activity and developing better plans for the
successfully construction of building.
Six Stage: Post-Construction stage: This stage is also known as handover one, where
after completion of all processes, three major critical steps will be taken. First step is New
construction building commission, under which whole school building will be inspected to
determine issue and apply correct actions to address the same (Bajjou, Chafi and Ennadi, 2019).
Second step includes owner occupancy, where building will be handover to client for proper
examine of safety and to undersee if all requirements have been met or not. After then project
closure is last step which might take longer process to complete overall contractual based
agreement, where contractor give guarantee that building is free from every type of legal burden
and school administration can run it very well.
3. Comparison of construction companies, contracts and trading
Construction company area unit can be classified into different specialist organisations,
relying upon roles and responsibilities performed by them (Enshassi and et. al., Haas, 2019).
This role within certain structure include land purchase, project design, budget planning,
execution and monitor task of each to ensure success of entire operations. Depending upon duty
each company execute, some construction companies are described as below –
 General contractors – These firms include the unit specialists who are delegated for
planning, handling, executing and monitoring entire operations. They execute typically
the numerous of trade with individual forces.
 Sub contractors – It includes professionals who undertake some tasks of general
contractors like hiring of labours, distribution of workers, handling supply and logistic
operations and more (Jackson, 2020) .
 Skilled construction manager – It includes those professionals who acts as building
manager and execute the entire tasks as per planned. They perform main responsibilities
in ensuring that building is constructed as per structure.
4

 Architectures: They are also considered as highly specialisation of construction sector,
who helps in designing entire structure of building, by implementing the different-
different models through BIM technology.
TASK 3
1. Main concerns required to select contractor by local council in any tender document
To carry out the entire construction works with desired success, clients of a project
concerns mainly on choosing the best contractors (Gurmu, 2019). In case of inexperienced
clients, they may take advice from consultants as well. In general, selecting a contractor is done
by tendering process, which involves a proper document of tender. This document describes
project aims and objectives, an invitation letter, tender form, preliminaries which includes site
waste management plan, pre-construction information, amendment for BIM and more (Park and
et. al., Lee, 2019). After preparing it, contractors are invited to submit their tenders which
includes ways they will use to complete the same. So, company who has met entire criteria will
be selected. In context with present project, to select the best contractor, local council will
concern on price, relevant experience, requirements, negotiations, past performances, technical
skills, manageable skills, availability, proposed methodology, compliance with submission
process requirement etc.
2. Role of BIM in selecting the design of school
BIM or Building Information Modelling refers to a 3D model-based process, which
provides AEC (Architecture Engineering and Construction) professionals i.e. insight and tools
for efficiently planning, designing, constructing and managing the building. For designing the
school building on old factory site, With BIM, designers can create the digital 3D models. It
includes data associated with functional and physical characteristics (Bajjou, Chafi and Ennadi,
2019). This model will define design elements and help in establishes relationships among
different model components, so that in case of any changes, other views can be updated
automatically. This data also aid to powerful analyses as well as simulations by including
realistic visualizations. Along with this, BIM also allows architects, civil and structural
engineers, contractors and other construction companies to make collaboration on coordinated
models (Duryan and Smyth, 2019). For this purpose, it will provide each party better insight
5

about how each work will fit into expectation of overall project, which will ultimately help to
work with more efficient manner.
3. Factors to promote local employment while constructing school building
Since it has been evaluated that with growth of construction industry, opportunity of local
employment is also increased (Zhang, Oo and Lim, 2019). In UK, this industry contributed to
provide near about 2.9 million jobs annually, which helps in reducing unemployment especially
at local level. For this purpose, to give employment under present project based on school
building, some factors will be concerned more. It includes increasing participation of local
labours more, by cutting foreign labour through minimum wage system; reducing heavy
expenses in recruitment process by giving responsibilities to local sub-contractors; trade labour
within concrete, wood works, brick layers and more; reducing demand of foreign labour by
providing adequate training and learning program to unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled labours
(Carvajal-Arango and et. al., 2019). All these practices will help in promoting local employment
within present project related to school building.
TASK 4
1. Role of BIM in controlling building process and help counsellors in selecting school design
Building Information Modelling or BIM is taken as one of the best process for establishing
collaboration among various construction companies, such as project managers, contractors,
architects, engineers and more (OBE and et. al., 2019) . Therefore, making investment in this
technology, during tender-process, bidding, pre and post construction. There are number of
works can be performed by using BIM such as 3D coordination, visualisation, pre-fabrication,
monitoring and planning of constructional operations, cost estimation, recording of all
documents and more in detailed manner. So, developing 3D model under present project will
help in controlling quality of entire process, as well as aid counsellors to select best building
design also, by utilising 4D protocol structure (Letcher and Vallero, 2019).
2. Role of BIM in reducing running cost of school building
BIM is primarily a 3D dimensional digitally represented technology, which is made up
from intelligent and smart building components such as data attributes, parametric rules and
more (Shepherd, 2019). It provides consistent as well as coordinated views including reliable
information of each construction firms, so, it saves a lot of time and capital for designing the
6

building through utilisation of built-in intelligence model. Project manager can use this model for
generating construction reports, coordination plan, schedule setting and estimating the cost.
Along with this, it also help in coordinating team members, engineers, contractors, architects and
more, to prefabricate the products (Gurmu, 2019). All these procedures, further help in
estimating the cost required for overall construction, by extracting quantities of operational work.
This would help in developing strategies to reduce extra expenses can be made, which will help
in minimising cost of building the school on given locations more easily.
3. Role of BIM in ensuring safety and health during and after constructing the school building
Integrating BIM 3D or 4D model, help construction manager to analyse health and safety,
by identifying the safety features that require at all levels. It includes safety related structures at
temporary basis, like rails and fences. After using this model as planning tool, especially for
health and safety, 4D model can further use for monitoring the precautions on job site. This
model includes site logistics plan, tools like SMARTBOARD, for visually depicted space
utilisation at cite (Enshassi and et. al., Haas, 2019) . For safety and reducing occurrence of risk
which may cause due to lifting heavy materials and other activities, temporary components can
be placed using 4D model, such as trucks, fencing, cranes, lifts, excavators and more, with
accessing their traffic routes.
4. Role of CDM in construction process and establishment of health and safety rules
In establishing and setting health & safety rules, Construction Design and Management
plays crucial rule, during different construction phases (Jackson, 2020). For this purpose,
contractor follows the given principles –
 Plan, monitor, manage and coordinate overall phase
 Taken health and safety risk into account while planning the entire operations
 Make liaison with client to ensure that entire risks will perfectly manage
 Preparing the written construction phase plan before beginning of any stage of
construction
 Planning ongoing arrangement before conducting any operations to ensure that health and
safety can be managed throughout entire process.
7

CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from entire report that for constructing a building, there are number of
companies perform their part of roles by collaborating with each other. So, it evident that there is
a long chain of firms included within construction work, that make this industry to grow
successfully. Architectures, contractors, civil and soil engineers and more, all perform important
role in manufacturing a building with high quality development.
8

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Shepherd, D. (2019). The BIM Management Handbook. Routledge.
Letcher, T. M., & Vallero, D. A. (Eds.). (2019). Waste: A handbook for management. Academic
Press.
OBE, R. K. D. & et. al. (2019). Sustainable Construction Materials: Recycled Aggregates.
Woodhead Publishing.
Carvajal-Arango, D. & et. al. (2019). Relationships between lean and sustainable construction:
Positive impacts of lean practices over sustainability during construction phase. Journal
of Cleaner Production.
Zhang, Q., Oo, B. L., & Lim, B. T. H. (2019). Drivers, motivations, and barriers to the
implementation of corporate social responsibility practices by construction enterprises:
A review. Journal of cleaner production. 210. 563-584.
Duryan, M., & Smyth, H. (2019). Cultivating sustainable communities of practice within
hierarchical bureaucracies. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business.
Bajjou, M. S., Chafi, A., & Ennadi, A. (2019). Development of a Conceptual Framework of Lean
Construction Principles: An Input–Output Model. Journal of Advanced Manufacturing
Systems, 18(01), 1-34.
Park, K. & et. al. (2019). Project risk factors facing construction management
firms. International Journal of Civil Engineering. 17(3). 305-321.
Gurmu, A. T. (2019). Tools for measuring construction materials management practices and
predicting labor productivity in multistory building projects. Journal of Construction
Engineering and Management, 145(2), 04018139.
Jackson, B. J. (2020). Construction management JumpStart: the best first step toward a career in
construction management. John Wiley & Sons.
Enshassi, M. S. & et. al. (2019). Integrated risk management framework for tolerance-based
mitigation strategy decision support in modular construction projects. Journal of
Management in Engineering. 35(4). 05019004.
Online
How The UK Construction Industry Has Developed?. 2017. [Online] Available Through:<
https://www.eturbonews.com/172085/uk-construction-industry-developed/>.
6 stages of a project in construction. 2020. [Online] Available Through:<
https://www.letsbuild.com/blog/6-stages-of-a-project-in-construction >.
9