As a systematic project, engineering project construction has many restrictive factors, such as project cost, schedule, quality and information, which are interrelated. In the construction of general contracting project, the project team (department) will organically coordinate the relationship between functional departments in the whole process from design to construction end, and comprehensively manage the cost, schedule, quality control and information of the project, which is the comprehensive control of the project.
The overall control of the project is very important for the smooth construction of the general contracting project of the engineering company. Especially after joining the WTO, China will have more opportunities to contract projects abroad. The country has taken international project contracting as a pillar to earn foreign exchange, which will strongly promote the development of overseas project contracting in China. Therefore, if domestic engineering companies want to participate in the competition in the international engineering market, they must master the theory of total project control and the international common methods.
Theoretical derivation of 1 project integrated control
Total project control is an activity to limit, coordinate and standardize the plan set by project objectives, and it is a key activity throughout the whole project management process. Only under effective project control can the planning and organization functions be fully exerted. Total control runs through the whole project life cycle, and the sooner it is carried out, the more secure the realization of the project objectives will be; If the establishment of control standards and control systems is considered in the planning stage, the control activities in the implementation stage will be much smoother.
The purpose of comprehensive project control is to control the implemented projects within the allowable deviation required by the plan. In the overall control, the forecast and plan should be expressed in a way suitable for measurement, and the measurement content should be consistent with the elements of the plan. Planning and corresponding measurements should be carried out at very close intervals. Once the deviation is found, there can be enough time, money or other resources to correct it. Generally speaking, the project has less room for maneuver (or time difference), so it must be controlled by stricter supervision. When the maneuver margin is small, the planning and monitoring scheme must provide information for the small work increment; When the maneuver margin is sufficient, the planning and monitoring plan should appropriately extend the time interval for providing information, and the allowable work increment can also be relaxed. Therefore, when making a project plan, we must give a certain grace in time and resources, that is, emergency grace, which depends on the specific situation of the project. The greater the emergency grace, the higher the corresponding cost. When the emergency margin is large, the planning and monitoring scheme can be relatively rough, so as to reduce the cost of the planning or monitoring scheme and minimize the actual monitoring. In this case, the project control manager can wait until each work is completed before checking its implementation. If it is not completed, it can be reworked (because in this extreme case, the emergency allowance is very abundant). In this post-event control method (with sufficient emergency grace), emergency measures can be ignored first, which is very cheap for monitoring. Once the remedy is needed, it will often lead to the expenditure on time and expenses of the project exceeding the ability to pay, so emergency grace will be very expensive. At the other extreme, the monitoring plan is formulated comprehensively and deeply, and all kinds of deviations in the implementation of the plan can be found almost at any time and corrected in time. This method of continuous monitoring (without emergency grace) requires considerable manpower and material resources and the monitoring cost is high.
Compromising ex post control and continuous monitoring can avoid two costly extremes. The quality of monitoring scheme should change as a function of available emergency tolerance, so there must be an optimal intersection of monitoring and emergency tolerance to minimize the control cost of the project, in which the monitoring cost, emergency cost and their sum are expressed with a given confidence level to meet the requirements of project objectives, progress and budget. The process of control is the process of error correction. No matter how well the project is controlled, it is difficult to guarantee that the project will be successful. Because accidents are sometimes inevitable and unpredictable. Project control can only improve the possibility of project success to a certain degree of confidence.
For the project implementation process, the main contents that need to be planned and controlled are schedule control, cost control, quality assurance/control and information management. These components are interrelated, and one change will lead to other changes. Low cost and high quality are contradictory, and compressing the schedule may not necessarily make the cost the lowest. At the beginning of the project, the contract objectives and implementation priorities must be established first, and the project control must be consistent with the objectives of the owner and the contract. Quality assurance/control should be reflected in the company's organization, methods, procedures and standards, and monitored in time. Excellent technology is realized through inspection, verification and inspection in the whole process of project implementation. The professional knowledge and experience gained from previous projects can be applied to subsequent projects, thus improving the quality.
Schedule and resource control are the main objectives of overall project control. In the implementation of the project, the first thing to consider is the completion schedule; Resources can be expressed in quantity, working hours or physical quantities, but they must be controlled within the budget and meet the requirements of progress. Information management is extremely important for effective project implementation. A complete management system and procedure can promote information transmission, data verification and correct and orderly information flow in project management. With the participation of the management department, the owner and the project manager of the engineering company, the whole control process, that is, the process of planning, inspection and correction, can be divided into three stages: engineering design, procurement and construction, which are combined between the company headquarters and the site.
Financial control is a means of cost control, aiming at achieving balance. The above work involves workload, work efficiency, working hours and planning, and the ratio of the workload completed each month to the workload of the whole work plan is the progress. Cost control and schedule control must be a comprehensive concept, without which control will not succeed.
2 tools and methods of comprehensive project control
The tools of comprehensive project control are mainly to establish various documents, reports, charts, etc. The standard and control method of project control is to establish effective information feedback system, monitoring system and organization implementation system to check and supervise the implementation of the project, correct mistakes and ensure the realization of project objectives. Such as work breakdown system and critical path method. Advanced control methods include earned value analysis (EVC), cost and schedule control system criterion (C/SCSC), application of S curve and ∧ curve to check project schedule, etc.
The goal of schedule control is to complete all the provisions of the contract on schedule guarantee, coordinate all the work involved in the project, and put forward potential early warning in time. The progress control process is similar to that of the whole project, and it is a dynamic management process. In actual implementation, a program chart should be drawn, indicating related responsibilities, contents, steps and cycles. The specific control cycle generally consists of five steps, namely, collecting information, calculating progress, reporting progress status, analyzing progress status and deviation, and changing plans.
The methods to show the comparison between the plan and the actual situation can be used: interpolation line elimination, contour line, expected curve, etc. Through this method, we can find out where the project schedule is delayed, so that relevant personnel can analyze the reasons for the delay in time. There are often delays in progress. Although most of them have many reasons, once the accumulated delay exceeds the allowable limit, the whole project will be affected. Therefore, the project manager must hold regular engineering meetings to find out the reasons for the delay and put forward improvement measures.
In comprehensive control, cost (expense) control is to control the actual cost of the project within the budget without affecting the project schedule, quality, production operation and safe construction. Based on the project budget, from the project design stage, review whether the cost estimation of important design schemes is within the investment scope at any time. If it is exceeded, the design scheme will be revised. In the construction stage, the actual expenditure of various expenses in the construction process is continuously monitored and compared with the project budget to find out whether the actual expenditure of the project deviates from the budget or whether there is a deviation trend. Cost control should strive to minimize the project cost in order to obtain the highest profit.
Project budget overruns are often caused by rising prices or other factors, and must be controlled by good cost control methods. The implementation mode of the project should be carefully considered, and the design should have an economic perspective and adopt effective cost control principles. To sum up, the basic principles of cost control are: to make the project reach the predetermined investment cost control goal, and not to overemphasize the improvement of design standards; The preparation of the project schedule should be realistic and based on the relationship between the organizable human resources, the usually achievable delivery date and the control value of the whole project investment cost. Before signing the contract, every expense of the project should be compared with the project budget to keep it within a reasonable amount that can be borne; The change of investment cost caused by the change of project task scope and design standard should be estimated and reviewed before the contract is formally signed; Data on investment cost should be distributed to various professional groups in the project team to promote them to handle specific work from a strong economic point of view; All signed and concluded expenses, as well as the estimated expenses that have not been signed or concluded, should be controlled according to various regular expense reports and review procedures; Cost control should not only control the engineering quantity, but also control the unit price; The project management department should always check the implementation of various expenses against the actual progress of the project and take measures to correct any deviation from the plan and budget. The procedure of cost control mainly includes the following steps: making a cost management outline; Establish expense account code; Formulate the implementation budget; Expense report and trend forecast; Cost state analysis; Expected future expenses; Change management.
In the overall control of the project, the project manager is the key executor and must have the ability of overall control. Therefore, the project manager should report his ideas and practices to the company leaders in time, so as to get the instructions and support from the company leaders in time; The project manager also needs to establish a close cooperative relationship with the owner, and inform the owner and ask for their opinions when performing every major work, so as to make the project control go smoothly.
In addition, in order to effectively implement the overall control of the project, it must be realized with the help of advanced project management computer information system. The function of the system should cover six basic contents of project management, namely: project coding, planning, schedule and cost, materials, quality control and contract management; Among them, each subsystem should be highly integrated through coding, and the data has uniqueness, integrity and enjoyment. At the same time, modern communication network means should be adopted to realize the dynamic exchange of information between the company headquarters and various engineering sites and realize the all-round dynamic management of the project, so as to make the project management more scientific, modern, accurate, standardized and agile.
3 Conclusion
Overall control of the project is very important for the general contracting project construction of the engineering company. Especially after China's entry into WTO, domestic engineering companies must master the theory of project integrated control and international common methods in order to participate in the international engineering market competition. Overall control runs through the whole project life cycle, and the earlier the project control, the more secure the realization of the project objectives; If the establishment of control standards and control systems is considered in the planning stage, the control activities in the implementation stage will go smoothly. In the process of project implementation, the main contents that need to be planned and controlled are schedule, cost, quality assurance/control and information management. Progress and resource control are the main objectives of comprehensive control; Information management is extremely important for effective project implementation; Financial control is a means of cost control, and its purpose is to minimize the project cost and obtain the highest profit.
The advanced comprehensive control methods in the world include earned value analysis (EVC), cost and schedule control system criterion (C/SCSC), and the application of S curve and ∧ curve to check the project schedule. In order to effectively implement total control, advanced project management information system must be adopted; At the same time, the project manager is the most critical executor of comprehensive control and must have comprehensive control ability.
For more information about project/service/procurement bidding, and to improve the winning rate, please click on the bottom of official website Customer Service for free consultation:/#/? source=bdzd