1 Owner's project responsibility system and construction supervision system. Owners and construction supervisors are the main bodies of the construction market. Carrying out the owner's project responsibility system and construction supervision system are both important contents of China's construction management system reform.
In the past, the real owners of most construction projects in China were actually the state. With the formation of the socialist market economic system, diversified and multi-mode investment and financing channels have appeared in the market, and owners have begun to inject new connotations. These changes can also be reflected in the implementation mode of construction supervision. Take the construction and supervision practice of several bridges I have participated in as an example: Humen Bridge in Guangdong Province (a key project in Guangdong Province), 1997 was completed and opened to traffic in the first half of the year, and the owner (Humen Bridge Construction Company) and the supervisor (Guangdong Humen Technical Consulting Company) both belong to the system of Guangdong Provincial Communications Department. Construction technology and management are mainly the responsibility of supervision and construction general contracting, and the professional supervision of bridges and tunnels is unified in Humen Bridge Supervision Office. Jiangyin Yangtze River Highway Bridge (key project of Ministry of Communications and Jiangsu Province) 1999 was completed and opened to traffic in the second half of the year. The owner and director are both Jiangsu Yangtze River Bridge construction headquarters, and the construction is subcontracted.
The owner is a specially established Yangtze River Bridge Construction Company, with well-equipped construction technical management personnel, and each bid section project is subcontracted in the form of secondary supervision (director representative).
Chongqing Yangtze River Egongyan Bridge (a key project in Chongqing), which was opened to traffic at the end of last year, is owned by the specially established Yangtze River Bridge Construction Company. Set up a project department and implement the project responsibility system. The project construction is contracted by sub-blocks, and the owner entrusts the sub-blocks to arrange supervision.
Egongyan Bridge implements the project responsibility system, and the owner is a comprehensive municipal construction investment company. The main components of the owner in the project department are management leaders and appropriate external professionals. It is characterized by fewer owners and more daily affairs (including relocation), and construction technology management can only rely on supervision. In order to implement the responsibility system and reduce their own pressure and responsibility, the owners pay more attention to the selection of supervision units. Considering the interests of the owners, the establishment of lean project department can save costs, and more importantly, the internal responsibilities are clear and the efficiency is improved. Although entrusted supervision costs money, the involvement of professional supervision ensures the reliability of the three major controls of "quality, progress and investment" and shares or lightens the responsibilities of the owners. Once the project is completed, the project department will cancel it, and the owner will not have to bear the expenses of professionals. Due to the implementation of the project responsibility system by the owner, the person in charge of the project strongly urges the construction supervisor to earnestly safeguard the owner and implement control on behalf of the owner's interests. Therefore, the owner defines supervision as the representative of the owner in the supervision contract and power of attorney, and authorizes "three controls" in the bid section. Some key projects can only be used by establishing a special contract account to rent the supervision seal. On the other hand, the owner also attaches great importance to supervision, hoping that supervision can give full play to its role in each bid section and share the responsibility of the owner. Due to the implementation of the project responsibility system, the owner (especially the project leader) needs to be familiar with professional technology and management personnel and strengthen the management and control of the project. But due to various factors, it is impossible for the owners themselves to have this ability. In order to effectively manage and control the project, the owner needs construction supervision. Therefore, the owners began to gradually accept the construction supervision, from the initial passive acceptance to active acceptance. In this sense, there is a good space for the owner's project responsibility system and construction supervision.
2 construction supervision required by the owner With the development of market economy, investment companies or commercial financing companies will be the main owners of construction projects. These companies mainly focus on investment management and labor management. Accordingly, their construction technical management personnel are less. Corresponding to their responsibilities, their construction technical management personnel are few. For the sake of responsibility and interests, the owner needs professional supervision for the benefit of everything (mainly the constraints of past government policies and regulations), and there is a contractual interest relationship between the owner and the construction supervision. The owner thinks that since the investment cost is entrusted to the supervisor, the supervisor should bear all the responsibilities within the scope of entrustment, and even regard the supervisor as the agent of the owner's project department of a bid section.
What the owner needs is a supervisor who represents his own interests and shares all responsibilities.
In Egongyan Bridge project, the owner needs supervision to control the construction of its bid section, and also needs supervision to play more roles. For example, if the owner is not familiar with the steel suspension bridge, the supervision company needs to have certain experience and technical consulting ability; For the project without design supervision, the owner hopes that the supervision can put forward reasonable opinions and ensure the smooth progress of the project through process review and design disclosure; When the project changes, the owner hopes that the supervisor will not only provide technical and technological suggestions, but also examine and approve the expenses; For some unpopular professions (such as paint protection, electromechanical, road traffic), the owner hopes that the supervisor can recommend professional construction units based on his own experience, put forward bidding technical conditions and investment control opinions, and participate in the bidding work; In the case of block contracting construction, the owner hopes that the supervisor will not only do a good job of checking everything, but also assist in construction acceptance and filing. When there are difficult problems affecting the investment, progress and quality of the project, the owner hopes that the supervisor can put forward constructive opinions in time.
Due to the change of the supervision function of government departments, the owners should be fully responsible for the construction projects and have great responsibilities. However, due to its limited strength, the owner can only rely on supervision to give full play to its role in the whole process from design, bidding, construction to completion acceptance.
Although compared with the supervision fee, the owner's requirements for all-round service are somewhat harsh, the actual situation is that the owner really needs supervision with strong technical management ability and high sense of responsibility.
3 Problems in Construction Supervision In the construction project, after all, the owner and the supervisor are two different subjects, which will inevitably lead to some contradictions. For example, supervision is restricted by the owner, which is often limited to quality monitoring, and the supervision rate is low, which limits the entry of high-quality personnel and the long-term accumulation and development of supervision units. Although the supervision team has developed rapidly, due to insufficient investment, there are not many truly powerful supervision units. It is precisely because of various reasons that it is often difficult for supervisors to meet the requirements of owners in practical work.
Especially in the construction project of Egongyan Bridge, where the project responsibility system is implemented, the owner has high expectations for the supervision and has given the necessary authorization. When the supervision work cannot reduce or share the responsibilities of the owners, the owners will show obvious dissatisfaction, and some of the problems clearly reflect the problems in the supervision work. For example, the construction organization design should be reviewed by the supervisor, but the supervisor's reply is "please ask the owner for approval"
(Of course, for large and difficult construction technical problems, the owner should organize experts to review them); The contractor proposed to increase the investment, and the supervisor gave it to the owner without examination and approval; What's more, the supervisor even instructed that "the situation is true and will be transferred to the owner" for the obviously unreasonable claims made by the contractor. In a considerable number of engineering changes, there is only a constant increase, but no decrease. There are few independent inspections by supervisors for cost reasons, but some supervisors do not understand the operation of the instrument even when they are on-site inspection, and some even blindly sign the contract form for approval; When the obvious quality problems in the project are exposed, the supervisor does not investigate and deal with them on behalf of the owner, but shirks and even helps to cover them up; Quite a few supervisors are not familiar with contracts, acceptance procedures, data management and coordinated management. Unlicensed temporary supervision and retired external supervision account for a large proportion, and some of them are not restricted by the unit, irresponsible and violate the rules and regulations from time to time. These problems have affected the reputation and development of construction supervision.
Construction supervision generally pays more attention to and attaches importance to project quality. The above-mentioned irresponsibility for quality is only the behavior of a few supervisors. Ignorance of investment and schedule control is a common phenomenon in supervision work. At the beginning of supervision, many owners reluctantly accepted supervision due to the constraints of national laws and regulations, mainly entrusting quality control. On the one hand, the supervisor complains about this way, on the other hand, he accepts the status quo, forming the concept of attaching importance to quality and ignoring progress and input. The objective reason is that the supervision fee is too low to fully adapt to all aspects of working conditions. In the environment of project responsibility system, the owner generally requires the supervisor to bear certain responsibilities through the contract. Since the supervisor has accepted the entrustment contract, he should undertake his own contractual obligations. When doing this work well, we should adhere to the implementation of national laws and regulations, supervise fairly and justly, and safeguard the interests of the owners. Only in this way can the owners really accept supervision. If the supervisor can't protect the legitimate interests of the owner and meet the requirements of the owner, the owner will definitely consider setting up his own team to manage and control the project, talk about the trust and dependence of the supervisor, and limit the expansion of the supervision work scope, thus affecting the survival and development of the supervisor.
Some ideas Through my working experience as the owner's representative, on the one hand, I saw some problems existing in supervision, on the other hand, I personally felt that the project owner responsibility system and a series of laws and regulations created a good development space for supervision. With the gradual improvement of the construction legal system and the transformation of government functions, the owners really began to pay attention to project management. However, the owner needs strong and high-quality supervision to participate in the whole process management and control of the construction project, including feasibility study, survey and design review, bidding management, construction supervision and completion acceptance. Any powerful supervision consulting company can expand its business scope. Foreign capital and private economic investment tend to entrust large-scale supervision consulting companies (that is, foreign project management entrustment) to manage projects.
Under the new conditions, the owner and the construction supervisor will depend on each other and develop together.
Opportunities and challenges coexist. To develop supervision, on the one hand, we must rely on policies and regulations, and more importantly, we must improve our own quality. Supervisors should be confident, self-respecting, self-respecting, loyal and responsible. Supervision engineer must know professional technology.
Supervision engineers must know professional skills, be good at collaborative management, emphasize certificates and strictly control the proportion of supernumerary personnel; The second is to improve the quality of regulatory agencies, which should reorganize and reform market competition to form an intelligent economic entity with strength, performance, ability and credibility. The third is to strengthen internal management. Supervision enterprises can't improvise, they should strictly implement relevant laws and regulations, as well as technical standards and norms, equip with necessary testing equipment, and regulate the behaviors of supervision enterprises and supervision members through scientific management. Supervision should rely on its own strength to explore and expand the space for survival and development. At present, the most basic thing is to meet the market demand and the requirements of the owners. Never deal with supervision just because the supervision fee is low, let alone be irresponsible and perfunctory. Otherwise, the consequences will bring irreparable adverse effects to the supervision unit and even the supervision industry.