Subcontractor Management In Pipeline Construction Project

Nowadays, a large portion of a construction project is usually performed by subcontractors. Subcontractor plays an important role to the success of project. In order to manage the subcontractor, the main contractor should manage the quality, schedule, cost and safety of the subcontractor and have the ways to improve subcontracting practice which are seldom debated.

Project succeeds because of good subcontractor management in term of procurement, scheduling, cost, quality and safety aspects.

Mrs. Pham Thi Thuy Giang made a case study which main objective is to know the effectiveness of subcontractor management in the pipeline construction project.

Conclusions

The use of subcontractors in the construction industry has greatly increased in recent years. Technology, size, and scale of construction projects are tending to be more specific and complex. Increasing in sophisticated technology-based products has required a high degree of design, manufacture, installation, and commissioning skills that have not been readily available to the industry’s clients, as the skill base has moved away from the main contractor’s organization. As a result, main contractor prefers to subcontract the work because of insufficient resources or expertise in a specific area.

There are many of subcontractor companies that have the necessary expertise to undertake work satisfactorily and, as a consequence, are able to give their clients the service they require. Therefore, main contractor needs to develop a strategy that allows him to manage subcontractor effectively and efficiently.

This is a large project, and the main contractor hired an international subcontractor. The main factor that made subcontractor management successful can summarize in the figure below.



Recommendation for subcontractor management improvement

After recognizing how main contractors managed their subcontractors, the recommendation for improvement can be reliably proposed as follows:

1) It is important to have a formal procurement standard for subcontractors. It helps main contractors to make decision easier and faster whether the subcontractors are qualified with the main contractor’s commitment.

2) Main contractor should monitor subcontractor’s schedule by developing a system or adopting advanced technology software that allows main contractor to track causes of schedule variance.

3) By establishing a subcontractor database, main contractors are able to know the information about subcontractors. It helps main contractors to have better understanding on subcontractors’ performance.

4) Main contractor should develop comprehensive project safety policy and safety programs which make provisions for subcontractor safety. Subcontractor has to obey the main contractor’s safety policy and follow the main contractor’s safety programs by the inclusion of specific language to that effect in their contracts.

Her thesis abstract is copied and posted.

Abstract

Because of the increased project complexity and the highly competitive nature of the construction industry, a construction project often is executed by several subcontractors. Hence, effectively managing the numerous subcontractors involved in a construction project becomes a crucial challenge for the main contractor in ensuring timely project completion with acceptable quality.

Managing subcontractors does not simply involve asking them to allocate resources (labor, material, and machinery/equipment) into the jobsite whenever an activity is scheduled, and then pushing them to speed up the work without a clear consciousness of schedule risk. Factors (or uncertainties) such as weather, labor, site conditions, material delivery, and equipment breakdown can influence the time performance of subcontractors, affecting total project duration.

But almost Main contractor is leak of management subcontractor and it caused many difficulties and conflicts during performance, management of projects.

The most difficulty of subcontractor management is deviation scope of work between subcontractors, controlling schedule and interfacing between subcontractors.

In managing project subcontractors, a main contractor must determine the items of work to be subcontracted, select subcontractors, set subcontract agreements, and control the subcontractors during construction.