Project Management to Mitigate Construction Legislation Risk

The Construction industry is by nature rife with risk; there is always danger of some sort of mistake, equipment liability or catastrophic injury. This is true on construction projects large and small. An added risk exists if local governments make changes to their legislation and the changes are not picked up on right away by a construction company.

Governmental legislation is enacted in an attempt to protect business and individuals from unforeseen occurrences and accidents on construction sites. In the U.S., construction cannot proceed until a certified professional inspects and gives the go ahead. Any failure of this inspection can result in serious delay of the project or cancel it completely. Failure at that stage can be financially catastrophic for all parties involved.

A full project management system can help mitigate the risks involved with meeting governmental regulations. Here is an example of what could happen if an organization or company fails to have a full project management system in place:

Let’s say your town needs a new school. Plans are drawn up, building permits are acquired and the pre-construction phases begin in earnest. The school will be designed to hold over 2,000 students, so it will be a fairly large project.

Just as the structure begins to go up, there is a big change in building codes and construction laws for that community. These laws will necessarily affect the specifications of the job.

Because the construction company does not have a formal project management plan, no one person is responsible for overseeing such areas as a change in local regulations. Important legislation might be missed and the company could find itself noncompliant at some point during the completion of the project.

Inspectors arrive armed with the new legislation and, finding the areas of noncompliance, immediately shut down the entire project.

For the crews, this means time without work, either paid or unpaid; for the local community, it means a longer wait for the much needed school building; and for the construction company, it means a massive headache because in order to meet the new law requirements, they have to halt forward progress and redo a large percentage of the work that no longer meets the new regulations. Everybody is in a bind. Financially everyone is going to suffer as costs continue to accrue.

Thus begins the snowball effect that will eventually cost twice as much, take twice as long and become the blight on the face of the company that will go out of business because of a small, single oversight.

A properly administered project management system could have prevented this unfortunate scenario. A system like IPM Global’s project management system could have enabled overseers to stay on top of changing legislation and make adjustments in the project before time, labor and money were wasted. This whole situation could easily have been avoided if the construction company had implemented a formal project management system at the beginning of the construction phase.

This may seem extreme, but since laws can change during construction phases, it is vital to have a full project management system in place in the beginning to protect everyone involved. Visit www.ipmglobal.net to see how a formal project management system can help mitigate potentially costly risks.