Research on the Application of the Virtual United Organization in the Prophase of the Construction Project
Authors: Hong Ke; Z. Song; Juan Li
Year: 2010

Currently, the keystone of cost control has been moving from the Construction Phase to the prophase of construction project. However as there are still a lot of uncertain factors and the information obtained in the prophase is limited, there are yet no good methods for cost control in the prophase of the construction project. Virtual Organization, as one control method, has been applied in the cost control practice and it has made an impact on cost control. However, Virtual Organization is still not able to fully solve the problems in the prophase of the construction project. Based on the present researches, this paper tries to further improve the cost control level in the prophase of the construction project through establishing the Virtual United Organization and analyzing its applications. In the Virtual United Organization, the Work Package is creatively used to check each scheme and control the project cost. Keywords-Virtual United Organization; Cost control; Construction project I. GENERAL DISCRIPTION In 1990s, Doctor AliJaafari firstly raised the theory of Life Cycle Project Management (LCPM), which applied Life Cycle Management theory into construction field. Based on the theory of Concurrent Engineering (CE), he also raised the theory of concurrent construction (CC). Both of the LPCM theory and CC theory required the project participants to form a life cycle united organization in decision making phase so as to realize the integrating function of integrated management. Professor Hu Cheng from the Southeast University of China raised the point of standardizing WBS and PBS in Life Cycle Integrated construction project management. The key point is establishing a united center database which incorporates the different databases of each participant so as to realize the united management and use under the internet circumstances . Professor Yong Peng from Tongji University analyzed the background of virtual construction, defined the virtual construction and illustrated the method for classifying information in the process of virtual construction implementation. He also pointed out that the virtual construction model could help to raise the management level of project management . Qinghua He published the Application of Virtual Organization in Construction Industry in ARCHITECTURE AND CONSTRUCTION. He pointed out the concept of Virtual Organization and its application in construction field— —Virtual Construction . In his another paper Research on the Life Cycle Integrated Management Model of Construction Project, he put forward the life cycle management design concept from the owner’s aspect. He also made deep analysis and research on the information model, layers of system integration and methods of life cycle information integration system. Even though the researches in this field have achieved a lot, however, there are still following defects in practice: 1)The positions of the project participants are still not well balanced. 2)Most project participants care their own benefit and ignore the project target.3 ) There are no coordinating and cooperating atmosphere in the organization and there are only order and control. 4)There is still information delivery shortage, overload, distortion and delayed phenomenon. This paper tries to improve the above defects through establishing Virtual United Organization and analyzing its applications. II. PROJECT VIRTUAL UNITED ORGANIZATION MODEL OF CONSTRUCTION PROJECT “Virtual Organization” is a temporary, non-fixed and mutual trusted alliance formed when two or more than two companies, organizations and persons that are legally independent, try to provide certain products and services to the market swiftly. [5] The application of Virtual Organization in construction area is Virtual Construction. This concept was firstly raised in 1996 by America Inventor Association: “Virtual Construction is a approach to the design ——build process a incorporating electronic connectivity and upside—— down management techniques”. Based on the theory of Virtual Construction and combining the integrated project management model, this paper established the Virtual United Organization model. The detailed relations of all the participants and their communication ways are demonstrated in figure 1. Virtual United Organization is a Presentation Format of project organization system integration. The main participants of This work is financed by Tianjin philosophy and social science research program(TJGL07-34) 2010 International Conference on E-Business and E-Government 978-0-7695-3997-3/10 $26.00 © 2010 IEEE DOI 10.1109/ICEE.2010.701 2776 construction projects: owner, consultant, designer, constructor, supplier, operating party, maintenance party and so on. Based on the public internet and for the purpose of raising values of construction project, all participants are united together to share resources and knowledge information. What need to note is that this virtual united organization can not fully replace the organization under traditional project management model. They are complement to each other. And considering the difference of work content in different construction phases, this Virtual Organization adjusts itself according to different construction phases. Around the owner, different auxiliary team leader shall be set in each construction phase. For example, consultant party could be set as the auxiliary team leader in decision making phase and design party could be selected as the auxiliary team leader in design phase. This dynamic united organization shall be more adjustable and could better serve for the life cycle project management. All the participants don’t have to be the real participant of the future, especial when it is in the prophase of the construction project, all the participants could be potential and the number of participant is not fixed. Virtual United Organization has the following characters: a) It unites all the participants of a project with the project management software through internet. It shares information and exchanges data to the maximum extent though internet like document management, teleconference, and online discussion. It goes beyond the limitation of operation platform and location. b) The ultimate target of this model is to establish a new cooperation relationship which emphasis cooperative “winwin” more than competition. Allied partners share resources and benefits. The vertical order “owner---designer---constructor---supplier” model changes to lateral cooperation model among owner, project manager, designer, constructor, and supplier. Figure 1. Interior communication of Virtual United Organization c) Virtual United Organization has no regular work place, instead, it is combined by partnership, connected by the information and communication technologies and realizes cross-regional construction with straightforward management level. III. APPLICATION OF VIRTUAL UNITED ORGANIZATION In the prophase of construction project, each scheme experiences the stage of information collection, scheme brought forward, scheme selection and scheme outgoing (see figure 2). [6] Whether it is in decision making phase or design phase of a construction project, these four stages are combined together and keep circulating. Figure 2. The process of scheme production The purpose of virtual united organization is to control the Life Cycle Cost, it experiences from the information collection stage till the scheme outgoing stage. In this process, the detailed work of Virtual United Organization is as followed: A. Duty of Virtual United Organization in information collection stage The existence of Virtual United Organization makes it possible for all the project participants to make full communication with each other in the life cycle time. The participants should share their collected information before each scheme is put forward. The owner and auxiliary team leader transmit the information of the project to the participants through the internet platform. After receiving the information, each participant delivers their demand, suggestions and other relevant information to the owner. B. Duty of Virtual United Organization in the scheme brought forward stage Auxiliary team leader shall assist the owner to select the information and judge which information shall influence the scheme. Based on the information, the owner shall put forward couples of candidate schemes. Meanwhile, the auxiliary team leader shall estimate the Life Cycle Cost (LCC) in this phase. The owner shall make the first step selection of the schemes. The estimate of the Life Cycle Cost in each phase shall be more and more precise with the construction process going deeper. It shall also meet the demands of each phase better. For example, The LCC estimation in decision making phase should be in the reasonable investment control scope, and the LCC estimation in design phase should satisfy the demand of Quota Design. The general principle is that the budget should not go beyond the budget estimate and the budget estimate should not go beyond the rough estimate. If the scheme can not meet the