When we think of infrastructure projects, healthy relationships between project managers and EPC contractors are vital for the successful project execution. 

In the most prominent project delivery strategies – ‘design-bid-build’ and ‘EPC’ –  contractors occupy a large control over engineering, procurement and construction. This level of control comes with a lot of risk, making contractors highly accountable for risk management. This is how trust between contractors and project managers becomes a necessity for smooth project execution. Blame games can only lead to failure.

But recently a rather shocking statistic in KPMG for the Global Construction Survey, 2015, reported – 

• Less than one-third of the senior executives of major corporations had high trust in their contractors.
• Over two-thirds of them identified poor contractor performance as the single biggest reason for the failure of projects.
  

Build a better connect between project owners and contractors

Without building trust between the two parties, project health is at risk. The need of the hour is therefore, to ensure greater visibility and transparency in the project execution. This is only possible when all the processes involved in project execution – documentation, reporting, progress tracking, material management etc. – can be handled easily and accessed smoothly by all the involved stakeholders in a project. 

Only greater visibility of project can ensure better control of the project by contractor in coordination with the project owner.

Hence the survey^(*) also highlighted how great project owners are looking for new and innovative ways to include contractors in planning to reduce costs and ensure timely deliveries. In fact, 82% of senior executives plan to work for a greater collaboration with contractors over the next five years.

Can Project Management Software help?

Construction firms are still in the primitive stages as far as project management software is concerned. Many still rely on – spreadsheets and emails to manage work that needs better levels of organization. The KPMG survey again has some rather surprising data to highlight this fact.

• Half of the surveyed companies do not employ a Project Management Information System (PMIS).
• Of the half that does, 33% (47% for companies with Annual Revenue greater than USD 5 Billion) are yet to integrate the software with their Accounting and Procurement software.
  

Workpack, along with its sister products ensures that there is proper management of engineering documents & drawings in any infra project. So that there is complete visibility of project execution to all the stakeholders.

How do you boost the project owner – contractor relationship? What platforms do you use for connecting stakeholders in a project? Leave a comment below to let us know.

*KPMG Global Construction Survey 2015