Effective Management in Construction Industry Essay

Effective Management in Construction Industry - Essay Example These materials are useful even to construction managers with general knowledge on management. This essay is geared towards putting together the essential components as far as construction manager's roles are concerned in ensuring the timeliness of a specific project. It tries to emphasize the traditional yet crucial management functions such as planning, organizing, staffing, budgeting, and coordinating and its contribution to the completion of the project within deadlines set. This also provides inputs or synthesis of studies related to construction industry that is contributory to improving implementation efficiency and completed projects' quality. Let us consider a project and its management in the general context in order to understand the process. Project management in the universal context is defined by most literatures as a process by which an idea or project is created, processed, and accepted, and from which resources, whether materials, financial and manpower, are allocated, directed, and carefully coordinated to achieve the goals with the optimum quality, cost, and timeliness (Hendrickson 1998, Jones 2003, FTA 2006:1-9). Based on the definition of the Federal Transit Administration, a project is "made up of a group of interrelated work activities constrained by a specific scope, budget, and schedule to deliver capital assets needed to achieve the strategic goals of an Agency" (2006: 1-3) or a corporate organization for that matter. These aspects hold specifically true for construction projects, over-all goals of which revolve around the idea of delivering the project on time, with quality, and ensuring optimum benefits to the company and the owner. The interrelated tasks inherent in a project, in most cases, require specialized workers to handle and deal with. The efficiency of the management teams in handling the works within a project dictates the pace by which it is done and is among the most crucial in completing the project within the time frame. Besides, it is the management that closely deals with the owner, users or sponsor of a construction project and "it will be wise for any owner to have a clear understanding of the acquisition process in order to maintain firm control of the quality, timeliness and cost of the completed facility."(Hendrickson 1998) There are a lot of approaches to project management that a project manager can use depending on the type of work to be done. Individual projects may vary in their scope of work and life cycle. Recent innovative approaches to project management as far as construction industry is concerned are a subject of many researches and studies in the field. These studies and recommendations from researches can be applied in the actual management of the project. FTA (2006:1-9) states that the project management process begins with identification of the user requirement, project constraints, resource needs, and establishment of realistic objectives to meet the strategic goals. The common life cycle is presented in Figure 1. It usually starts with user demand and ends up to the structures intended usable life. Figure 1 The Project Life Cycle of a Constructed Facility (Hendrickson 1998) The primary concern of the construction manager is

Could the south have won the civil war If so how, if not then why not Essay

Could the south have won the civil war If so how, if not then why not - Essay Example The north had a largely urbanised background with flourishing industrial capabilities. Rapid technological developments were shaping how things had been done for centuries. The railroad was expanding westwards and liberty was in the air. Large manufacturing concerns were being established. Management was evolving to promote efficiency and innovation. Furthermore, a class of individuals was emerging that were to become the modern American middle class. These groups were ardent political supporters of anti slavery drives though their numbers were as yet not very significant. On the other hand, the south was predominantly agricultural. Farm labour consisted of slaves whose ancestors had been imported from Africa. Conservatism was rampant and white supremacy was considered as an ultimate truth. Capital was abundant too as the large farmers had no one to share profits with. Cotton was the mainstay of the southern economy. It was exported to cotton mills in Europe and in the north. Militar y tradition was more rampant in the south than in the north. Boys were taught how to ride and shoot at an early age given the agrarian society’s feuds. The war began as the south gathered its army and invaded Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Then President Abraham Lincoln urged northern states to assemble a volunteer army to deal with the situation. This caused another four states to drift over into the southern camp. The south’s position was strengthened at this point in the war. If the south had wanted to make major strides in the war, it ought to have been better planned and organised than it was. The attack of the Confederate army on Fort Sumter caught the north off guard. The south could have achieved major victories if it invaded with a larger army that engaged more targets simultaneously. This would have helped the south in causing panic and confusion in the ranks of the north. The overwhelming display of power may even have led to more accessions by Union states. Furthermore, the organised all out attack would have sent the Union running and figuring out what to do next. However, what happened on ground was entirely different. The Confederacy’s attack on Fort Sumter served as a rallying point for the northern states. It alerted them to the danger posed by the South. The Union was both proactive and swift in its reaction. An army of volunteers was assembled on ground while a naval blockade was imposed. The Union’s land armies could not achieve victories in the beginning. The level of organisation and the equipment used were not up to the mark. However, the naval blockade served as a double edged sword. On the one hand, the export of cotton virtually ended and on the other hand imports could not be brought in to reinforce the Confederate army’s stock. As mentioned earlier, cotton was the mainstay of the southern economy. Loss of cotton exports meant that revenue generation suffered gravely in the south. The naval blockade also had another profound effect. Foreign intervention was discouraged from taking any real part given the naval blockade. Foreign intervention could only be possible if the naval blockade was removed and foreign troops and supplies could flow into the south. No external power was ready or willing to support the South’s cause by direct military involvement. Another notable issue is the way in which this war was conducted on either side. Initially the south was very aggressive. It