The Reality I Saw at a Certain Traffic Congestion Mitigation Construction Site
The other day, I (Sekisan Shiroto) posted an article (How do you set the ”daily workload” used in the schedule?) I would like to express my gratitude for the many comments I received. I have read through every single one, and I am truly grateful. As a civil engineer who is still a greenhorn—or rather, practically a complete novice—all of these comments serve as invaluable learning materials. Once again, thank you very much.
There was a construction site that inspired me to write this post—it was a project to alleviate traffic congestion on a major highway. I was working there as a temporary employee for a general contractor, handling construction management and CAD operations. Naturally, there were design documents in place, and construction was proceeding based on those documents, which generally covered the entire project, including roads and bridges.
However, when it came to the actual construction site, they ended up redesigning everything on-site. The design work they had done was completely unusable. It’s not that none of it could be used at all, but whether it was earthwork or structural elements, they were unable to utilize the design drawings.
There were many instances where, even though something was drawn on the blueprints, there were spots on-site where heavy machinery simply couldn’t get in, or where proceeding with construction exactly as planned meant we would inevitably miss the target completion date. From a consultant’s perspective, it seems they were unable to visit the site frequently enough due to on-site conditions and other factors.
I can understand the consultants’ perspective to some extent. Still, it came as a shock to me that the blueprints were practically useless. I suspect the consultants hadn’t given any thought at all to what kind of work would actually be done on-site or what the workflow would look like.
Should consultants get involved on the front lines?
I often hear people say that consultants’ design results aren’t usable on-site. Even in the blog posts mentioned earlier, some authors state that they don’t use the cost estimation standards.
From the consultant’s perspective, they rely on cost estimation standards because they have no other basis on which to explain their calculations; however, this could also be rephrased to mean, “Because they are unfamiliar with the actual site conditions, they can only use cost estimation standards as a basis for their explanations.”
In fact, many engineers at construction consulting firms have no knowledge of actual job sites. I’ve spoken with people who work at construction consulting firms, and they all said in unison, “We don’t know anything about job sites.” I don’t think they mean they have absolutely no understanding at all; rather, I interpret this to mean that they lack on-site experience.
Since you don’t have any on-site experience, you probably can’t picture what kind of work actually takes place (or is supposed to take place) there. That was definitely the case for me—before I started working on-site, I had absolutely no idea what kind of work went on there. I’d never even thought about work procedures, and it never occurred to me that heavy machinery might or might not enter the work yard (my apologies to everyone on-site...).
So, I’ve been thinking to myself that maybe construction consultants should be on-site as well (though that might be none of my business).
Of course, rather than joining as a construction manager, how about joining as a design support staff member? I think it’s fine for experienced people to join as construction managers, but most people lack that experience. In that case, wouldn’t it be possible to work on-site in a role such as design support or as a member of the design team?
Design and Planning with the Site in Mind
When I think about how I’ve spent so much time and effort, and gone through so much hardship to put together the design deliverables, only to have them go unused (or be unusable), I can’t help but wonder, “What on earth was the point of all this?” This isn’t the fault of the people on-site or the client; it’s something the consulting engineers have brought upon themselves.
It’s not like they’d put together their own “whatever” plans and then say, “We got the job done! (with a smug look).”But maybe I just think I'm working in a technical field.
That was exactly the case for me (a complete amateur). If I’ve worked hard to put something together, I’d much rather have it used than left unused; and if I’ve created something that isn’t being used, that’s not only regrettable but also utterly pathetic.
If I’m going to do this anyway, I want to strive for designs and plans that take the actual site into consideration, even if only a little (it’s not easy, but I want to give it a try).
