THE CONCEPT OF “CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT” IN THE USA, CMAA AND PMI STANDARDS

 

In the USA, which is considered the most advanced country in the world in terms of business management, "Computer-aided construction planning" started to come to the fore with the development and spread of computers in the 1960s. The use of the CPM methodology, which began to be developed in 1957-58, was approved in practice and training by the United States General Contractors Association in the 1960s. They gained great importance after the US administration's construction-related organizations made the use of CPM mandatory in large projects. Programs that solve this methodology have become such a common and useful tool that; In any construction case, even the courts require CPM resolution as a prerequisite for examining the case.

 

Founded in 1969 in the USA, PMI has been one of the most important organizations in the world in the creation of project management standards and certification programs since its establishment. For the first 10 years, it has been active in engineering, defense and construction industries. With the advent of the IT industry in the 80s, it has achieved an increasing growth rate. The institute, which looks at and evaluates Project Management concepts in general, has 250 branches and 225,000 members around the world today.
Since 1984, it has also been organizing certification exams for those working in Project Management. The first Project Management Guidebook, the PMBOK® Guide, was published in 1969.

 

The PMBOK Project Management Knowledge Guide of the organization, which has a branch in Turkey as PMI TR, has also been published in Turkish.

 

After the 1990s, a standard for "Construction Project Management" was established in the USA. Mr. Prof.Dr.V.Doğan Sorguç describes this standard as follows in his preface. “In this context, the standard prepared for construction project management, which is primarily the problem of the owner or the investor, is not only the greatest support the civilized world provides to entrepreneurs, but also the job description of construction project management. On the other hand, the Standard, which has been prepared specifically for construction by the US Construction Managers Association (CMAA Construction Management Association of America), has saved the technical personnel involved in the "Construction Management" phase from the effort of adapting the general US Project Management Association (PMI) principles to construction."

 

Translated by Prof.Dr.V.Doğan Sorguç and published by the Chamber of Engineers, CMAA's Construction Management Service and Implementation Standard covers the following functions.

 

1. Project management
2. Cost management
3. Time management
4. Quality management
5. Contract implementation
6. Occupational safety program
This standard Mr. As Prof.Dr.V.Doğan Sorguç said, it is a job description in project management. It does not describe the Methods and tools related to these functions.

 

 

Question: Aren't Project Management and Planning concepts that have not changed since the formation of humanity? Is it the writing of these concepts that makes them different today? What makes the concept of “Project Management” today different from the past? Methods? Vehicles? Is it technology?

 

How is today different from yesterday?



Didn't these pre-standard projects have project management, cost management, time management, quality management, contract implementation, occupational safety program?
Or is the difference of today's "Project Management" in how these defined works are done with today's technology and today's tools?
Wouldn't it be more correct to examine these 6 functions in the Construction Management job description under 2 headings under the concepts of "management" and "supervision"?

 

The phenomenon of “Management” and “Control” in Construction Project Management.
What do we plan and manage? What do we check?

 

Project, cost and time; They are concepts that include amount, time and money and should be examined in data evaluation programs with arithmetic algorithms. These concepts, which should be included in the "Management/Planning" phenomenon, may vary in line with the management skills of the people, the software and tools used, or the management decisions, and may have different amounts, different times, and different costs.
Quality, contract and occupational safety concepts should be considered within the scope of “audit”. There are no values limited to the skills of the manager; are the targets set by specifications, standards, contracts. They do not have arithmetic algorithms. At this point, there are rules, methods and standards that we must follow, not data evaluation programs that we need to use.