Description
In construction projects, work structuring divides the project scope into work packages (i.e., bid packages) and assigns them to trade contractors. The division of work determines the scope and complexity of each work package, resulting in dependencies and the need for coordination between project participants. Poor work structuring creates coordination difficulties and “breakdowns” in work process, with potential delays and added costs, and contractual friction between project participants. Construction literature, however, provides limited knowledge regarding work structuring approach, its issues, and challenges. This thesis has three main objectives: First, to increase understanding of the processes, factors, and tools that construction practitioners use to make work structuring decisions. Second, to identify methodologies in other disciplines that can assist with systematic work structuring in construction. Third, to test the application of a selected methodology from another sector for analyzing construction work structuring. To address the research objectives, three major research activities were performed: (1) Literature review across three disciplines—construction, product architecture and software architecture; (2) Development of in-depth case studies of construction work structuring, and (3) Application of Social Network Analysis (SNA) method on a construction bid packaging case. The project case studies provided new knowledge regarding the following questions: (1) The process and key factors that influence the bid packaging decisions; (2) Techniques used to represent and communicate the bid packages and their dependencies; (3) Impact of bid packaging decisions on project performance; and (4) methods to evaluate bid packaging division. The literature review identified methodologies from product and software architecture that could assist in construction work structuring. One of these methods—the Social Network Analysis (SNA) was selected for implementation on construction bid packaging. SNA was used to analyze the bid packaging in case study 2. The analysis provided graphical representation as well as quantitative information of the bid packages dependencies and centrality. This enables better understanding of the bid package importance. Even more important, it identifies in a systematic way the sources of the dependencies, and better management of the interfaces.
