Partnering
Partnering
• The West’s response to Japan’s greater
efficiency in major manufacturing industries
• Japan’s approach is based on cooperative,
long term relationships
• Partnering in construction concentrates on
establishing effective relationships
• It achieves high efficiency by everyone
cooperating to achieve agreed objectives
Partnering
• Provides sets of actions which help
construction project organizations
adopt cooperative ways of working
which deliver improved efficiency
• As initial actions are effective, further
sets of actions build ever greater
cooperation and efficiency
Project Partnering
• The most basic form of partnering
• Provides a set of actions designed to
be applied to an individual project
• Suitable for people new to partnering
First Partnering Workshop
• Agrees mutual objectives
• Agrees decision making system
• Agrees a specific, measurable
performance improvement
Decision Making System
First Partnering Workshop
Mutual
Objectives
PARTNERING
DecisionMaking
Performance
Improvement
Partnering Workshops
• At key stages in project
• Review progress
• Ensure mutual objectives and
performance improvement are achieved
• Consider adopting more challenging
objectives and improvements
• Solve all persistent problems
Development of Effective Teams
Cautious exploration
Listening and understanding
Mutual objectives and
agreed Decision-Making
Cooperative teamwork
Strategic Partnering
A group of companies partnering on a
series of projects
To achieve greater benefits than
those delivered by project
partnering
Seven Pillars of Partnering
Membership
Equity
Strategy
Integration
Project
processes
Performance
improvement
Feedback
Strategy
• The kind of buildings or infrastructure to be
constructed
• The standard of their products and the
technologies to be used
• Services to be provided for customers
• Plans for performance improvements
• Clear and fair financial plans
• Flexibility to cope with change
Membership
• Evaluate companies technological skills
• Check business characteristics include
cooperative attitudes
• Aim for strengths which compliment rather
than duplicate each other
• Potential for performance improvements
• Potential to develop new ideas
Equity
• Financial arrangements encourage long-term
developments aimed at improved joint
performance
• Fair distribution of costs and profits
• Reliable sources of finance
• Problems seen as opportunities
• Decisions based on long-term interests of all
the companies
Integration
• Agree how the companies will work together
• Strategic team provides leadership and
makes strategic decisions
• Aim to act as a single organization
• Well integrated information and
communication systems
• Well organized meetings
• Interface teams for key activities
Project Processes
• Projects supported by standardised actions,
processes and technologies
• Project organizations assembled quickly
• Construction teams work virtually
automatically
• Relentless search for best practice based on
feedback
• Flexible enough to deal with difficult
problems
Performance Improvement
• Continuous measurable improvements in
performance
• Benchmarks based on industry norms for all
key aspects of performance
• Major steps forward driven by task forces
Feedback
•
•
•
•
•
Strategic feedback
Individual company feedback
Project organization feedback
Construction team feedback
Formal systems to collect and act on
feedback
Internal Partnering
• Companies change internal organization to
support partnering
• Led by internal partnering team of senior
managers
• Encourage the use of partnering on new
projects
• Support construction teams in using
cooperative behaviour
Strategic Collaborative Working
• A group of companies cooperate to develop a
long-term business
• Formal agreement to develop a product and
supporting services
• Led by strategic team of senior managers
from all the companies
• Set and meet tough targets
Strategic Collaborative Working
Working Organization
Interface Team
Task
Force
Internal
Partnering
Team
Project
Team
Internal
Partnering
Team
Strategic
Team
Project
Team
Task
Force
Interface Team
Partnering Performance
Project partnering
Strategic partnering
Strategic collaborative working
Cost reduction
30%
40%
50%
Time reduction
40%
50%
80%
Efficient Partnering
acts on the following propositions
•
•
•
•
Reduce the number of teams involved
Improve the quality of relationships
Reduce performance variability
Reduce external interference
Efficient Partnering
acts on the following propositions
• Select teams competent in the technologies
required by the project
• Ensure teams accept the agreed objectives
• Ensure teams are motivated to achieve
agreed objectives
• Foster accurate communications between
teams
• Minimise the effort needed to achieve
accurate communications between teams
Efficient Partnering
acts on the following propositions
• Minimise the length and intensity of
negotiations over the transactions which
bring teams into the project organization
• Ensure teams regard the transactions as
advantageous to themselves
• Minimise the resources teams devote to
improving the terms of the transactions
which brought them into the project
organization
Project using Partnering
The project is to construct a new hotel on a
virgin site. The hotel has 300 guest rooms
and the other spaces expected in a 5* hotel
The building is 10 stories high with a steel
structural frame, concrete beam floors and
roofs, and high quality, pre-fabricated
external cladding.
Brief
Design
Plan
Procurement
Manufacturing
Production
Commissioning
TOTALS
Teams
1
14
2
9
10
40
4
80
Team-days
80
460
100
270
200
2250
140
3500
For a project with 80 teams (N=80)
Possible relationships = 80 x 79/2 = 3160
2038 of these do not occur
Actual relationships 3160 - 2038= 1122
Largest number of teams in one time interval
is 23 in 21st time interval
They are constructing the
service cores, risers and main plant, the main
entrance and vertical circulation
The work is supervised by design and
construction management teams
34 x 33/2 = 253 possible relationships
During the 21st time interval the following
teams work simultaneously
2 out of 4 plan and control teams
3 out of 4 service core teams
4 out of 4 risers and main plant teams
6 out of 8 entrance and vertical circulation teams
1 out of 1 contracts and payment systems teams
2 out of 2 designer and construction manager’s
supervision teams
This gives a total of 18 teams with
153 relationships
Established Relationships
Every team on a project has established
relationships with at least one but often
several other teams giving a total of 1023
established relationships
Established Relationships Indicator
ER=1023/1122=0.91
The relationship fluctuation indicator
FE = 0.86
This reflects a strong influence of established
relationships throughout the project because
both ER and FE are comparatively high
Partnering aims to build on and further
enhance established relationships between
project partners
Relationship Quality Indicator for established
relationships ranges from 0.70 to 0.98
Total Relationship Quality Indicator
958/1122=0.85
The high number of established relationships
together with the number of high values for
individual Relationship Quality Indicators means
the total Relationship Quality Indicator is good
because there are only 99 boundary
relationships in this project out of possible 1122
The project organisation is not overly complex
There are 31 time intervals out of a potential
maximum of 159
The intervals are relatively short in comparison
to total project duration (prevent escalation
of problems when teams interact for a
prolonged period)
Relationships configuration complexity
indicator = 0.85
The past performance of the 80 teams over
their previous 10 projects provides team
Performance Variability Indicators which
range from 0.65 to 1.0
Performance Variability Indicator
Rp=0.89
Historical records for projects using
Partnering gives
External Interference Indicator = 0.74
Project using Partnering
Established Relationships
ER=0.91
Relationship Fluctuation
FE=0.86
Relationship Quality
QR=0.85
Relationship Configuration CR=0.85
Performance Variability
Rp=0.89
External Interference
I=0.74