1、 二 一一届 毕 业 设 计 外文翻译 学 院： 建 筑 工 程 学 院 专 业： 工 程 管 理 姓 名： 卢 未 学 号： 2 8 0 2 0 7 0 1 2 3 指导教师： 来延 肖 完成时间： 2 0 1 1 . 6 . 1 5 二一一年六月 毕业设计（论文）报告纸 共 19 页 第 2 页 装 订 线 英语原文 A Unified Approach to Project Management Thomas Froese* and Sheryl Staub-French* *Dept. of Civil Engineering, Univ. of British Columbia, V
2、ancouver, BC, Canada, V6T 1Z4. e-mail: 1tfroesecivil.ubc.ca, 2sherylsfcivil.ubc.ca Abstract In current project management practice, the overall task of designing, managing, and constructing a building is carried out by organizing the work into many distinct tasks assigned to many different groups. M
3、ost project effort is then directed towards carrying out these tasks in the most effective manner possible, while relatively little effort (concentrated within a few critical positions) is focused on managing the interdependencies between tasks and effectively combining these results to yield the ov
4、erall result. We propose a unified approach to project management that brings an integrative view to the forefront, centered on the notion of defining multiple views of the project and the interrelationships that exist between the views. This integrated representation acts as a model or prototype of
5、 the physical facility, allowing more experimentation and optimization and providing a unifying focus for the ongoing work. The representational framework, proposed methodology, and accompanying IT issues for this approach to project management are discussed. Motivation Much of our previous research
6、 has been in the area of information technologies (IT) applied to the task of project management (PM) in the field of architecture, engineering, construction, and facilities management (AEC/FM). Within this field of research and development (R&D), a major theme has been the integration of informatio
7、n resources and tools throughout the AEC/FM project lifecycle. Great progress has been made in the concepts, technologies, and tools to support this integration. As of yet, however, the results have had minimal impact on practice in the industry. This situation begs the question of why this active a
8、rea of R&D has not had greater impact. One significant problem seems to be that the resulting technologies and tools do not fit particularly well with current project management practices. More specifically, the new tools assume and require a level of integration and coordination among project parti
9、cipants that is seldom found in practice. Clearly, the technologies require further development towards tools that better suit current practice. Yet it may be useful to also consider current project management practices to see if changes could be introduced that would allow projects to better exploi
10、t the advances that have been made in IT. From this initial perspective of IT, we have begun to explore potential weakness and opportunities for improvement in current project management practices. In the process, the perspective has broadened to identify several issues that are not specifically IT
11、related. These are not new concepts, but a collection of several current trends in AEC/FM and relevant ideas from other industries. In this paper, we consider several of these views on weakness in current project management practices and opportunities for improvements. We then synthesize these into
12、a proposed framework for a unified approach to project management in AEC/FM. Perspectives on Weaknesses and Opportunities for Project Management Complexity and Interdependencies in AEC/FM projects. AEC/FM projects are often described as large and increasingly complex. A greater understanding of the
13、nature of this complexity can point to the areas where the need for improved management is greatest. Studies have identified the following characteristics as generally common to any type of complex system11: 1. Complex systems are comprised of a multiplicity of things； they have a large number of en
14、tities or parts. Generally, the more parts a system contains, the more complex it is. 2. Complex systems contain a dense web of causal connections among their components. The parts affect each other in many ways. 1 Paraphrased from Homer-Dixon 2001, pp.110-114. 毕业设计（论文）报告纸 共 19 页 第 3 页 装 订 线 3. Comp
15、lex systems exhibit interdependence of their components. The behavior of parts is dependant upon other parts. If the system is broken apart, the components no longer function (like the parts of the human body). 4. Complex systems are open to their outside environments. They are not selfcontained, bu
16、t are affected by outside events. 5. Complex systems normally show a high degree of synergy among their components: the whole is more than the sum of its parts. 6. Complex systems exhibit non-linear behavior. A change in the system can produce an effect that is not proportional to its size: small ch
17、anges can produce large effects, and large changes can produce small effects. To some extent, all of these features can be observed in AEC/FM projects. AEC/FM projects are made up of components such as the physical elements in a building, thedesign or construction activities, the people and resource
18、s utilized, etc. In many cases, the individual components are not complex. Yet the number of components that make up the project is vast, and the causal connections between these components are numerous. For example, a change in the intended use of some space in a building could affect the heating a
19、nd cooling requirements for that space, which could affect the design of parts of the mechanical system, which could alter the elements of the electrical system, which could change a purchase order for material supplies, which could delay a material delivery, which could influence the construction s
20、chedule, which could reduce the productivity of a work crew, which could increase a work package cost, which could affect a sub-contractors financing, and so on. AEC/FM projects, then, are justifiably described as complex, largely because of the quantity and interdependence of the components that ma
21、ke up the project. Explicit recognition of interdependency in project management approaches. One of the fundamental mechanisms that the AEC/FM industry has developed for dealing with complexity is the approach of dividing project work into well-defined work tasks and assigning each work task to a sp
22、ecialist group. These tasks are then carried out, to a large extent, as if they are fairly independent from each other. To be sure, each participant has some notion that their work must follow certain work and must precede other work, and that certain actions or outcomes of their work will influence
23、 others. By and large, however, participants focus primarily on their individual tasks, with any concerns about these interdependencies addressed in a very ad hoc and reactive way. Most participants try to optimize their own work while the few people responsible for managing the project as a whole h
24、ave little opportunity to optimize the entire system. Clearly, it is beneficial to organize work in such a way as to minimize interdependency among work tasks. However, we contend that a weakness of current project management practice is that it tends to treat typical AEC/FM work tasks as being far
25、more independent than they actually are. Instead, project management approaches should strive to make the interdependencies between work tasks more explicit. This does not increase interdependence and complexity, but it does make the existing interdependency and complexity more visible, and therefor
26、e more manageable. In summary, AEC/FM projects are complex because of the quantity and interdependency of their components, and project management techniques should strive to make these interdependencies explicit. Information, Information Management, and Information Technology. All design and manage
27、ment tasks on AEC/FM projects are fundamentally information processing tasks: they take existing project information as input and produce new project information as output. Even construction tasks, which deal with the processing of physical resources, require information as a significant resource. Y
28、et the information resources and information flows are rarely considered and managed explicitly, and are instead treated as implicit in assigned work tasks and physical project components. This makes the management of this important resource haphazard, and makes the application of appropriate inform
29、ation technology more difficult. Information Management. We suggest the following general approach to information management (IM) on AEC/FM projects. The IM should adopt a processbased approach, organizing the project into its work tasks. The IM approach should then consider three main issues: 1) th
30、e information requirements for each task, 2) the communication requirements between tasks, and 3) the integration across tasks and communications. For each task, the IM should evaluate what the information input requirements are, what IT tools should be used for supporting the task, and what the information outputs are. For communications, the IM should evaluate what information flows must exist between tasks (including
