Discussion on the reform of engineering project management system

For a long time, under the planned economy system of our country, the project construction adopts the system of division of labor and cooperation among the construction unit (construction headquarters), design unit, construction unit and material supply unit, which has made positive contributions to the construction and development of the national economy. With the economic globalization and the rapid development of science and technology, the scale of modern engineering construction projects is getting bigger and bigger, the project content is getting more and more complicated, the construction requirements are getting higher and higher, the speed is getting faster and faster, and the aspects involved are getting wider and wider. The traditional project management system, with the construction unit (construction headquarters) as the main body, is increasingly showing the disadvantages of disjointed design, construction and material supply, long construction period, low work efficiency and low investment benefit. For a long time, officials of the construction headquarters or business leaders regard project management as administrative management or general business management, and use administrative management means or general business management methods to manage projects. The existence of the construction headquarters makes people have a misunderstanding that the project construction can be organized and implemented through the construction headquarters, and no special project contracting company or management company is needed. In fact, a large number of examples and experiences have proved the disadvantages of the construction headquarters: because it is temporarily established, it lacks the procedures and methods of project management; Because of non-specialization, there is a lack of professional talents and experience in project management; As it is non-exclusive, the project will be cancelled after completion. Therefore, the accumulated experience or lessons can not be used as a reference for future projects. From a national perspective, it is "paying tuition fees" every year, which causes huge waste and loss of construction projects and leads to huge ineffective investment in construction projects.

1 Modern engineering project management calls for professional management institutions. Architectural engineering is a systematic engineering. Because of its inherent law, it needs to be realized through corresponding management mode, management procedure, management method and management technology. In other words, it needs an organization specialized in project management to serve it. The organization shall have functions, institutions, procedures, methods and technologies corresponding to project management; With the corresponding qualifications, talents and experience, we can provide the best project management services for the owners and create the greatest benefits for the owners. There are basically two project management modes recommended by FIDIC (abbreviation of International Federation of Consulting Engineers): one is represented by FIDIC's Conditions of Contract for Civil Engineering Construction, that is, the owner selects the contractor through bidding on the basis of entrusted design, but the contractor is not responsible for the design. The other is the model represented by FIDIC's design and construction and turnkey project contract conditions. In this model, the owner selects the general contractor through bidding on the basis of completing the owner's requirements or project definition, and the contractor is responsible for the whole process of design, procurement and construction management. This is the EPC general contracting mode. FIDIC contract conditions are a model that has been revised and published many times on the basis of summing up the experience of engineering contracting for a hundred years. FIDIC contract conditions reflect the same laws of construction projects; Fully consider and give consideration to the responsibilities, rights and interests of the owner, contractor and subcontractor, and strive not to favor any party: its relevant clauses are based on the law, compiled according to the practice of international project contracting after years of practice and improvement, and many clauses have the same understanding in the project contracting industry. It is not only widely used in developed countries, but also gradually accepted and adopted by developing countries and regions, especially authoritative financial institutions such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. Therefore, FIDIC contract terms are scientific, fair, rigorous, normative and international.

Suggestions on the reform of project management system China has formally joined the WTO. The Third Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee has clearly pointed out that deepening economic reform, relaxing the market and allowing non-public capital to enter industries and fields such as infrastructure and public utilities. How to strengthen the reform of China's project management system, improve the project management level as soon as possible, and integrate with the international community as soon as possible has become a top priority, which is inevitably placed in front of the project construction interface. Some suggestions are put forward for reference and discussion.

(1) Strengthen the publicity of project management. First of all, we should publicize the significance of project management. Although the successful case of project management has a history of nearly 20 years in China, few people know it, so it is necessary to strengthen publicity. Project management involves many disciplines, and with the expansion of application scope, the knowledge involved is still increasing. Publicizing this knowledge should be an important task to promote project management at present. At the same time, it is necessary to publicize the successful experience and typical cases of project management at home and abroad. In the process of publicity and learning, we should sum up more experiences, explore laws, find problems and promote the faster and better development of project management.

(2) Do a good job in training. At present, in addition to adding project management courses to related majors in many schools, popularizing project management knowledge and cultivating reserve professionals, we should also actively carry out on-the-job project management training and continuing education according to the reality of China's economic development. At present, the focus is to train project managers with working experience, enrich their knowledge structure, improve their theoretical level and help them keep abreast of the latest developments abroad. In the training, we should not only systematically learn relevant theories and knowledge, but also pay attention to training specific operational skills, so that the existing project management talent team can continuously expand its scale and improve its theoretical quality and work level.

(3) Vigorously promote the adoption of FIDIC project management mode and FIDIC contract conditions. The project management mode and FIDIC contract conditions recommended by FIDIC have been adopted in some large-scale projects and international contracted projects in China, and some experience has been accumulated, but the adoption is not universal enough and the publicity is not extensive enough. From 65438 to 0999, FIDIC published a new set of model contract conditions, which greatly improved the old version in terms of structure, definition and scope of application, and will play a positive role in China's engineering project contracting industry. Organize and formulate model contracts based on FIDIC contract conditions suitable for China's socialist market economy as soon as possible, increase publicity efforts, and change the situation that the reform of project management system is lagging behind, some owners and departments have outdated leadership concepts, local and departmental divisions are fragmented, project management is not divided between government and enterprises, administrative intervention is prevalent, and protectionism is serious. Let project management move from traditional self-management to socialized and specialized market operation mode as soon as possible, and realize the integration with international practices.

(4) Vigorously cultivate general contracting companies and project management companies. At present, there is an overall surplus of design and construction forces in China, and there are too many design and construction teams, but the strength dedicated to the whole process of project management is very weak. There are few engineering companies that can provide full-process project management services for owners and have full-featured project contracting capabilities, which are underdeveloped. Take the water conservancy construction industry as an example. Although there are some general contracting companies, most design and construction units do not have the general contracting ability to carry out the whole process of full-featured projects alone. One of the reasons for this situation is the lack of understanding that the whole process project management can create considerable benefits for the project and the owner. Practice has proved that the whole process project management is a kind of service activity with high added value, which can create value and benefit for the owners. Second, project management requires high knowledge and skills, that is, project management needs specialization. A considerable number of domestic owners and competent leaders think that project management is very simple and anyone can manage it, and they are unwilling to entrust specialized engineering contracting companies to implement project management. In order to quickly reverse this situation, we must vigorously cultivate EPC full-function engineering companies or project management companies in China. Large design institutes in China have the best conditions to transform into EPC full-function engineering companies or project management companies. Because design plays a leading role in engineering construction, design institutes have concentrated talents and rich talent resources. It is an important and urgent task to transform a group of backbone design institutes into engineering companies with general contracting functions.

(5) Accelerate the implementation of the legal person system for investment projects and organize owners' training. 1992, the State Planning Commission issued the Interim Provisions on Implementing the Owner Responsibility System for Construction Projects, and then implemented the project legal person responsibility system. This year's National Tenth Five-Year Plan outlines that the legal person responsibility system, bidding system, project supervision system and contract management system for investment projects should be fully implemented, and the investment restraint mechanism should be improved. This is a great progress in the reform of construction project management system in China. But in practice, there are still some problems, mainly two points: First, the responsibility of the owner. The root of the problem of owners' liability lies in the fact that the problems of "true owners" and "false owners" have not been completely solved. The owner is the main investor of the project, but due to various ownership and mechanisms, what the owner really cares about or actually considers when making decisions is often not the ultimate benefit of the project. In the project establishment stage, they often consider how and when the project can be approved. When deciding the project management mode, they must consider how to respond to the wishes of government officials; When deciding whether to implement EPC general contracting, they are more concerned about the personnel arrangement and interests of their departments. The direct consequence of this is waste and corruption, and the final consequence is to damage the benefit of the project and cause a large number of invalid investments. The fundamental reason for these phenomena is that the project legal person responsibility system has not been really implemented. The second is the quality of the owners. The owner is the main investor of the project and has the greatest decision-making power in the process of project implementation. Whether the decision can be made correctly depends on the quality of the owner. Owners don't have to be experts in project management, but as owners of construction projects, they should have the necessary knowledge of project management. They should understand the three control factors of project management: cost, schedule and quality. They should understand that the lower the project cost, the better. If the cost is too low to guarantee the quality of the project, there will be quality accidents in the project. The progress is not necessarily as fast as possible, and if the construction period is compressed to an unreasonable extent, it will have to increase the cost or affect the quality; The higher the quality, the better. Quality standards should be appropriate and qualified. Too much quality is a waste. In other words, the final benefit should be used to measure and determine the reasonable cost, reasonable cycle and qualified quality standard of the project. When the owner blindly decides an unreasonable cost, unreasonable cycle or unreasonable quality standard, it often backfires and lays the foundation for the failure of the project. The owner's project management involves the selection of project management mode, design and contractor, project coordination and control, project contract management and acceptance and many other aspects. Owners can neither replace and interfere with the project management of specialized engineering companies too much, nor give up the supervision and control of the project, which involves a lot of project management knowledge. Practice has proved that the quality of the owner largely determines the success or failure of the project. After the implementation of the project legal person responsibility system, it is necessary to train the owners (project legal persons).

(6) Cultivate and standardize project management intermediary organizations. Cultivating and standardizing intermediary organizations is an important work to promote project management. At present, all kinds of intermediary organizations in China have made great progress, but there are still some shortcomings, especially the gap with the requirements of modern project management. This requires us to take further effective measures in the future work to cultivate and standardize intermediary organizations and make them play their due role in project management.

(7) Formulate and improve relevant laws and regulations. At present, first of all, we should further speed up the cleaning up and repeal of laws and regulations that are incompatible with WTO rules and international practices, and revise laws and regulations that need to be improved. It is also necessary to speed up the study and formulation of laws and regulations needed for social and economic development and modern project management, and further improve the legal environment for promoting the development of project management.