Decentralised site management—a case study

International Journal of Project Management Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 113±120, 1999 # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0263-7863/99 $ - see front matter

PII: S0263-7863(98)00014-3

Decentralised site managementÐ a case study Patrick Barber, Cyril Tomkins* and Andrew Graves

Agile Construction Project, School of Management, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK

Where projects are complex, there may be a need for greater decentralisation of control in order to avoid the bureaucratic ineciencies of central direction. Decentralisation does not, however, dispense with the need to co-ordinate activities. This paper shows how a major UK construction company successfully implemented a balance between cellular autonomy and overall project risk management in a major road project. # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved Keywords: project management, self organising project structures, project co-ordination, project risk management

Introduction By granting more autonomy to segments of a complex operation, one gains a better utilisation of local knowledge, quicker responses to needs and improved motivation to succeed through clearly identi®ed responsibility (Anthony, et al.1). On the other hand, decentralisation runs the risk of inconsistency and contradictory action unless activities can be co-ordinated e€ectively. There seem to be two main aspects which need to be considered in addressing how co-ordination may be maintained in decentralised organisations. First, Peters and Waterman2 resolved the apparent paradox of exercising both tight and loose control simultaneously by stressing: ``. . . autonomy is the product of discipline. The discipline (a few shared values) provides the framework. It gives people con®dence (to experiment, for instance) stemming from stable expectations about what really counts.'' (Peters and Waterman,2 p. 322.)

This management philosophy was clearly recognised by Jolivet and Navarre3 who described decentralised management developments in Spie-Batignolles. They explained how the classic management approach involving pyramidal and functional speci®cation of tasks, standardisation of procedures and regulation by hierarchy gave way to autonomous teams built upon self organising principles and performance control through the use of a few meta-rules which set the values by which subordinate decisions had to be made. The second aspect of co-ordination required is the management of the risk pro®le for the whole organisation and how resource allocation is modi®ed dynami*Contact person for correspondence.

cally to allow for uncertainties and newly perceived risks as they arise. The question is how can this apparent need for centralisation be operationalised when maximum autonomy is sought for cellular forms of operation. This paper shows, by means of a speci®c case study, how a particular form of organisation, a major construction project, can be organised in a way which allows the use of decentralised multi-disciplinary teams without losing co-ordination of the project and, in particular, how risk and adaptive resource allocation can be managed dynamically in such a setting.

The case study The case investigated the decentralisation of control of the day to day work of a major road (A13) construction project in the UK. The A13 was selected for study because it was known that: 1. it had adopted a multi-functional team based (cellular) project structure, 2. these teams had been given considerable autonomy, 3. the project manager had part-way through the project introduced: . ``a no blame culture'' to encourage sub-ordinates to exercise fully their new independence and more truthful reporting, . a new form of project risk management. The A13 road improvement project entailed the construction of a completely new section of road involving 5.2 km of dual carriageway passing through land designated as a Site of Special Scienti®c Interest. The project included three major viaducts plus two major road interchanges, and had speci®c diculties as it also had to be built over a disused foundry and the slurry lagoons. These factors, plus the fact that the 113

Cecentralised site managementÐa case study: P. Barber et al.

area was inherently low lying and marshy, meant that the contract was always going to be a dicult one to complete and exhibited just the situation in which the Jolivet and Navarre matrix3 suggests that management is best achieved through self organising cells based on meta-rules. It was, therefore, not surprising that a delegated approach should have been speci®ed as the approach to adopt.

Revising the project management structure When the site was set up, the project manager was aware of an internal company report which identi®ed diculties that some large projects had experienced with internal communications and planning. The classic or traditional form of managerial control is from the top down with the tendency to operate in an authoritarian and adversarial manner. The work is broken down into functional groups (e.g. road laying, structure, earth works and drainage and sub-functions within those groups) which attempt to produce the best performance possible whilst keeping to their budgets. Performance is measured by means of local functional measures. These would be cubic metres of earth moved, cubic metres of concrete laid, tons of steel ®xed, etc. These measures show how much is being moved, laid or ®xed, but they do not show if it is being done in the right place or at the right time. The focus is upon eciency rather than overall goal e€ectivenessÐthe latter being left to central management to worry about. Under such an approach, the internal report suggested that di€erent functions had, on other projects, pulled in di€erent directions attempting to meet their performance targets as measured against their eciency performance measures. This often meant that the various functions got in each others' way and disputes would break out between the engineers in charge

of the various functions as their bonuses were determined by these measures. With these problems in mind, it was decided to re-organise the project with a ¯atter management structure based around autonomous self managing teams which would be responsible for all operations in given geographical locations of the project. The contrast between this management structure and the traditional functional based method of organising is shown in Figure 1: the previous vertical functional team orientation was replaced by the horizontal organisation by areas. The performance of these multifunctional teams was still measured against measures such as cubic metres of earth moved or tons of steel ®xed, as the company insisted on having them, but they were used in a more intelligent way, designed speci®cally to re¯ect each team's key operations and their relationship to the overall project objectives. In other words, the emphasis was changed from one of maximising eciency to one of reporting when an operation would be completed and if it was on schedule. With this change to a cellular structure, the line manager acted as a coach in a supporting role, rather than giver of explicit instructions, dealing only with the overall organisation of the operation into teams and delegating the rest to subordinates and only helping them when requested. There was also more emphasis on cost reduction and value management. In this new environment, the workforce was encouraged to make their own decisions, seek improved value for money and organise their own day's work. The structure of the teams themselves was also carefully considered before they were formed. The team leader and project manager together estimated the number and skills mix of people required for the team based on the work required to be done by the team. They then interviewed people in order to gain the correct skills mix and personality traits for the team. The

Figure 1 Changing the organisation of construction teams

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team leader then took responsibility for the team budget and completion targets, an overall view of operations and his/her main task was to make sure that everyone is pulling in the right direction and that they have the tools necessary to do the job. Team leaders were also responsible for producing, in liaison with the rest of the team, a three monthly program. The foremen were responsible for overseeing the weekly running of their part of the works. Their main task was to make sure the men doing the work have the tools and equipment to do it. The foremen produced the weekly work schedules in consultation with their men and did the preparation so that the work could be done. The gangermen looked after each individual gang undertaking a particular task on the weekly work schedule. They planned and executed the day to day work of each gang. Their main task was to make sure that the gang could do that day's work and that everything was set up for the next day's work. An example of the ganger-men's new responsibilities was that they were given the authority to draw small hand tools and local supplies from the stores. The engineers, quantity surveyors (QS) and surveyors acted as a support function within the team: making sure that the correct materials are ordered, preparing method statements and procedures, laying out the work, etc. The engineer's role as a manager, as it occurred in the old system, was greatly reduced. This method of working represented a radical departure from the traditional approach where all the power and responsibility rested with the engineer in charge of that piece of work. In the previous system, the engineer would prepare the weekly work schedules and supervise the day to day operations. This meant that the engineers often had very little time to do their intended work and spent most of their time supervising the day to day operations. This shift in power away from the engineers to the foremen caused resentment among some of the senior engineers at ®rst. It was necessary to provide some training for foremen and gangermen to equip them to meet their new roles. At the earlier stages of the project, the new decentralised project structure and team working seemed to be producing some improvements in productivity, but only very slowly. It seemed to take time to build up an e€ective team and get used to operating in a new culture and new ways of operating. There were also some problems with communications between teams which meant that although the work was being done in the teams, they were still often pulling in di€erent directions. This became manifest in the project slipping behind schedule and over budget. More seemed to be needed than just delegation and team working. The project management had not lost faith with their decentralised approach, but they did feel that something additional was needed.

Resolving the problem With the help of Balfour Beatty's own Business Improvement Team, site management identi®ed a selection of problems using the Goldratt ``Thinking Process Approach'',4, 5 which is a systematic way of mapping out a problem, understanding the blockages which are preventing the development of a satisfactory

solution and de®ning a series of steps to remove them. After conducting this analysis, the problem areas identi®ed were: 1. Poor communication: through the increased delegation, top management often did not know what was happening on site. The engineers as the team leaders now felt that they had an inadequate knowledge of what their teams where doing. Moreover, there were still in¯uences of the previous culture whereby everybody wanted their part of the operation to look good so they covered up the problems and only reported the good aspects of performance. 2. Poor Information: the poor communications meant that the information passed on was often wrong or inaccurate. 3. Inaccurate planning: planning was often incorrect because the information received was wrong, so wrong assumptions were made as to where the project was in terms of completion. 4. Training/education issues: the majority of personnel on site where only skilled in one very narrow area such as sca€olding, steel ®xing and concrete pouring. This meant that a succession of trades would have to come and do their piece of work before any part of the job was completed. Despite the intent, the teams had not become truly multi-functional. 5. Motivation issues: the bonuses paid to the men were still based on the old eciency-based performance measures rather than team performance. This often meant that di€erent trades got in each others way as they were trying to meet their own speci®c targets. It became clear from this list that the majority of the problems were due to the attitudes that members of the work force were adopting. They had not completely left behind the previous culture. It was at this stage that the ``no-blame culture'' was introduced and increased e€orts made by project management to change the management style to a more managementby-consensus approach. The no-blame culture was to supplement the new delegated approach by encouraging truthful reporting. Another key requirement was also revealed: even if the transmission of truthful data could be ensured, success would not be achieved if there was not an improved mechanism for overall co-ordination of the project to replace the form of the previous system of co-ordination through detailed instructions. Moreover, reverting to tight central control over detail was not an option project management wanted to consider. Hence, such a co-ordination mechanism had both to be consistent with a decentralised form of operation, and to encourage adaptability and ¯exibility to re-allocate resources and schedules to respond to unexpected events. The means chosen to do this was a risk management and co-ordination approach based upon Goldratt's Theory of Constraints (hereafter called TOC).6 This was an approach which had recently come to the attention of the Balfour Beatty Business Improvement Team. 115

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Using the theory of constraints approach to risk management The ®rst task was to review durations for the activities required to complete the programme. This was now done by consulting with the teams who would actually be doing these tasks. This process was long and arduous as every activity had to be thoroughly analysed and a realistic time given to it. With these durations determined, the next task that had to be tackled was the identi®cation of the key activities that form the critical path. This task was supposedly easily achieved as the critical path had been identi®ed in the original project plan, but the project had never run to this plan and this had caused the critical path to move and these changes had not been monitored through revisions of the critical path analysis. Once the critical path was revised, a new project plan was drawn up along TOC lines, but there was one essential and vital di€erence from a conventional critical path analysis. Critical path analyses are well known and in widespread use. They show the planned time duration and sequence of activities and help to determine the most ecient scheme for completion on time. The shortest time within which the project can be completed is the length of the critical path and activities on this path have no spare time (slack or ¯oat). Activities o€ the critical path have ¯oats of time. When traditional centralised management styles are used, it would be usual to give directions to subordinate managers to complete detailed functional tasks and tell them the expected duration of the task and their ¯oat times. This has had the tendency to encourage subordinate managers to see themselves as having individual time bu€ers equal to their ¯oats for noncritical activities such that no harm was seen in taking up these ¯oats. This then allows non-critical activities to become critical, and with the uncertainty involved in construction, can soon lead to the project falling behind schedule. To counter this, the main thrust of the TOC approach is to protect the critical path from being delayed by events occurring o€ the critical path (Goldratt,6 p. 157).

Under the TOC approach, ¯oats are not allocated to individual activities. Subordinate managers are given their tasks (whether functionally organised or not), with an exact speci®cation of when they are to commence the task and the duration it is expected to takeÐno uncertainty allowance is given. An uncertainty bu€er is, however, estimated for the whole project and this will be managed by the project manager. This is called the completion bu€er and it is meant to be sucient to cover all the uncertain events which may be encountered such that the completion time, including this bu€er, should not be exceeded. For pragmatic management reasons, the total completion bu€er is broken up into three parts. The ®rst of these is a safety zone: the project can be permitted to go into this zone without any problems. This bu€er section is used in construction to cope with minor delays caused by, for example, the weather. The second zone in the bu€er is the planning zone. If the project enters this zone plans are drawn up to pull it back on schedule. These plans are produced, but unless the project enters the third zone they are not implemented. The third zone therefore is the implementation zone. The aim of this method of controlling the work is not to enter any of the zones, but to have a total contingency with warning, get ready and do something action zones. The total completion bu€er is not the only uncertainty bu€er in a TOC approach. Major projects usually have separable strings of activities that have a critical path of their own before they feed into the main critical path of the whole project. These strings are organised in exactly the same way with the bu€er being at the end of a string of activities. This bu€er is known as a feeder bu€er and it is split up in just the same way as the completion bu€er. This arrangement is the key to protecting the critical path from interference through delays in the strings (sub-projects) of feeder activities. This multi-string structure of bu€ers in a TOC based project management system is illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2 The use of bu€ers in a TOC Program (Source: The Goldratt Institute)

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It can be argued that the TOC approach does nothing more than employ a sensible and fairly traditional use of contingency allowances. But to focus upon that would be to miss the key point which is that this method of planning relies on people sticking to the project plan and organising themselves and their teams to do whatever is necessary, using their local knowledge and discretion to start on the required date and to achieve at least the required output to ®nish on the required date. To ensure this happens, all the total project uncertainty bu€ers remain the property of the project manager and only he/she is allowed to use them. Similarly, all feeder bu€ers are at the disposal of only the relevant ``string managers''. The project manager (string) manager must have the ability to step back and look at the project (string) as a whole and then to decide what, if any, action is required to keep the project (string) on track. He/she, therefore, responds to the emerging uncertainties and reallocates resources to e€ect the necessary co-ordination of the whole project (string). The project (string) manager delegates discretion on method of work as much as is possible, but is tough on delivery of completed task within speci®ed times and costs. While the project (string) managers' subordinates are aware of the total project uncertainty bu€er, they are not given individual ¯oats for their speci®c tasks nor given discretion to use the project (string) bu€er. Recently, the presence of a bu€er (¯oat or inventory) has tended to be viewed as a sign of non-lean operation, but if subordinate managers and the work force have no knowledge of ¯oats for their speci®c tasks and are made aware that they must not exceed allocated times and costs and, moreover, it is their task to plan to recover time if they appear to be falling behind schedule, any slackness due to the presence of ¯oats/bu€ers should be avoided. It can also be seen now how the TOC approach facilitates a disaggregation of the project into sub-projects (strings), so that the bene®ts of decentralised modes of operation can also be obtained, while improving risk management and overall project co-ordination. To implement this management procedure, the project manager held weekly meetings with each of the main task teams. In these meetings the progress of that team over the week would be discussed and any actions required would also be discussed and planned. These meeting relied on the teams providing accurate information, and not covering up problems as occurred under the old system of working. The `noblame' culture helped to encourage this. If con¯icts occurred between teams over resources, they would be settled by the project manager allowing the team who had the work which had the most impact on the program have the resources ®rst.

Evaluation of the approach An assessment of the changed management process was carried out by means of structured interviews with a cross section of the workforce ranging from the project manager to ganger men, plus subsequent extensive discussions with the project leader and the internal business improvement consultant. The aim of these interviews was to determine if they felt the changes on the site had improved their work in terms of productivity and quality. The interviews also attempted to

®nd hard evidence to back up the ®ndings of the interviews. The ®rst person to be interviewed was the project manager. The project manager's views The project manager and the internal consultant have worked hard over the past two years implementing the changes to both the organisation and the culture of the site. When TOC was introduced, a 12 month plan was formulated (to end on the 20th December 1996) Over this period a 96% adherence rate was achieved. Before TOC was introduced the site was only managing to achieve 52% adherence to its weekly work schedules. To produce this dramatic change, much e€ort was needed to change the attitudes of the work force from that of confrontational (and only doing what you were told to do) to a more co-operative consensus driven management style. There was a drive to produce an open and honest dialogue between all the people on site. This was vital for the communication of correct and accurate information, but it took time to build the necessary level of trustÐit did not arise naturally just because teams with more discretion were formulated at the outset of the project. The project manager stated that the TOC approach had forced him to step back and look at the project in aggregate terms. The increased delegation allowed him time to make more strategic decisions and reallocate resources in a more dynamic manner. This, though, could only be made if the information available to him was correct. The higher quality information, due to the weekly team meetings, allowed him to make more informed decisions. He now had a more reliable view of how the project stood in relation to the overall project plan and how the various activities that were being undertaken impacted on that plan. Before these changes were made, the project manager would know how much of various materials had been moved, laid, erected, etc., but not if this was done in the right place at the right time to meet the overall goal of successful project completion. This approach also meant that quality improved because a better planned and executed job produces a better quality product. He stated that, in his opinion, the quality of the job had improved and the work done on gaining the trust of the workforce created an improved working culture. To support this claim, the client, the Highways Agency, has commented on the excellent quality of the job. Team leaders' interviews The team leaders agreed that TOC and the associated revision to team operation had brought about bene®ts in the way they operated. First, they con®rmed that the teams were reorganised into logical splits along geographical lines within the job and were of a multidisciplinary natureÐeach team was responsible for building one particular structure and worked on it from start to ®nish with only the road laying being separate. As an activity applicable throughout the whole project, it was felt that it still made sense to organise that on a functional basis. 117

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The team leaders were responsible for the overall strategic planning for their section of the job and its execution. These plans were drawn up with the help and assistance of the team members involved, so creating a sense of ownership of the plan. The team leader's main job was to look ahead and plan for the next couple of months. The team leader took a long term view of what was being done in their section and they now had to avoid being drawn into the complexities of the day-to-day operations. One of the team leaders stated: ``that it was often dicult to maintain our distance from day to day operations, but it did make the work go much smoother.''

They also said that the TOC approach had helped in providing a means of analysing problems as they occurred and a logical set of steps to follow to adapt activities to ensure that the goal was still met. The alterations in management style also meant that the team leaders were more involved in decision making at the top level and the team members were more involved at the team level. The better communications between the members of the team and the multi-disciplinary nature of the teams meant that problems were often spotted earlier as people were more aware of what would follow on from their work. These problems were then dealt with before they reached the stage where rework had to be done and this produced a consequent saving in costs and general improvement in quality of work. All the team leaders were in agreement that the changes that had taken place were for the better and that they would like to organise their next job in the same way. They all felt that these working practices would bene®t any civil engineering project. They also felt that the changes that had taken place were only the start and the new set-up would provide a good basis for further development on work in future contracts. Team members' views A selection of team members were interviewed including a foreman, section engineers and a quantity surveyor. In total 10 people were interviewed mainly from the production teams. All persons interviewed expressed their satisfaction in the new ways of working and con®rmed that it improved communication within the team and led to better working practices, although it was stated that communications between teams could have been yet further improved. It was also mentioned that progress had been slow and gradual once the teams were set-up with no achievement of step changes in procedures or working practices. This slow change meant that many of the respondents had diculty actually determining what changes had taken place and exactly when, but, once they started thinking about it, they soon agreed that a large accumulation of changes had occurred over the last three years of the project. They stated that the prime example of these changes is the way in which the team structure was organised and the work was plannedÐwith the team leader taking an overall view and the foremen planning for the next week's work and the ganger men organising the 118

day-to-day operations. They con®rmed that the engineers and quantity surveyors had worked as support functions to the actual work, rather than directing it. This meant that the planning of day-to-day activities was done much closer to the work face and so it was based on improved, up-to-date predictions. The planning was also not done alone by a particular gangerman or foreman, but with the input from the rest of the team. One foreman commented: ``The team does not always make the decisions that I feel are right, but I have to go along with them as that is what the team decided.''

This action alone was said to have lead to the improvements in program adherence because the programs now represented a realistic picture of what was actually happening. The respondents were then asked about the quality issues. They all responded that in their opinions quality on site had improved for a number of reasons: 1. The improved planning meant that work could be completed in one go without being left for periods of time because men were pulled o€ that particular job to deal with a piece of work which was behind schedule. 2. The use of the team structure meant that people had a sense of ownership about the work they were doing and that if their work was poor it would a€ect another person or gang in their team. 3. The improved communications between team members meant that problems were often sorted out before they became real quality issues and potential disasters could be averted.

General observations from visits to sites The ®rst observation made is that the site appeared to be in good order and it has a feeling of control with ``nobody running around, shouting and screaming''. This impression is further enhanced by the fact that the personnel knew what was going on at the site and could describe how their work ®tted into the overall plan. The sta€ all seemed highly motivated and all focused on getting the job completed on time. This is best illustrated in the fact that they all provided very similar answers to the structured interview questions and, when asked if they would choose to work this way again, they all answered that they would do so. Even so, there was still room for further improvement. There were still two main problems that required attention on this site when this study was undertaken:7 1. Although the previous inherent trait of covering up problems and incidents had been reduced considerably due to the changes implemented on this site, there were still traces of this practice which needed to be eradicated. 2. Even towards the end of the project, the narrow skills base of the workforce still prevented a full realisation of the bene®ts of multi-functional operation. This problem occurred throughout the workforce with site managers and engineers lacking

Cecentralised site managementÐa case study: P. Barber et al.

management and planning skills, foremen lacking team building and organisational skills and the men having only a very narrow focused skill base such that the tasks that they can deal with are limited in range. Engineers are not exempt from this problem; often they specialise in only one particular ®eld of operation.

Conclusions To conclude a list of the key ®ndings of this research is o€ered: . At the end of the project, the site was seen to have been a successful one; it was now seen as having been well organised and e€ective. . The 96% programme and budget adherence achieved was in sharp contrast to other projects run by the company which often only managed signi®cantly lower programme adherence with cost over runs on various activities. . There was also a noticeable improvement in quality observed. . This site organisation also produced a well organised and motivated work force who said that they had the tools available to them to do their jobs e€ectively. . These conditions, it was stated, had been so much better than on other sites and the workforce would all like to continue working in this fashion. . The study also showed that the ideas contained in The Last Planner are worthy of recognition as a similar system, namely this TOC based system, has been developed and used in practice in Balfour Beatty.8 . From a wider perspective, the case also suggests very important hypotheses about the nature of project planning. Jolivet and Navarre3 emphasise that a move to more decentralised team work and greater autonomy within the project organisation can only be achieved by a thorough change in attitude and culture. This case strongly supported that proposition. . Moreover, the culture had still not fully adapted by the end of the project and was certainly not universally present throughout the company studied. This suggests that one should not expect to be able to change to a widely held set of meta-values throughout the company on the basis of application, in only one project, even a successful one. . Even within a project, it takes time to train and develop sta€ in new ways of working. Meanwhile, one must be pragmaticÐpro®ts have to be earned and projects completed. The case study illustrated how the process of changing styles of operation had to be managed within the projectÐone cannot rely on it just being ordained from above. The current view in the company is that it is premature to decide that this must be the only way to organise all its large projects. Thought is needed as to whether there are not contingent factors which a€ect the style with which projects are best managedÐperhaps along the lines suggested by Jolivet and Navarre.3

While, in the company, the issue is not yet fully resolved. It seems quite clear that any claims that bene®ts will be automatically derived from delegation should be viewed with care. There will always be the need for co-ordination and risk management for the project as a whole. Advocates of delegated forms of operating are not completing their task if they do not also show how this task of co-ordination is to be performed in a way that is consistent with decentralised project management. The TOC was the way the managers of the A13 project decided to ®ll this gap. It is not the only approach, but it did prove e€ective in this instance. On the other hand, it has been suggested by some in the company that, if the decentralised teamwork based approach had not been attempted initially, TOC and cultural change would not have been required. Our research was not able completely to resolve this issue, but it was able to demonstrate how a TOC and decentralised approach can complement each other. Further empirical research is needed to identify conditions under which construction projects are best run under decentralised or centralised modes of operation and to relate that to the Jolivet and Navarre3 contingency framework.

Acknowledgements The authors gratefully acknowledge the ®nancial support of the EPSRC and Balfour Beatty for The Agile Construction Programme of which the research reported here is only a very small part. Thanks are also due to Balfour Beatty for permitting us to publish this material in the interests of stimulating a wider debate on methods of improving construction management.

References 1. Anthony, R., Dearden, J. and Govindarajan, V., Management Control Systems, (Second edition), Irwin, Homewood, Illinois, 1992. 2. Peters, T. and Waterman, R., In Search of Excellence: lessons from America's best-run companies, Harper & Row, New York, 1982. 3. Jolivet, F. and Navarre, C., Large-scale projects, self-organising and meta-rules: towards new forms of management. The International Journal of Project Management, 1996, 14(5), 265± 271. 4. Goldratt, E., Theory of Constraints, North River Press, New York, 1990. 5. Noreen, E., Smith, D. and Mackay, J., The theory of constraints and its implications for management accounting, North River Press, New York, 1995. 6. Goldratt, E. op.cit. Some we have met in the civil engineering industry claim that this approach is little di€erent from approaches used a number of years ago. Moreover, it can be argued that it is simply a particular style of using logic trees. Our point is simply that this Balfour Beatty project team came across this approach through contact with consultants from the Goldratt Institute at the time that the project leaders were becoming aware that improved means of co-ordination was needed to operate the new management style with success. They saw the Goldratt approach as serving these needs. Goldratt has since published these ideas, see E. Goldratt, Critical Chain, North River press, New York, 1997. 7. This study was undertaken towards the end of the construction project. 8. Ballard, G., The Last Planner, North California Construction Institute, Monterey, California, 1994.

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Cecentralised site managementÐa case study: P. Barber et al. Patrick Barber is a graduate of Coventry University in Manufacturing Engineering and he obtained his doctorate at the University of Sunderland for research into design management in the consumer durables industry. Patrick joined the Agile Construction Initiative in the School of Management of the University of Bath in 1996, where his work is focusing upon quality issues and improved management processes for major construction projects.

Cyril Tomkins is Professor of Business Finance in the School of Management, University of Bath. He has published extensively (approximately 100 journal articles, books, Government reports, etc.) on a range of issues related to ®nancial control in large organisations, both in the private and public sectors. His main interests concern the way in which management accounting and ®nancial management interface with strategic and behavioural issues. He is one of the three principal holders of the EPSRC/Balfour Beatty grant supporting the Agle Construction Initiative.

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Andrew Graves is a Professor in The School of Management, University of Bath and Director of both the School's International Aerospace Research Programme and Agile Construction Initiative. He is also European Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology International Motor Vehicle Programme. After spending time in both the Army and Formula 1 racing. Andrew has specialised in the study and implementation of lean production processes and identi®cation of ``best practice'' and this paper represents the ®rst published journal article from the Agile Construction Initiative which is attempting to apply such concepts across both design and operations within this industry.