Full coordination is key to project success

The procurement of complex and highly serviced hospital buildings is always fraught with the expensive and complicated problem of inadequate coordination of building services. Obviously, this problem is detrimental to the success of any project. All project practitioners must respond positively to increasingly complex building design and construction and higher expectations of their clients. To give greater value improvement in construction, the present way of managing building services design and installation must be "re-engineered" whether we use traditional or nontraditional procurement methods. This will require a cultural shift in our industry as a whole, away from adversarial relationships to more cooperative and partnering relationships. The author's research based on case studies in Hong Kong indicates that there is no best procurement practice. Rather, there is appropriate management of building design and construction. The results also show that good building services coordination can only be achieved by a good building team having a fully integrated and coordinated design, an appropriate integrating mechanism, a fair contract, effective management of coordination, mutual trust and respect, highly integrated supply chain management, greater co-operation and involvement, efficient managerial control of the whole design and construction process and the use of re-engineering of construction. All these attributes can give significant improvement in time, cost and quality performance needed by each member of the building team.