Expert interview: Contract Management

Contract management for construction work is an essential process that aims to guarantee efficiency and compliance at every stage of a project. It is mainly in this part that each stage must be carefully planned and monitored for a successful completion of the project. Rodrigo Bley, a civil engineer and Contracts Manager at Stecla Engenharia, explains that in this type of management, we generally work with global price, unit price and administration contracts.

What is a lump sum, unit price and administration contract?

"In lump sum contracting, we work on well-defined projects with a fixed price. Unlike unit pricing, which is generally used when the maturity of the projects has not yet been reached. Administration is when the client assumes the cost of the work and the construction company carrying it out charges an administration fee. This can be a fixed amount or a percentage of the cost of the work. It is well used when projects are still in their infancy and provides greater flexibility in the contract," says Rodrigo. The value of a contract varies according to the number of services to be carried out.

The importance of risk management

An essential factor in managing construction contracts is risk management. Rodrigo stresses that this requires a lot of attention and planning. "The first step is to really plan how to manage the risks. Once you've done that, you can identify the risks by gathering a history of previous works with specialists and partners, identifying data. That way, we can measure the risks, analyze them quantitatively and qualitatively, and plan a response strategy," he says. A strategy built on measuring risks always includes monitoring and control, a fundamental tool of all contract management.

This management also involves, in addition to taking care of what is happening on site now, planning what will happen in six months or a year's time, always thinking about the result that will be generated at the end of the project. "Escaping the day-to-day traps and stopping to assess whether what we're doing now will lead us to that end result is important for a vision of results and deadlines in the culture of the construction site," explains Rodrigo.

Technology in contract management

Technology is fundamental to construction management, especially the BIM (Building Information Modeling) methodology. This revolutionary method makes it possible to create a virtual construction during the project's life cycle, providing a vision that improves decision-making and the overall efficiency of the process. This helps to avoid rework, errors and more assertive planning. Rodrigo adds that "visualizing how the work is being built, and whether it will serve the purpose that has been defined, is what sets BIM technology apart".

In order to integrate all the participants in the process into a single management platform, Stecla Web was developed to centralize contract management information, report measurements, non-conformities and organize all the stages of the construction process. This centralization facilitates access to the entire construction process.

Contract Management at Stecla Engenharia

Stecla's culture is also disseminated to all clients and to all the teams assigned to the various construction sites to ensure unity. This alignment of expectations, this transparency in communication between all parties, is fundamental so that everything goes according to plan and there are no surprises. The focus is always on delivery, on the result generated for the client. "Every job is a learning experience. There will always be something you learn differently on that job. The headache is mine, the client has to be happy, the process has to be good for them," concludes Rodrigo Bley.