Anthony D. Songer

Owners and contractors faced with the drastic consequences of a “crisis” often accomplish projects whose short schedules, tight budgets, or technical complexity require adoption of extraordinary approaches to design and construction. Crisis or “exceptional” projects occur for many reasons; industrial accidents or acts of God cause damage to crucial manufacturing capacity or changes in the economy or international markets require a rapid product to market cycle. Often, these crisis projects are completed in record time, with superior quality or within a very low budget. It is also common on exceptional projects for strategies that are designed to (say) reduce schedule, to exhibit collateral beneficial impacts on the project's cost or quality. The research reported herein, investigates 30 exceptional projects to identify and document work process changes and their impact on cost and schedule as compared to traditional projects of similar scope and complexity. Results illustrate that changing work processes ...