A new way of project construction: Partnering model?

Partnering model is a new project construction model, which was adopted in American private projects in 1980s, and then applied to American public projects, and achieved success. Partnering mode refers to the mutual commitment made by all parties involved in the project in order to obtain specific commercial interests and make full use of the resources of all parties.

1 Comparison with Partnering Mode and Traditional Construction Mode

Compared with the traditional construction mode, the Partnering mode has the following differences:

(1) guiding ideology. The goal control of traditional construction methods is to control investment, progress and quality, and the project management as the owner also focuses on the owner's own interests, which often leads to a tense and even hostile atmosphere between the owner and the contractor. Partnering mode also emphasizes that goal control is to consider the goals of all parties involved in the project as a whole, and fully consider the interests of all parties involved in the project when implementing, which is easy to produce win-win results in project practice.

(2) Cooperation mode between the owner and the contractor. The traditional construction method is often the cooperation between the owner and the contractor on a single project, while the Partnering model focuses on long-term cooperation. In the long-term cooperation, it is easy to accumulate knowledge and experience and enhance mutual understanding, thus bringing benefits to all parties involved in the project.

(3) Ways to resolve conflicts. The traditional construction method attaches importance to contract management, which has advantages and disadvantages. We can guarantee each other's rights and obligations, but it is also easy to make a fuss about the contract text for our own interests when there is a conflict, so it is not easy to find a proper solution to the conflict. Partnering mode requires participants to sign non-contractual agreements in addition to formal contracts, and there is a special dispute settlement system, so the adoption of it can greatly reduce the occurrence of disputes and lawsuits.

(4) control of the target. The goal of Partnering mode is the common goal of all participants, including quality, schedule, investment and safety. In addition to the traditional means of controlling the project objectives, there is also an objective evaluation system formulated and implemented by all parties involved in the project, which is used to dynamically control the objectives in the project implementation.

(5) benefit sharing. In the traditional construction mode, rewards and punishment measures are often formulated according to the quality of project implementation in the contract, while in the Partnering mode, through the active efforts of all parties involved in project implementation, the project benefits are naturally shared by all parties involved in project implementation, such as advancing the schedule, investing, saving costs, etc., which will naturally bring benefits to the owners and contractors; The improvement of project quality is not only beneficial to the owner, but also can enhance the reputation of the contractor, which is very beneficial to its long-term development.

(6) Owner's selection of contractors. In the traditional construction mode, the owner's trust in the contractor is based on the ability judgment. When selecting a contractor, the owner should inspect the resources, experience and reputation of its construction project, and then select the best one through bidding. However, in the long-term cooperation, the Partnering model often has a full understanding between the owners and contractors, and they trust each other. The selection of contractors by the owners can save a lot of transaction costs, which is beneficial to both parties.

2. The formation process of partnership mechanism.

In the prisoner's dilemma, prisoners face two strategic choices: confession and denial, that is, cooperation and hostility. Simple confession and denial strategies can't reach a balance, because they can't maximize the prisoner's utility, and only mixed strategies can maximize the prisoner's utility. In the partnership mode, each participant's strategy also conforms to the prisoner's dilemma. The process of forming a mixed strategy between the owner and the contractor is: step 1. The owner makes a one-way cooperative action on the project, and the contractor can choose to be the owner's partner or not. Step 2: The owner makes appropriate adjustments to the specific terms according to the requirements of the contractor, and the contractor either agrees to negotiate the disputed terms and make certain commitments; Either you don't agree to negotiate the disputed terms and don't make any promises. Step 3: The owner makes a choice according to the contractor's selection strategy, and the owner will choose to negotiate or terminate the cooperation with the contractor and choose other contractors. The equilibrium process of the mixed strategy of the owner and the contractor is also the process of building trust with each other.

Partnering mode can generally be divided into five stages, namely, internal cooperation among owners, partner selection, early cooperation, project cooperation and working process cooperation. The internal cooperation stage of owners mainly includes identifying the business motivation and core competence of the organization and evaluating the application of Partnering model. Business motives mainly include improving quality and reducing costs; Core competence refers to the conditions for realizing business motivation; The evaluation mainly involves costs, expected benefits and risks. In the stage of partner selection, the only criterion for choosing a suitable partner is conducive to the realization of the owner's business motivation. To establish a complete set of partner selection criteria, the representatives of various departments within the owner need to negotiate. Therefore, it is necessary to form a team of various departments in the selection of partners. Each representative has the right to put forward his own suggestions in his work, and finally discuss the criteria for selecting partners. In the initial stage of cooperation, all participants build trust by sharing business motives and information with each other, and establish early cooperation on the basis of trust. It is mainly to draft a charter that reflects the interests of all participants, including the goals and success criteria of all participants. Once the cooperative relationship is determined, all participants should take certain measures to monitor the progress of the cooperative relationship. Standards can be quantitative, such as changes in time and cost; It can also be qualitative, such as employee satisfaction. In the cooperation stage of the project, we can further understand the expectations of all participants on the basis of the previous articles of association, and draft more specific articles of association through the cooperation meeting of Partnering mode to establish the overall goal of the project. The cooperation stage of the work process is to take practical actions to achieve the ultimate goal on the basis that all employees understand and recognize the Partnering model. Employees should be given the right to make suggestions in the course of work, and managers should adopt and implement valuable suggestions as much as possible. If disputes can be well resolved at the bottom, it will help to reduce the increase in the number of disputes.

Trust, commitment and * * * enjoyment are the three basic elements of the Partnering model. Practice and research have proved that trust is the most important key factor. Trust includes both the mutual trust of all participants and the internal trust of all participants, that is, the executives of all participants understand and support the Partnering model. There is no essential difference between these two kinds of trust, except that the participants in the internal trust of the participants come from the same participant. The lowest trust cost appears in the general trust level. At a low level of trust, each participant will invest some resources to stop other participants, including preparing contracts and arranging full-time employees to supervise the remaining participants. With the increase of trust, each participant's prevention of each other will be reduced, and the cost of maintaining the relationship will be reduced until the lowest cost appears. The cost reflected in this process is the cost incurred in the actual process. Then, mutual trust has reached a certain maturity, supervision and prevention have decreased, and the possible losses caused by one party's breach of contract have risen sharply with the improvement of trust level. The cost in this process is the potential cost. Therefore, in the Partnering model, no matter how many successful cooperation, the supervision of each other's participants should run through.

3. Ways to realize Partnering mode

The main ways to realize Partnering mode are decision-making working group, specific contract working group, monthly review meeting, group activities, exchange and reward.

(1) Decision Working Group. Partnering mode communication is vertical from top to bottom, and the decision-making working group introduces the concept of leader management into the ongoing project.

(2) The specific contract working group. The specific contract working group is chaired by an independent moderator, and the members of the working group are composed of all participants. According to the characteristics of the contract, the specific terms of the Partnering model contract need to be agreed by all the participants in the contract, and the terms mainly involve the purpose and measures of the project.

(3) Monthly review meeting. The monthly review meeting is mainly to supervise the implementation of the partnership model contract. In order to give full play to the role of the monthly evaluation meeting, participants can set up their own questionnaires. The performance of the partnership model contract can be measured by the following indicators, including trust, sincerity, communication, coordination, planning, quality, safety, capital, job satisfaction, resources, third-party needs and dispute resolution methods. Questionnaires can be graded, and honesty, openness and self-criticism should be guaranteed during the grading process.

(4) Group activities. Organizing group activities, such as football matches and basketball matches, can improve team spirit and create an effective environment for cooperation and communication.

(5) communication. It is mainly for all participants to report the successful cases of adopting the Partnering model, including articles introducing the experience of Partnering model, photos of group activities and their latest developments. Improve employees' understanding and cognition of Partnering mode, unify their thinking, unite as one, and achieve their goals.

(6) reward. On the basis of in-depth discussion some time ago, we signed an additional agreement and established an incentive mechanism, mainly to concretize and clarify various risks and reduce the ambiguity of responsibilities. Only when all risks are clearly defined, all parties involved will consciously take certain measures to prevent risks from being divided, so as to finally achieve a win-win situation.

The successful Partnering mode must be that all participants have a positive attitude towards Partnering mode during the project cycle, and the method of Partnering mode is mainly used to cultivate, deepen and maintain the attitude of Partnering mode. These three are interrelated and inseparable. Cultivation is the basis of deepening and maintaining, and only when a certain attitude is formed can there be an object of deepening and maintaining; Deepening is the expansion and extension of training.

Extension is to further consolidate and strengthen the cultivation object; Maintenance is the ultimate goal of training and deepening, and it is also the way to avoid conflicts in the traditional construction mode. The relationship among contractual attitude, cooperation mode and purpose is shown in figure 1.

According to Dr. Grandberg's latest research, compared with traditional construction methods, Partnering mode can produce remarkable effects in controlling investment, progress and quality. Partnership can not only maintain the efficiency of division of labor, but also obtain the benefits of cooperation. Compared with the traditional construction mode, Partnering mode has the following advantages: First, the average actual construction period of the project with Partnering mode is 4.7% ahead of the planned construction period, while the average construction period of the traditional construction mode is 10.04% behind the planned construction period. 2. For the project adopting the Partnering model, the cost of engineering changes, engineering disputes and engineering claims is 20%~54% of that of traditional construction projects. Thirdly, the quality of the project adopting the Partnering model is higher, and the satisfaction of the project owners with the quality is about 26% higher than that of the traditional construction projects on average. Fourthly, the project adopting Partnering mode has greatly improved in information communication, decision-making, dispute resolution, teamwork and many other aspects. The project owner thinks that the working relationship of team members accounts for 67%, and the project contractor feels the same way, reaching 7 1%.

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