Large-scale engineering project information management and organizational change?

Large-scale projects to implement information management is the use of modern information technology, through the in-depth development and extensive use of information resources to continuously improve the construction, management, decision-making efficiency and level, and thus improve the project's economic efficiency and competitiveness of the process. With the development of information technology, the traditional pyramid-type project organizational structure of the shortcomings are exposed: First, the organization is bloated, management overlap, departmental division, the seriousness of localism, so that the project response to changes in the external environment is slow; Second, the intermediate management layer is overfunctioning, slowing down the flow of information, resulting in information distortion; Third, the neglect and suppression of the organization members of the development of their own, lack of communication and collective cohesion [ 1]. 1]. In the era of increasing penetration and influence of information technology, large-scale engineering projects can only be adapted to the characteristics of information technology and the development trend of information management by carrying out changes in organizational structure.

1 China's large-scale engineering projects organizational structure of the current situation

1.1 large-scale engineering projects have the characteristics

Large-scale engineering projects refers to such as nuclear power plants, aerospace projects, large-scale iron and steel enterprises, petrochemical companies, subway projects and water conservancy and hydropower hubs, etc., has a huge investment, diversification of the main body of the investment, a long period of time, the level of professional and technical requirements of the high level of complexity of project management, organizational coordination difficulties and other characteristics. Complexity, organization and coordination difficulties and other characteristics of the project, in the construction process is usually manifested as follows:

(1) the project cycle is long, many participating units, the need for multi-party cooperation. The construction cycle of large-scale engineering projects reach several years or even more than ten years, participating units may be hundreds of thousands, so the amount of information generated in the construction process and information processing work is very heavy. If there is a lack of effective information communication methods and means, project participants are bound to "drown" in the vast ocean of information, on the one hand, resulting in unnecessary information "overload", but on the other hand, resulting in a "shortage" of effective information.

(2) engineering construction projects on the level of professional and technical requirements gradually increased, the construction difficulty. With the continuous expansion of the scale of modern engineering construction projects, project-related departments and units interacting with the amount of information more detailed and specific, the difficulty of construction technology to increase the quality of the requirements continue to improve the accuracy of information processing, information exchanges and transmission has become more and more frequent, the complexity of the information management of building construction projects is more and more prominent, requiring the project's form of organization must be able to adapt to This change.

(3) the project's participating units scattered, the need for information **** enjoy, unified management. Successful construction of large-scale engineering projects require the use of a large number of external resources, the units involved in the geographical distribution may be across provinces and cities and even transnational. For example, a considerable number of large-scale projects commissioned by foreign design firms to participate in the design or by foreign suppliers to provide materials and equipment. As the project participants in different geographical areas, may have different management habits, organizational and cultural background, so they need to carry out a large number of information *** enjoy, coordination and communication in the construction of the project must be standardized, standardized management, the establishment of a complete set of organizational rules, procedures.

(4) the huge scale of investment, resource demand. In the process of construction of large-scale projects, the consumption of manpower, material and financial resources can be said to be amazing, such as the German unification of railroad reconstruction projects, Hong Kong's new airport project, the Three Gorges project, etc., costing hundreds of billions of dollars or more, the acquisition of resources, distribution, utilization, etc. will produce a large number of instructions information, only to strengthen information communication, coordination, in order to be the most effective, balanced, economical, flexible use of resources.

These are the most effective ways of utilizing resources.

For large-scale engineering projects, with the start of the project, planning, implementation and other project life cycle, project documents, reports, contracts, photographs, drawings, videos and other information will be a large number of rapid generation, so that the efficiency and cost of project information management has a direct impact on the efficiency of the other project management work, quality and cost. Therefore, how to effectively, orderly, organized management of information resources for the whole process of the project is an important part of modern project management.

1.2 Existing large-scale engineering project organizational structure mode

1.2.1 Parasitic project organizational structure mode

Parasitic project organizational structure mode is also known as the multi-linear project organizational structure mode. The main feature is the professional division of labor according to function. Each professional department leader and project manager, are authorized in their own scope of responsibility to the corresponding professional staff issued instructions. Therefore, in addition to accepting the instructions of the departmental leadership, professionals must also accept the instructions of the project manager as shown in Figure 1.

1.2.2 Autonomous project organizational structure model

Autonomous project organizational structure model that the establishment of a completely independent body to achieve the objectives of a project, this body must assume all the project tasks, to some extent, allowing the project to assume the necessary responsibilities on the basis of the full autonomy, as shown in Figure 2.

1.2.3 Matrix project organizational structure model

Matrix project organizational structure model is usually applied to specialize in project implementation and management of the enterprise, or the implementation of a mega-project, suitable for large and medium-sized survey and design units of the project operation process. Matrix organizational structure has many different forms, in the model shown in figure 3, still maintain the basic principles of professional department linear organization. Matrix organizational structure includes both horizontal and vertical management, vertical and horizontal cross. Vertical for different professional departments, horizontal for different projects. The professional staff of each professional department are divided by project, and accept the leadership of the project manager of each project.

1.3 Functional analysis of the current organizational structure of large-scale engineering projects

Traditional organizational theory is laid down by Henry Fayol (H. Fayol) and Max Weber (M. Weber) at the beginning of the century, the emphasis is on the division of labor and centralization of power, which led to the layers of complex, hierarchical "pyramid" structure. The result is a complex, hierarchical "pyramid" structure. A "hierarchical chain" of authority was established between higher and lower levels of authority to carry out uniform orders and to ensure order in the transmission of information. With the increasing size of the organization, the number of management levels has gradually increased, resulting in the emergence of a high, sharp and thin cone-shaped structure. Too many management levels not only affect the speed of information transmission at all levels, but also because of too many levels, each transmission is added to each level of the department with a lot of their own understanding and awareness, which may make the information in the transmission process distortion. For example, a study shows that after the decision of the board of directors of an enterprise passes through five levels, the loss of information reaches 80% on average. Among them, the vice president of this level of fidelity is 63%, 56% of department heads, plant managers for 40%, the first line of foremen for 30%, 20% of employees [3].

Currently, the organizational environment of large-scale engineering project construction --- the organizational form between the various project participants is mostly a towering pyramid-type linear organizational structure. Because of its layers of complexity and the lack of horizontal links and other characteristics, the result will inevitably lead to layers of vertical communication. On the above three organizational forms of specific evaluation analysis is shown in Table 1.

2 information management application of organizational structure to ensure

Richard L. Daft pointed out in his book, organizational ineffectiveness is characterized by the following three kinds: First, decision-making is slow or poor decision-making quality; Second, the organization can not creatively respond to the changing environment; Third, the organization is obviously too much internal conflict [4]. conflict within the organization [4]. The first of these characteristics is mainly due to inadequate information transfer and communication or overburdening of decision makers, the second is mainly due to insufficient coordination among departments and positions, and the third is mainly due to unclear responsibility and authority and the inability of departmental goals to be effectively aggregated into overall organizational goals. Under the new organizational structure, information technology can support adequate information transfer and communication, making it easy for the top management to grasp first-hand information and for strategic-level objectives to be transmitted to members of the organization in a complete and rapid manner. Information technology can support the decentralization of decision-making power of procedural decision-making, shorten the chain of transmission of decision-making to implementation, improve the efficiency of decision-making implementation; information technology can reduce the intensity of the need for coordination, reduce the cost of coordination, the formation of effective self-management within the organization; in the technical level for the organization of structural change to provide security, and reduce the possibility of organizational ineffectiveness of the new organizational structure.

But it is not always possible to avoid the ineffectiveness of the new organizational structure with information technology. In addition to having a scientific management platform and information platform to support the coordination of the internal operation of the entire organization, to ensure that this organization can operate efficiently, the staff must establish the status of "autonomous people", and have a strong sense of participation, self-consciousness, responsibility, and the ability to work in order to be able to handle this relatively loose management mode of the Organizational structure; to have a high-quality leadership to guide the organization forward. The new organizational structure requires senior leaders with excellent managerial, organizational and strategic decision-making skills; the new type of organization, need simple and clear *** with the same goal, these goals should be able to be translated into specific behaviors. This goal should be a clear expression of the managers expect the project itself and the performance of each department and each employee, and the project must collect timely feedback, the project will run the effect of the project and the project's established goals and objectives of the expectations of the project, in order to be able to control each member of the control and self-control.

3 large-scale engineering projects, the guiding ideology of organizational change

Information management as a large-scale engineering projects to respond to the challenges of information technology is an inevitable choice, in fact, is to capture large-scale engineering projects inside and outside of the valuable information, and these information for the maximum effectiveness of the use of the project in order to improve the competitiveness of large-scale engineering projects, as well as the realization of large-scale engineering projects to achieve the goal of the process. Organizational structure is a large-scale engineering projects on the division of tasks, grouping and coordination of cooperation, the organizational structure of the reasonable or not, directly affects the function of the organization to play. Therefore, the information management of large-scale engineering projects can be successful, or its organizational structure is effective, both depend on the organizational structure of large-scale engineering projects can be based on information management requirements for change.

With information technology management to match the organizational structure of large-scale engineering projects must be environmentally adaptable, with a strong innovative power, can effectively motivate the staff of the flexible and open organizational structure.

3.1 Information technology has changed the organization's information base, and become the driving force behind the changes in the organization

First of all, the openness of modern information technology and networking makes it easier to access information. Originally in an island state of the PC through the system integration and computer networking, making different time, different places of information **** enjoyment becomes possible, information acquisition more quickly and cost significantly reduced, therefore, the organization of the collection and processing of information processes and personnel arrangements can be optimized accordingly adjusted; Secondly, the direction of information transfer from vertical up and down into horizontal transmission, to solve the problem of the slow speed between levels and Information distortion caused by decision-making delays and inefficiency. This horizontal information processing requirements of the traditional pyramid-type organizational structure to change accordingly; Third, the information *** matter and a large number of storage for the organization to provide a rich source of "knowledge", while improving the efficiency of the collective work group, from the departmental division of labor to the integration of the unit, becoming a structural change of the trend; Fourth, the openness of the information network, the exchange of information also prompted different organizations to communicate with each other, and the information network has become an integral part of the organization. Fourthly, the openness of the information network and the communicative nature of the information network have also prompted different organizations to seek to establish a new cooperative relationship, forming a new type of inter-project organization.

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