Situational Reengineering: Case Study Analysis

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 and providing appropriate cultural environments can result in significant schedule reduction (35%) with no increase in project costs. Additionally, over half of the exceptional projects studied demonstrate a reduction in cost as well as a reduced schedule. Fundamentally, this paper demonstrates the efficacy of ingenious and innovative changes to existing work paradigms in response to a variety of situational requirements. Additionally, this paper includes a discussion of barriers to implementation and organizational issues surrounding situational reengineering.