 The next phase in the construction management system design and development is system monitoring and updating. For every objective, there must be a way to measure accomplishment of the objective. The work monitoring method provides for evaluating work performance, staffing and construction progress and for making staffing adjustments when necessary. It also provides data for updating standards. Construction management performance on each contract should be monitored and controlled by the engineer in charge. Higher levels of management should monitor manpower usage and work accomplishment through exception reports and summaries. A work monitoring procedure should provide only needed, timely information appropriate to each level of management. Excessive reporting should be avoided. Monitoring of construction management usage requires a comparison of planned manpower with that actually used. Proper data collection is important. Assigning qualified individuals and developing well-organized data collection is critical. The most effective work monitoring can be done at the engineer in charge level. Control by higher levels will generally be too late. Summaries and exception reports should be furnished to the district's and central office. Detailed reports are available at the contract office if district or central office personnel have questions. Work monitoring reports should be prepared at time intervals that facilitate effective management. For example, a monthly report will be of little value for controlling manpower usage for minor contracts that last only 30 to 90 days. Manpower reports must be timely. The time lapse between the close of the reporting period and completion of the report for review by the engineer in charge is critical. A week or less is ideal. The selected frequency should also coincide with that of other construction reports. If current construction reports are prepared on a four-week period basis, then the frequency of manpower usage reports should be compatible. The work reporting process should be compatible with existing documentation. The contract status information, such as contractor's earnings and contract time, is already available in current construction reports. The only additional information required is actual manpower usage. The actual man hours used may be reported by individual planning activity. Alternatives include reporting by planning activities, staffing activities, or one activity per contract. The use of planning activities provides more detailed information but requires more effort than the other methods. The level of detail could be reduced even further by reporting by contract. On larger contracts, the lack of detail will make identifying staffing problems difficult. On small contracts, the inspector will be doing a wider variety of tasks, making reporting to a number of activities difficult. The use of only one reporting activity on minor contracts is recommended. Monitoring requires evaluation of the man hours used and the work accomplished. One method includes comparing the actual man hours used versus the total planned. Another involves comparing the contractor earnings versus the total contract cost. A third method involves comparing the percent of contract time used. Man hours comparisons may be tabulated by planning activity, staffing activity, contract, or a group of contracts. In the reporting and monitoring procedure, manpower data are tabulated to provide for evaluation and control of manpower usage and work performance. Procedures and forms for work reporting and monitoring must be developed. Procedures must be developed for controlling by activity or contractor operation and monitoring and controlling at the engineer in charge level. Man hours used on each contract must be reported accurately. Reports may be daily or weekly, but the man hours used on each activity should be recorded daily for accuracy. Existing timesheets may be modified to collect the man hour information. The man hours used must be tabulated to prepare the manpower status report for the engineer in charge. The activity ledger is a worksheet for summarizing the man hours. A manpower status report provides the engineer in charge with a summary of the man hours used. The level of detail in the reports depends on the number of activities selected. Two procedures have been developed. One is for staffing activities. The other covers the use of planning activities. In both instances, key bid items are used. The district should be alerted to potential overruns or underruns. Exception reports are submitted only when man hour usage varies from contractor progress by more than a pre-selected percentage, such as plus or minus 15% on each contractor's operation and 10% on the contract total. Only those operations where an exception occurs need be shown on the report. The type and number of contracts to be used can change in future years. Contract types should be reviewed annually to determine their continuing effectiveness. The relative importance of the types of contracts in the work program will most likely change. The contract types used for planning should be reviewed annually by the project staff and technical panel. Data from the final manpower status reports for contracts completed during the last year should be used to determine the number of contracts by type, the number of man hours used by contract type, and the total construction costs of each contract type. The anticipated work program should also be reviewed by contract type. The tabulation should show the number of contracts in each type to be let, and total estimated construction cost of each contract type. Contract types are used to group contracts according to their similarity of staffing needs. The relationships between the man hours used, the number of contracts completed, and the cost of those contracts will help to determine which types are significant. Work method improvements affect the planning activities and their units of measure. Planning activities should be reviewed annually to determine which activities require significant amounts of manpower and therefore should be used for planning purposes. Units of measure should be examined to see if each unit adequately relates the construction management work requirements to the scope and characteristics of each contract type. All procedures that will be used in the construction management system should be completed before developing updating procedures. The procedure for updating contract types should be completed before developing a procedure for updating planning activities and units of measure. Planning activities are used to define construction management work that must be performed by field construction personnel. Planning units of measure are used to relate the field construction management work requirements to the scope and characteristics of the contracts. Changes in the work program, specifications, and bid items may change the need for activities or units of measure. Planning activities and units of measure should be reviewed annually to ensure that current needs are met. The updating procedure should provide for evaluation of planning activities and units of measure by the project staff and the technical panel. Final manpower status reports should be used in evaluating activities. These reports can be from all contracts completed during the past year or a sampling of those contracts. The detail of data from the manpower status record will depend on the activities selected for monitoring. If planning activities were used, a tabulation of the data will identify the significant activities. If staffing activities or some other activity group were used for reporting, then the evaluation will be more subjective. Standard planning values must be reviewed periodically to ensure that they are valid for the current work program. Construction management requirements defined by standard planning values will not remain constant. Changes that may revise manpower requirements include changed work programs, improved work methods, and changed responsibilities of field construction personnel. The actual man hours used are available on the final manpower status reports. The level of detail will depend on the activities selected for monitoring. These data will be available for all completed contracts. Average data will be of little use without appropriate evaluation. In making this evaluation, you should consider a number of things. Were good management practices used? Was the contract completed on time? Was the contract staffed properly? The best way to evaluate the standard planning values is to review the current standard planning value computation sheets. Evaluate all of the assumptions and computations on each sheet. Review the standards of the modifiers at the same time. Methods for collecting information for use in the evaluation include actual man hours used from the final manpower status reports for all completed contracts, selective reporting, and work sampling. Obtaining data by planning activity can be done by selecting a number of typical contracts of each type. This simplifies reporting for the majority of contracts, but allows for collecting data for updating the standard planning values. If reporting of man hours used is by staffing activities or other activity groups rather than by planning activity, comparing the man hours used with the standard planning values would be more subjective. The variation in man hours used per activity will also occur on the selected contracts. The range should not be as wide on these carefully selected contracts as it would be on all contracts. Actual staffing and productivity can be checked by sampling. Observations of the numbers of department personnel and the work accomplished on comparable contracts with fairly identical contractor operations are underway can be made. Post-construction reviews can be held on selected contracts to evaluate staffing, the standards, and anything which affected the manpower requirements. Participants in the review could include the engineer in charge, the designer, and the contractor. Standard costs must be updated annually to allow for changes. Inflation, pay raises, and increases in fringe benefits all affect the standard costs. The same procedure used in developing standard costs may be used for updating. Review the computations and revise the data as required. Skill-level guidelines should also be updated periodically. Only significant changes need be considered. Skill-level guidelines should be reviewed when changes are made. Such changes include new work methods, new responsibilities, and new equipment. In this course, we have covered the procedures for system monitoring and updating. For every objective, there must be a way to measure accomplishment of the objective. The work monitoring method provides for evaluating work performance, staffing, and construction progress, and for making staffing adjustments when necessary. A work monitoring procedure should provide only needed, timely information. Excessive reporting and paperwork should be avoided. Proper data collection is important. Assign qualified individuals. Work monitoring and manpower reports should be prepared at time intervals that facilitate effective management. The selected frequency must be considered carefully. Also, planning activities and units of measure should be reviewed annually to ensure that current needs are being met. For more information on this or other IRF videotapes, write to the International Road Federation or call the numbers on your screen.