The Problem of the High Cost of Placing Inspection Requests - Research Paper Example

? 31 July of the Problem The organization is a construction contractor firm, who is experiencing the problem of high cost of placing inspection requests for the consultant firm. The contractor firm gets the activity executed on site, and forwards the inspection request to the consultant to check and approve the work before further proceedings. The consultant’s responsibility is to appear on site on the requested time, and check the work as per the specifications mentioned in the contract documents. The engineers of the contractor firm generate hard copies of inspection requests to the consultant firm mentioning the time of inspection. The firms are working on a very large construction project, so everyday, hundreds of inspection requests are generated. The consultant firm’s manager assigns individual consultants to specific inspection requests. Lately, the consultants have been missing out the inspection requests, and because of the consequential delays of work, the contractor is incurring undue costs. Upon asking, the consultant’s representative said that they have not been receiving the inspection requests timely. It remains unresolved whether the contractor’s engineers are not generating the inspection requests on time, or the consultants are rationalizing for their laziness. Causes of the Problem The cause of this problem between the contractor firm and the consultant firm is the fact that inspection requests are generate in hard copies. It not only incurs the contractor firm a lot of cost to generate so many inspection requests on daily basis, but is also a huge waste to manage for the consultant firm once the requests have been received. Costs incurred by the contractor include but are not limited to the cost of paper, the cost of ink in the printer, the cost of electricity required to run the printer, the cost of salaries given to the clerks who prepare the papers and deliver them to the consultant’s office, as well as the cost of time it takes the engineers to write the inspection request, as each request has to be written very precisely and accurately. Only if the inspection requests are changed from the hard copy form to the soft copy form, a vast majority of these costs could be totally obviated. Effects of the Problem The effects of the current practice are substantially bad both for the contractor firm and the consultant firm. On one hand, the contractor firm is bearing a lot of direct and indirect cost of generating the inspection requests. On the other hand, the consultant firm has a huge waste to manage on daily basis. The consultant firm is also not getting the inspection requests in time, as a result of which, a blame-game has started between the consultant firm and the contractor firm, which is very bad for the relations between both the parties. In conventional practice, the contractor firms tend to maintain very good relations with the consultant firms so that the latter approves the requests of the former on time, and accordingly, the contractor firm gets paid by the client on time. As a result of this situation, both firms are losing credibility in the client’s eye, and are also ruining their relationship. Solution 1 There are several possible solutions for this problem, the most important and cost-effective amongst which is changing the inspection requests from the hard copy form to the soft copy form. The inspection requests can be generated via email. Advantages A potential advantage of changing the form of inspection requests is that there is a record for every request that has been generated. While the hard copy might get replaced or go missing any time, the soft copy can always be retrieved from the previously sent emails’ list at a later point in time. Presence of the record of every inspection request, the time and date at which it was generated, and its content make it easy for everybody to locate the source of problem. Inspection requests generated via email are delivered without any waste of time, which makes the whole process quick and effective. This solution saves the contractor all the costs associated with generating the hard copies of inspection requests as discussed before, and also saves the consultant firm the headache of managing the paper waste. Disadvantages A disadvantage of use of email to send the inspection requests is that the system heavily relies upon electricity and the Internet. The contractor and the consultant firm might have to initially invest in developing the source of constant supply of electricity and the Internet, but this cost is much lesser as compared to what is borne by both parties in the present system. Another disadvantage of this solution is that the engineers might waste their time using the Internet more than what is required to check their messages and update their profiles at the social media websites, and to browse interesting videos on Youtube. In order to keep this from happening, the management in the contractor firm needs to have a strong supervision of and check over the engineers. Solution 2 Another solution to the problem is the use of Skype. All the contractor firm needs to do is write name of activities, and the requested time of inspection, and send them to the consultant firm as a message. The contractor firm does not need to make a video call. Advantages An advantage of this solution is that it is the quickest way of requesting the consultant for inspection. Another advantage is that it is as cost-effective as requesting through email. Disadvantages A disadvantage of this solution is that it is a very informal way of requesting the client for inspection. Another disadvantage is that after few days, there is no record of past communication. Yet another disadvantage is that the consultant may skip the requests and say he did not receive the request as he had gone offline or the Internet connection had become faulty. Recommended Solution The disadvantages of Solution 2 outnumber its advantages, and also, the advantages of Solution 1 outnumber its disadvantages. The disadvantages of Solution 1 can be reduced with good management and supervision whereas many of the disadvantages of Solution 2 are beyond the control of management. Therefore, solution 1 is recommended. Read More