| The PB worldwide family has more than 9,000 employees in 29 countries on six continents. Although only a small percentage of PB projects can be accurately considered “transnational,” a growing number of our employees are managing such projects, with project sites and team members being scattered in different countries. Cultural, language, and regulatory barriers, as well as physical distance and time zone differences challenge our transnational teams.
Consider two projects that are truly transnational—Atlantica 1 and South America Crossing (SAC). Both were design-build projects for cable landing stations that connected North America and South America with intercontinental undersea fiber optic cable systems. Cable landing stations function as both terrestrial terminal points for the undersea cable and as data distribution points for nearby population centers (Figure 1). These two projects, with combined contract value of more than $80 million for PB’s work, included:
• Acquiring land for the buildings and terrestrial cable rights-of-way from the beach landings to the landing stations
• Designing and constructing eleven station facilities in the U.S., U.S. Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Brazil, Venezuela, and Argentina.
Figure 1: Cable landing stations in Boca Raton, Florida (top) and St Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands (bottom).
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These at-risk construction projects posed challenges separate from design, but made the design issues more critical to profitability. Tight schedules overshadowed both projects. PB maintained leadership responsibilities in design and construction management. Our St. Louis staff was responsible for essential architectural, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing designs. Local design teams prepared final designs to integrate local codes, customs, and standards.
Managing a transnational project is a daunting task, and our design team in St. Louis encountered a number of barriers that ultimately contributed to misunderstandings and delays. From our narrow perspective the difficulties encountered could be condensed into five challenges, which are presented below in no particular order.
Challenge #1: Material and Equipment
In the U.S., we specify any number of materials and equipment that we expect are readily available inside reasonable delivery windows and at reasonable prices. But what if you could no longer rely on that availability? For example:
• Wire nuts. While more experienced (and hard-core) electricians use twisted and soldered wire joints, by far, the most common wire connector used is a twist-on device called the wire nut. Available in U.S. hardware stores by the handful for mere pennies, the Venezuelan project site had none.
• Fan coils. Fan coil units are commercial and industrial applications with electronics that can maintain temperature and humidity in a given area to within a small variance. They are readily available ... in the U.S. In Brazil, fan-coils with sophisticated controls are not available.
• HVAC units. Our U.S. designers assumed that computer room heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) units could be exported from the U.S. to Brazil inexpensively and expeditiously; however, Brazilian import duties practically doubled the cost of U.S.-made equipment. Pressured by cost controls, construction managers pre-purchased local equipment with the intent of refitting it with sophisticated controls so it would perform as intended. The modification effort was less than successful. The control window could not be made to work inside specification tolerances and refitted controls did not “talk” well with the required communication protocol. To deal with this, controls were field-modified to introduce additional stages not available in the manufacturer’s standard equipment. The manufacturer created a program language to allow communication with the building control system. In the end, however, the costs of field modifications exceeded what would have been the extra cost of the U.S. equipment with the added duty.
Specifications were in place and suppliers were identified to match high-quality equipment precisely to the application. How could circumstances conspire to match substandard equipment to a demanding application?
Challenge #2: Technical Barriers
In St. Louis, our designers had insight into the intricate design details of a fiber landing station but did not have sufficient understanding of the skill of tradesman or materials and equipment that were available locally. In South America, PB’s construction managers had a good grasp of the conditions of local labor and commodities markets but had somewhat of a less appreciation of the finer design issues. We found that local conditions could have profound effects—not only on workmanship, but in some cases, on design issues as well.
For example, in Maiquetta, Venezuela, an already limited number of skilled electricians and electrical supplies was reduced even more as a result of incredible flooding as tropical storms battered the Venezuelan coast, leaving only minimally skilled personnel available for our project and insufficient materials and supplies. In addition to no wire nuts, as discussed above, simple conduit connectors, straps and other wire management products were not available. Without simple tools like conduit benders and offset presses, electrical installations became horribly improvised. Rework was expensive and time consuming.
The owner required that U.S. standards be applied to the design of all buildings but with using local material and labor, ostensibly for uniformity among facilities and applicability of published test methods, but translation of U.S. standards posed significant problems.
Local equipment was not designed for precision control. HVAC equipment procured locally, for example, was available only with few larger compressors rather than multiple smaller compressors. Standardization among stations in different countries was crucial for global HVAC control of the stations. Yet, local talent was not always available to ensure that control protocols were standardized.
Challenge #3: Cultural Barriers
Personal comfort is subjective. Most Americans prefer dry and cool environment while most Brazilians prefer higher temperatures and more humid conditions. Beyond people, electronic equipment may have a very different “comfort” range. Telecommunications equipment may be able to tolerate a wide range of temperature, but the same equipment may not perform well unless the temperature is maintained within a 1°F (0.5°C) change per hour. In addition, it is very sensitive to humidity.
The design of the buildings allowed for occupants to select different temperatures between individual spaces, but not different levels of humidity. For personal comfort, building operators wanted to increase the humidity in spaces adjacent to equipment without regard to equipment sensitivities. This issue was resolved by operators raising the temperature in personnel spaces without raising the humidity, thereby providing for equipment “comfort” without sacrificing personnel comfort.
Challenge#4: Language Barriers
Ask ten observers about what contributed to technical problems on this project and nine will answer that it was the lack of communication between design and field personnel. The project design team and the individual local design engineers and architects held a joint project meeting in Sao Paulo, Brazil to reconcile the master station design with the design variations by the local design teams. Attending were PB’s bilingual project managers and engineers and our English-speaking design team, and both bilingual and non-English-speaking members of the local design teams. Our bilingual engineers and managers translated discussion points in many of the technical presentations; however, at many points in the discussion and during some question and answer exchanges, English was not spoken. Without bilingual skills, English-only team members were left out of the verbal exchange and left to wonder if their technical points were communicated clearly or if they heard an accurate recitation of the questions by non-English-speaking designers. The variety of design documents and shop drawings submitted by local designers in Brazil, for example, were prepared in Portuguese and Spanish because no special arrangements for translations into English had been made. Review of the non-English documents proved to be cumbersome and did not always permit the St. Louis team to keep up with the ambitious construction schedule. In fact, the language barrier on design documents retarded most communication between the PB St. Louis design team and the local PB construction teams. Transnational projects would be much better served if given extra time or personnel for translations of critical documents.
Challenge #5: Distance Barriers
The St. Louis design team could not make regular site visits because of the great distances involved. Most questions regarding design and equipment were answered locally. Local construction managers tended to take responsibility for answering most technical questions and relied on our team only minimally. Requests for information (or RFIs), and shop drawings (i.e., fabrication drawings showing final dimensional requirements and manufacturer data describing actual components being purchased ) were not built into the structure of project administration. RFIs, which are questions submitted by local contractors and logged by contract administrators, are answered by the design team in a pre-determined time frame. They clarify design details, correct errors, and sometimes form the basis for change orders. In the case of these two projects, the St. Louis design team received occasional e-mail queries, but never direct contractor questions. Language and distance barriers made an RFI system cumbersome to implement. But without an RFI system, bilingual construction team members became design interpreters as well. Questions that came up in the field were almost always settled in favor of stark construction expedience and not necessarily on design intent.
Avoiding the Challenges: Lessons Learned
Bilingual Personnel. It goes without saying that construction management personnel should be proficient in the languages of architect/engineers and contractors, but it is also essential that bilingual contract administrators are bilingual. In addition, interpreter services should be provided for all communications except those that are one-on-one. Interpreters should translate discussions, but not lead them, and discussion leaders, engineers, construction managers, or contractors should avoid the dual role of interpreter. Meeting schedules should provide ample time for translations.
RFIs. An RFI system is an important information channel that will pay dividends in reduced confusion. Such systems are second nature on U.S. jobs, but can be cumbersome on trans-national projects. Software packages like Expedition by Primavera or ProLog streamline the RFI retrieval, logging and distribution processes and make use of e-mail for communication. Bilingual construction administrators are crucial to well-run RFI systems. RFI administrators are called upon to translate questions and answers. A word of advice, however-regardless of the language skill of the administrator, RFI messages should include the translation and the original query and response.
Shop Drawings. Shop drawings often provide more information than manufacturers publish in their catalogs. Sometimes, they even explain how equipment works and identify installation considerations. Shop drawings tell engineers how well they communicated their design intent to contractors, and they must be reviewed to identify deficiencies in the contractor’s submittals before equipment and materials are installed.
Standard practice in many countries does not include the use of shop drawings, so there should be no ambiguity in the contract language when stating that the shop drawing process is part of the contract work. Pre-bid and pre-construction meetings should be used to educate contractors about the shop drawing procedures and to make it plain that review periods must be built in to construction schedules. Contractors need to know that they must have the engineer’s consent to proceed as indicated on the submittal.
The main goals of the shop drawing are understanding and timeliness. A few tips:
• Contract administration must ensure that all requirements for shop drawings are met. To simplify this process, architect/engineers must prepare a consolidated and itemized list of shop drawing submittals required.
• Where possible, specify that contractors must submit shop drawings in a format that can be readily e-mailed, such as PDF format.
• Provide a bilingual contract administrator to assist communication between contractor and engineer when shop drawings are not submitted in the engineer’s language. Offer contractors expedited turn-around when shop drawings are provided in the architect/engineer’s language, and use the many means available to assist in accelerating this process, such as conference calls, faxes, and overnight delivery services.
• Processes should be in place for bilingual contract administration personnel to translate engineer responses to shop drawings. As with RFIs, the original response as well as the translation should be returned to the contractor.
Construction Specialists. Where the skill of the locally available workforce falls short of the project demands, consider providing trained construction specialists in addition to the construction manager to provide ongoing quality control—a master electrician, for instance, to ensure that contract electricians maintain high quality wire management installations, or an HVAC master mechanic to ensure that ductwork is properly fabricated and installed. Construction specialists in the field can, for example, observe work in real time and stand ready to direct corrective action, or circumvent problems by recognizing shortages or improper materials and equipment before such issues affect schedule and cost. Also, be aware that a particularly sensitive task may require a special construction team. For example, a separate crew that has documented experience may be required in particularly difficult tasks, such as DDC controls, storage battery installations, or hydronic systems.
Overcoming Obstacles for Success
With the projects completed, as we looked back on lessons learned we found that the most important feature of these facilities is their environments. Sadly, local teams did not appreciate this during design completion and implementation. In the end, however, systems were modified to meet these critical criteria. Overall, the projects were a success in terms of client satisfaction, lessons learned, and profitability. Our client has expressed interest in a continuing relationship and working together in the future.
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