The Corona Virus or Covid-19 pandemic will have an unprecedented impact on construction sites where anti-Social Distancing been the trend. Project teams, trade crews, progress review meetings, toolbox sessions, canteen among others are examples of where sizable group of individuals come together to defy the social distancing requirements. Nevertheless, this must change in the post Covid-19 era. Similar to other health and safety risks, there will protocols that need to enforced on construction to avoid the risk of a Covid-19 outbreak. Checklists need to be created to ensure that those protocols are properly implemented.
Authorities and entities who are involved in recommending health, safety and environment (HSE) best practices across the globe has started coming with documented protocols and checklists to avoid the risk of a Covid-19 outbreak on construction sites. Those include for example the Saudi Construction Authority, USA United Contractors among others.
Using a Project Management Information System (PMIS) like PMWeb will enable project owners, project management consultants, supervision consultants and contractors to create all needed Covid-19 checklists to ensure that each project and entity working on the construction site are complying with the required protocols. PMWeb custom form builder allows creating those checklists in the desired layout as well as in any desired language.
For each checklist form, all supportive documents can be attached. Those documents can be either stored in PMWeb document management repository or directly uploaded to the record if needed. In addition, links to other relevant project communications and imported MS Outlook emails which will be stored in PMWeb can be also made.
All those Covid-19 checklists can be assigned a workflow to formalize the submit, review and approval process as detailed in the responsibility assignment matrix (RAM) and health, safety and environment (HSE) management plan. The workflow will detail the sequence of tasks to be performed by the different project team members as well as the actions can be taken by each and to whom the communication should be returned if it is rejected.
About the Author
Bassam Samman, PMP, PSP, EVP, GPM is a Senior Project Management Consultant with more than 35-year service record providing project management and controls services to over 100 projects with a total value in excess of US $5 Billion. Those projects included Commercial, Residential, Education and Healthcare Buildings and Infrastructure, Entertainment and Shopping Malls, Oil and Gas Plants and Refineries, Telecommunication and Information Technology projects. He is thoroughly experienced in complete project management including project management control systems, computerized project control software, claims analysis/prevention, risk analysis/management (contingency planning), design, supervision, training and business development.
Bassam is a frequent speaker in topics relating to Project Management, Strategic Project Management and Project Management Personal Skills. Over the past 35 years he has lectured at more than 350 events and courses at different locations in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and South America. He has written more than 250 articles on project management and project management information systems that were featured in international and regional magazines and newspapers. He is a co-founder of the Project Management Institute- Arabian Gulf Chapter (PMI-AGC) and has served on its board of directors for more than 6 years. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute (PMI), a certified Planning and Scheduling Professional (PSP) and Earned Value Professional (EVP) from the American Association of Cost Engineers (AACE) and Green Project Management (GPM).
Bassam holds a Masters in Engineering Administration (Construction Management) with Faculty Commendation, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA, Bachelor in Civil Engineering – Kuwait University, Kuwait and has attended many executive management programs at Harvard Business School, Boston, USA and London Business School, London, UK.