No one knows when the Covid-19 pandemic will end being part of our daily lives. Measures are being taking world wide by governments to control the spread of Covid-19 infection. Many of the measures relate to locations where it usually tends to have large number of individuals at the same time. For example, those could restaurants, shopping malls, schools, government buildings, sports venue and of course construction sites. Although the vaccination for Covid-19 is already in place, nevertheless, many countries continue to require the PCR test from those individuals who need to present at locations labelled as having high risk of getting infected with Covid-19. For example, in the UAE, those who have received the Covid-19 vaccine are required to do a PCR test once every month while those who were not vaccinated, need to do a PCR test every week before entering the premises of a government entity.
For those involved in capital construction projects delivery might consider a similar approach for their construction sites. The impact of having the risk of an individual who is Covid-19 positive at a construction site could be far more devastating and costly that implementing the preventive measures to avoid this risk. This means that all resources, management and labor, who are deployed on capital construction projects need to have the Covid-19 information added to their profile. This information will include the dates of latest first and second Covid-19 vaccination including the vaccination name. In addition, the information will include details of the last PCR test made. For vaccination and PCR test information, the relevant supportive documents need to be attached to the resource profile. This will enable having a real time report on all those resources highlight those that need to do a PCR test or take the Covid-19 vaccination.
Usually a Project Management Information System (PMIS) like PMWeb is the platform used to capture details of all resources deployed on the project. Those resources are the resources that will be used to report daily reports, timesheets, organization charts, resource requirements, cost estimates, work orders, meeting minutes, workflow steps, project schedule, etc. PMWeb labor resource module is where the details of those resources will be captured as single repository for all projects managed by an entity. Those could be the entity own resources or any third-party resources.
For the Covid-19, the resource for will have additional information fields to capture the required vaccination and PCR test details. Most of the information needed to complete those fields will be available to from a predefined list of values. Those fields will be designated as required fields to be completed. In other words, PMWeb will not save the resource details.
The resource form attachment tab will be used to attach the vaccination confirmation and PCR tests as well as resource personal photo. The option for displaying those documents on the main resource form will be selected. This will enable having all resource information including those of Covid-19 displayed on the same page.
The information captured in PMWeb resource module will become readily available to be reported on. For example, the Resources’ Covid-19 Compliance Report provides a detailed register of deployed resources with their important details including those Covid-19 vaccination and PCR tests. The report will include a column to indicate the resource current validity to be deployed on the construction where the Green color means that the resource can deployed, Yellow to alert that the resource validity to be on site is expiring within a day or less or Red which means that resource cannot be deployed on site. The deployment status will depend on the PCR test taking account if the resource has received vaccination or not.
About the Author
Bassam Samman, PMP, PSP, EVP, GPM is a Senior Project Management Consultant with 40-year service record providing project management, project controls services and project management information system to over than 200 projects with a total value in excess of US $100 Billion. Those projects included Commercial, Residential, Education and Healthcare Buildings and Infrastructure, Entertainment, Hospitality 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 40 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 300 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.