2 Key Strategies to Avoid Construction Delays Post-Covid

Tyton Holdings, founded in 2011, exists to leverages its significant business experience to drive growth and value creation within its portfolio of companies. Its investments span a wide range of industries including oil and gas, fabrication, construction restoration, mechanical engineering, and manufacturing.

Aislan Toshinaga, MBA, is Tyton’s Senior Project Manager, a renowned Brazilian engineering and construction management professional who oversees and directs all construction projects for Tyton’s subsidiaries, including planning and organization, establishing objectives and policies, and providing vast expertise in business and leadership to control project outcomes. Following is Construction Business Review’s conversation with Mr. Toshinaga:

Aside from the obvious pandemic disruptions, what changes have you experienced in the industry since Covid-19?

The way COVID has affected us, moving people apart from each other, it's getting harder and harder to build a team spirit. COVID has also affected the supply chain, which is causing problematic delays in scheduling. It's a new, evolving environment, and it's very challenging. I don't see that changing anytime soon. I think it's something that we're going to need to learn to adapt to accomplish our goals.

Anyone in the project management business is always thinking about cost-saving opportunities and meeting deadlines. With that, building relationships is crucial. It's hard to assign value to the relationships with your contractors and your vendors amidst the recent disruptions.

What strategy(s) do you attribute success to when working on strict construction targets post-covid?

Managing budgets involves relationships, scheduling, and keeping up with a lot of moving parts. You also need to have good management skills to accommodate that complexity.

You need to know how to manage people and get them to work as a team, so they're not only thinking about their part but also thinking about the people who come after them in the development process. Teaching contractors to be more proactive and thoughtful about their part of the project avoids extra work and extra costs. To be able to implement that, you need to be on site. It's not about sitting at your desk and making phone calls. With a more human approach, everything starts to flow better.

Although common, we cannot undervalue the importance of relationships with stakeholders and associates. Along with that is having a hands-on culture as a manager.As an example, I found myself working in Houston, where almost 90% of the crew only spoke Spanish. So, I learned Spanish. The effort I put into speaking their language, was reciprocated in the effort they put into their work. I try to understand the difficulties of cultural integration. During that time, we were scheduled with a tight deadline --from December 23rd to the morning of Christmas Eve--to pour a large amount of concrete to complete the hallways of a multifamily complex. I had to clean up everything and had no crew to do it. But electricians, plumbers, and everybody worked together as a team without being paid, which allowed us to meet the deadline.

If you build this kind of work environment, it's just a win for everybody. Everybody works happier. They work faster. It flows better. And you’ll avoid a lot of extra expenses. That's my approach.

What is another part of your project management that you tend to focus on to help avoid delays?

Having a good blend of advanced planning and innovative approaches to problem-solving is also important. And it doesn’t hurt to draw on my previous engineering expertise.

I always spend a significant amount of time assessing blueprints to interpret and calculate all the project components, comparing contractors' and vendors' quotes, and project specifications to determine the costs to achieve project goals. I even consider the weather.

Share more about how engineering expertise helps you anticipate problems and proactively craft solutions?

When you have a background in engineering, you know how to read plans well, and you have a mindset that facilitates foresight regarding problems that will occur, like conflicts of interest between stakeholder goals and the available resources. Is the client’s design trying to run a pipe in the same spot where you need to run an AC duct or electrical equipment? It helps you think about structural details. When you look at plans through an engineering lens, you're looking at what could go wrong. It helps you save on budget and time. To me, engineering knowledge is essential for managing big projects.

Take weather delays as another example. They are very common, and contractors will often justify delays to clients based on rain. But innovation can save both time and money. Back in 2006, I had a very short deadline to complete a residential exterior job for a luxury coffee farm in São Paulo, Brazil. This was during the rainy season, and we had to work under those conditions, so I came up with the idea to build a large shelter over the entire work site. This allowed us to work through the rainy days and saved us a month delay of work. We finished the project in less time, and the solution didn't cost our clients anything extra because we used the materials we had.

I credit my engineering education in preparing me to devise solutions of that nature. It's thinking about your workers, your client, and your organization, and coming up with an approach that can extend the budget. Every project’s success leads to more lucrative jobs.