America has several building and construction companies that have been ranked very highly regarding net worth. Among these companies is Tuner Construction Company that has its headquarters in New York. The company has been in existence since 1902 and is founded by Henry Chandlee Turner. The company is known for being responsible for the construction of some well-known projects including the Yankee Stadium. Turner Construction Company has its presence in twenty countries around the world (Chou, & Yang, 2012). The company is known to embrace change, be highly innovative and also a part of the green housing project as seen on their website via http://www.turnerconstruction.com. The purpose of this paper will be to take an in-depth look at the company and examine some of its strengths and weaknesses regarding research.
One of the potential issues and problems facing Turner Construction Company lays in the project management sector. Like most construction companies, project management is becoming a growing concern as it entails the application of knowledge to discern which project has a higher priority (Chou, & Yang, 2012). Construction work is mainly field related, and project management is more of knowledge and document-oriented. Getting the wrong project to start off immediately can lead to long-run failures regarding human resource and finances. For instance, while working on the Kent Square office tower project, the project manager realized they were short of finances and had to pull funds from all over. Also, the construction industry is growing technologically every day. Therefore, the project management team should be keen on new advances and be innovative enough to apply these changes to an ongoing project. Failure to do so will make a project obsolete in the long run.
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Research is usually carried out in some ways and stages. For Turner Construction Company, the first phase entails doing theoretical work by analyzing literature. The second phase entails the collecting and assessing of survey data. Phase three involves upgrading the model to suit the client's needs and be at par with the market trends. In the construction industry, effectiveness is measured by the number of projects worked on to completion. Turner Construction Company works on one thousand five hundred projects annually. These numbers are an indicator of the practical research carried out by the project management team (Chou, & Yang, 2012). However, if a project is started and not completed or faces huge challenges while it is ongoing, it reflects ineffectiveness, meaning that there were some misguided strategies. Project managers should not be conservative, as is the case within Turner Construction Company. Being conservative means that they are prone to lead the team to ineffective research.
To avoid ineffective research, Turner Construction Company employees should make maximum use of primary research. At Turner, the pre-construction departments takes care of the primary research. They will be involved in all the pre-planning activity including visiting the site and giving reviews of their findings. They then try to foresee any potential problems that may arise from the project both financially and otherwise. The financial figures are analyzed by the estimating department too. The department shares their findings with the project manager and other departments that are involved in a project. In doing so, potential contingencies are eliminated. The information provided by the pre-construction and estimating departments of Turner Construction is also helpful to the client and ensures overall customer satisfaction (Chou, & Yang, 2012).
As it had been mentioned earlier, the construction business faces change now and then. To remain competitive, a company in this sector should strive to be at the top of their game. One way they ensure that they remain ahead, Turner Construction is always carrying out secondary research to find out what new findings are out there. The best example to portray the success of this is by the construction of a green building that is growing the fame and net worth of the company (Gunther, 2011). The idea is an extension of the green initiative aimed at preserving available material at their natural state. Turner Construction employees have applied their innovativeness and enhanced their research on the green movement to come up with buildings that are environmentally friendly. In an interview, the CEO of Turner admitted that the idea cropped up from research they had done.
Turner Construction operations are known for their uniqueness regarding design and innovativeness. Also, the future looks brighter. Turner Construction is strengthening its links with Architecture Interactive to improve client experience. By doing so, these two companies will be revolutionizing designs in the construction industry. An example is the virtual construction of the Miami Children's Hospital. The buildings are built virtually, and the client is even asked to have a tour before it is built on the field. The advantage of the virtual structure is that it minimizes the errors at the completion of the project. Despite the idea being a little expensive, the clients have accepted it as it ensures the client gets what they want. Turner Construction has proved to be customer centric and innovative (Chou, & Yang, 2012).
References
Chou, J.-S. & Yang, J.-G. (2012). Project management knowledge and effects on construction project outcomes: an empirical study. Project Management Journal, 43 (5), 47–67. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pmj.21293
Gunther, M. (2011, May 18). Turner Construction Wins Big with Green Building. GreenBiz. Retrieved from https://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2011/05/18/turner-construction-wins-big-green-building
