General planning in industrial construction

A gen­er­al plan­ner is not only the key to a smooth con­struc­tion process, but also the trust­ed part­ner who trans­forms visions into real­i­ty. They are respon­si­ble for orches­trat­ing com­plex process­es and cre­at­ing a foun­da­tion for future suc­cess togeth­er with the client. 

Difference between general planner/general contractor 

The gen­er­al plan­ner should not be con­fused with the gen­er­al con­trac­tor. The gen­er­al plan­ner assumes the con­tract and respon­si­bil­i­ty for the entire plan­ning ser­vice as well as the prop­er exe­cu­tion of con­struc­tion and coor­di­nates all tech­ni­cal ser­vices. He ensures that the plan­ning par­tic­i­pants (e.g. archi­tects and engi­neers) work togeth­er effi­cient­ly. The gen­er­al con­trac­tor car­ries out the work and deliv­ers the “turnkey” build­ing.   

Short:

The gen­er­al plan­ner plans the project while the gen­er­al con­trac­tor builds it. 

General planning tasks 

A gen­er­al plan­ner plays a cen­tral role in indus­tri­al con­struc­tion projects. He acts as the main point of con­tact for the client and coor­di­nates all the spe­cial­ist dis­ci­plines involved. He also ensures that the project is suc­cess­ful­ly realised in accor­dance with the tech­ni­cal, time and finan­cial spec­i­fi­ca­tions. By bundling the plan­ning ser­vices under one man­age­ment, he reduces inter­face prob­lems, min­imis­es risks and makes a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of the con­struc­tion project. 

The work of the gen­er­al plan­ner in con­struc­tion man­age­ment is char­ac­terised by the com­pre­hen­sive con­trol and mon­i­tor­ing of all con­struc­tion process­es. This includes the plan­ning, organ­i­sa­tion and con­trol of con­struc­tion activ­i­ties. This ensures that the project is realised on time, with­in bud­get and to the desired qual­i­ty. 

The gen­er­al plan­ner draws up an over­ar­ch­ing sched­ule for the entire con­struc­tion project. He coor­di­nates the indi­vid­ual plan­ning and con­struc­tion phas­es, sets mile­stones and agrees the dead­lines with all the spe­cial­ist plan­ners, author­i­ties and con­trac­tors involved. He ensures that all steps in the project are syn­chro­nised to ensure time­ly com­ple­tion. He con­tin­u­ous­ly mon­i­tors com­pli­ance with these dead­lines and adjusts the plan­ning if nec­es­sary, for exam­ple in the event of unfore­seen events or delays. 

Numer­ous dis­ci­plines work togeth­er in a com­plex indus­tri­al con­struc­tion project. With­out the coor­di­na­tion of the var­i­ous spe­cial­ist areas and trades, mis­un­der­stand­ings, delays and errors can occur. These sig­nif­i­cant­ly impair the con­struc­tion process and lead to high­er costs. Through tar­get­ed inter­face coor­di­na­tion, the gen­er­al plan­ner ensures that every­one involved works in har­mo­ny, that infor­ma­tion flows and that the project is realised on time and to a high qual­i­ty.

This is where BIM (Build­ing Infor­ma­tion Mod­el­ling) is becom­ing increas­ing­ly impor­tant. Dig­i­tal con­struc­tion plan­ning, dig­i­tal mod­el coor­di­na­tion, imple­men­ta­tion of var­i­ous BIM use cas­es — all of this is now also the task of the gen­er­al plan­ner. They are respon­si­ble for the BIM process and ensure that the client’s require­ments for the “dig­i­tal twin” of the con­struc­tion project are imple­ment­ed by the plan­ning team and the con­trac­tors. 

As part of the pro­cure­ment process, the gen­er­al plan­ner ensures that all nec­es­sary mate­ri­als, ser­vices and equip­ment are pro­cured on time and in the required qual­i­ty: 

Coor­di­nat­ing the selec­tion of suit­able sup­pli­ers and sub­con­trac­tors and nego­ti­at­ing con­tracts 

  • Coor­di­nat­ing the selec­tion of suit­able sup­pli­ers and sub­con­trac­tors and nego­ti­at­ing con­tracts
  • Ensure that pro­cure­ment is inte­grat­ed into the project sched­ule
  • Pre­vent­ing bot­tle­necks that could impair con­struc­tion progress
  • Ensur­ing that the project bud­get is adhered to
  • Mon­i­tor the deliv­ery and qual­i­ty of pro­cured goods to ensure they meet project spec­i­fi­ca­tions

The gen­er­al plan­ner ensures that all offi­cial require­ments are met in order to guar­an­tee the smooth run­ning of the con­struc­tion project: 

  • Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of legal reg­u­la­tions, envi­ron­men­tal require­ments and safe­ty reg­u­la­tions
  • Ensure that all spe­cialised plan­ning com­plies with offi­cial require­ments
  • Time­ly sub­mis­sion of appli­ca­tions and obtain­ing the nec­es­sary autho­ri­sa­tions
  • Track­ing the autho­ri­sa­tion process and dead­lines
  • Doc­u­men­ta­tion of all rel­e­vant noti­fi­ca­tions and evi­dence as well as ful­fil­ment of con­di­tions 

He is also in con­stant con­tact with the author­i­ties to ensure that the project can pro­ceed with­out any legal or reg­u­la­to­ry obsta­cles. 

The gen­er­al plan­ner is respon­si­ble for draw­ing up, review­ing and man­ag­ing all con­trac­tu­al agree­ments. By care­ful­ly draft­ing and mon­i­tor­ing con­tracts, he min­imis­es risks and ensures that the project is imple­ment­ed in accor­dance with the con­trac­tu­al­ly defined objec­tives and oblig­a­tions. He also takes care of set­tling dis­putes or con­flicts that may arise from breach­es of con­tract. 

Prepar­ing meet­ings and set­ting the agen­da is also part of gen­er­al plan­ning. As part of the meet­ing man­age­ment, the gen­er­al plan­ner organ­is­es reg­u­lar meet­ings with all the spe­cial­ist plan­ners, archi­tects and clients involved. He ensures that every­one is informed about the cur­rent sta­tus of the project, open ques­tions are clar­i­fied and deci­sions are made. He mod­er­ates the dis­cus­sions, sum­maris­es the results and ensures that these are doc­u­ment­ed and imple­ment­ed. 

The gen­er­al plan­ner is respon­si­ble for coor­di­nat­ing and imple­ment­ing the accep­tance process­es for the con­struc­tion project: 

  • Organ­i­sa­tion of the accep­tance dates with the spe­cial­ist plan­ners, con­struc­tion com­pa­nies and the client involved
  • Car­ry­ing out the accep­tance tests togeth­er with those respon­si­ble
  • Doc­u­men­ta­tion of defects or devi­a­tions, coor­di­na­tion of time­ly rec­ti­fi­ca­tion and accep­tance of suc­cess­ful­ly rec­ti­fied defects
  • Ensur­ing the prepa­ra­tion and sign­ing of the nec­es­sary accep­tance reports (client and con­trac­tors) in order to legal­ly secure the com­ple­tion of the respec­tive con­struc­tion phas­es 

Com­pli­ance with all safe­ty reg­u­la­tions is also the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the gen­er­al plan­ner:

  • Coor­di­na­tion of the cre­ation of secu­ri­ty con­cepts
  • Coop­er­a­tion with safe­ty experts
  • Ensure that all par­ties involved are informed about the secu­ri­ty guide­lines
  • Recog­nis­ing secu­ri­ty risks at an ear­ly stage and tak­ing mea­sures to avert dan­ger 

Advantages of general planners 

Work­ing with a gen­er­al plan­ner is cru­cial to the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of a con­struc­tion project. It bun­dles all plan­ning and coor­di­na­tion tasks under one roof, which leads to more effec­tive man­age­ment of the project.  

Clients ben­e­fit from com­mis­sion­ing a gen­er­al plan­ner in these areas in par­tic­u­lar: 

  • A fixed price pro­vides plan­ning secu­ri­ty with regard to plan­ning costs.
  • One face to the cus­tomer — the gen­er­al plan­ner is the client’s sole point of con­tact for plan­ning ser­vices.
  • The gen­er­al plan­ner bears the plan­ning risks. 

The com­pre­hen­sive respon­si­bil­i­ty of the gen­er­al plan­ner plays a key role in ensur­ing that the project is com­plet­ed on time, with­in bud­get and to the desired qual­i­ty.  

Would you also like to be sup­port­ed by a gen­er­al plan­ner in the real­i­sa­tion of your vision and effec­tive­ly relieved of the bur­den of your con­struc­tion project? We would be hap­py to put our expe­ri­ence, sys­tem knowl­edge, plan­ning and real­i­sa­tion exper­tise to work for your com­pa­ny. Find out more about our ser­vices as a gen­er­al plan­ner!

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Portrait Lucien Moser

We look forward to hearing from you.

Lucien Moser
Expert Project Man­ag­er, BIM Man­ag­er

lucien.moser@soltic.ch

+41 61 551 74 09

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