DIRE DAWA UNIVERSITY

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

SCHOOL OF CIVIL AND ARCHTECTURAL ENGINEERING

DEPARTMENT OF CONSTRUCTION TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT

MSc: REGULAR PROGRAM

COURSE: LABOR AND ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT IN CONSTRUCTION

ASSIGNMENT ON: PROJECT ORGANIZATION SITE STRUCTURE OF A

CONTRACTOR. (CASE STUDY OF ETETE CONSTRUCTION BUILDING
CONTRACTOR AT LIDETA SUBCITY BUILDING SITE)

PREPARED BY: EDRIS ABDELLA………………DDU1400642

SUBMITTED TO: DR. ENG. WERKU K. (PH.D, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR)

MAY 2022, DIRE DAWA, ETHIOPIA

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 LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1-1 Site organizational charts ( source: etete construction company) ........................... 4
Figure 1-2 site organization layout ........................................................................................... 5
Figure 1-3 Poor quality of compaction at the site of lideta building construction ................. 10

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 TABLE OF CONTENT
LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................................. i

TABLE OF CONTENT .......................................................................................................ii

1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1

1.1. Project description ............................................................................................... 2

1.2 Brief History Etete Construction ......................................................................... 3

1.3 Project Organization Site Structure of Etete Construction Building Contractor 3

1.4 Why They Design Such Organization Structure? What Are The Reasons? ........ 7

1.5 Weakeness I observed at the site results from poor organizational structure ...... 9

1.6 Streangths I Visualized At Lideta Subcity Construction Building Site: ................. 10

REFERENCE ..................................................................................................................... 11

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 1. INTRODUCTION
The organizational structure of a company is its organization with separate divisions and
their interrelations, which are determined by the goals set for the company and its
divisions and the distribution of functions among them. It’s true that the structure of an
organization can have a major impact on project management. The way organizations is
structured influences how projects are run and managed. It can also influence how much
authority and reach a project manager has on the overall aspect of projects. The selected
project structural approach has its own strengths and weaknesses, thus affecting the
success of the project significantly (Partington, 2000). The organizational structure
provides for the distribution of functions and decision-making authority between the
company's senior executives who are responsible for the work of the structural units that
make up the organization of the company.Site organization is a detailed and well thought
out process which ensures a healthy and safe construction site throughout its build. An
organized construction site establishing a well co-ordination system among different
parts, and performing a good site layout planning, Increases safety, Enhances
productivity, Boosts profits. Site management of construction project site requires
knowledge of modern management as well as an understanding of the design and
Construction process. Construction Company’s organizational structure refers to both the
arrangement of job roles and the reporting and operational relationships between and
within these roles. Contractor Organization seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of flow of
information and decision making process among the different levels of the company
(Birrell, 1985).

What is Project organizational Structure?

A project organization is a structure that facilitates the coordination and implementation

of project activities. Its main reason is to create an environment that fosters interactions
among the team members with a minimum amount of disruptions, overlaps and conflict.
One of the important decisions of project management is the form of organizational
structure that will be used for the project(PM4DEV, 2007).

The main objective of Project organization is to establish the relationship among:

 the work to be done

 the people doing the work and the work place(s)

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The contractors’ role on the project team is to plan, manage, and properly execute the
construction activities to build the project according to the plans and specifications
prepared by the design professional. The contractor assembles a team of material and
equipment suppliers, specialty subcontractors, material fabricators; construction trades
workers to complete the construction. The contractor is often required to implement an
appropriate quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) program.

Project organization structure is divided into two groups(Samson Adesope,2020)

 contractor’s organization structure

 consultant organization structure

so in my case etete construction building contractor site organization structure for lideta
subcity building site

1.1.Project description

The undergoing activities on site like Excavation, Form work, concrete works and also
various tests like hammer test and slump test. The project have three main parties which
any mega construction project must have, client, consultant and contractor.

Owner(Client) : Lideta Sub City Land Development Management

Project cost: 334,819,896.63

Type: 2B+G+11 and 2B+G+4

Contractor: ETETE construction

Consultant: MGM Consulting Architects and Engineers

Type of the project: Class 1

Location: Addis Ababa lideta subcity woreda 8 Infront of Darmar Shoe Factory

My focus is on project organization site structure of Etete construction building

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1.2 Brief History Etete Construction

Etete construction is a legal registered building Contractor with category BC-1 in the
Ministry of Urban Development and Construction. Etete construction is a privately owned
domestic firm established in Addis Ababa with a capital of birr 500,000.00 with category
one. Etete Construction Buiiding Contractor was started work from 21/4/2008 G.C. It
was setup to fulfill the increasing demand of construction firms in the country and also to
contribute it is share in generating employment. Now Tesfa Tadesse General Manager,
yemesrach mekuria Office engineer, Robel Israel is a Project Coordinator at ETETE
Construction plc. Ethiopia. According to Procurement and contract they signed in the
Industry the contractors of the company will carry out the actual phyisical infrastructures.

1.3 Project Organization Site Structure of Etete Construction Building

Contractor

In general, Site organization involves many tasks to manage, such as:

 site investigation before construction process starts,

 material delivery and procurement management,
 keeping better site records,
 keeping good site communication and high level of information flow,
 monitoring performance regularly,
 daily work progress or activities

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Figure 1-1 Site organizational charts ( source: etete construction company)

In Etete Construction project Site Organization the following elements are important.

 Site Administration,
 Field Controls,
 Field Engineering,
 Field Material Control,
 Construction Supervision (Subcontractor Management),
 Safety (Site),
 Quality (Quality Control and Inspection),
 Pre-commissioning Team and Hand-over Team(owner)

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Figure 1-2 site organization layout

They use matrix organization with project organization structure. The “matrix
organization”, i.e., a combination of the functional and pure project organization
structures, for example, when the Main contractor office and regional project is
functionally operated by the Department of Accounting and Finance at main office of
etete construction and the regional project manager is reporting to the main general
director of the company. Since the company use the same resource and also this company
can export and import construction material for our countries. Nowadays project become
more complex, meeting budgets become more important, delivering the project on time is
more crucial and working with many disciplines, departments or companies become a
fact of life. So as of necessity, project focused organization structures are started to
develop. This is an organization structure with the project manager as the single point of
responsibility with an autonomous authority over a pool of resources.

The project approach is to assign responsibility to one person who would work on the
project full-time through the project life cycle from initiation to completion. This new
organization structure where the project lines of responsibility and authority overlaid the
functional lines of responsibility and authority become known as the 'matrix project
structure'. This enabled organizations to work on many projects at the same time, share
resources, address scope of overlap and under lap, and most importantly have one person
dealing with the client. For example, when there are more than one projects and regional
projects are there in a given contract, it can have a well organized and staffed main office

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and different project manager will be assigned as administrative support services on a

pool basis. It might not be economical to constitute an independent administrative service
package for each main and regional projects. The matrix structure is also in favor of a
well organized, equipped, staffed, responsive and reliable pool administrative service.
This enables to effectively and efficiently administer scarce resources and deploys
resources towards the project site by avoiding duplicated administrative costs.

Delegation/Decentralization does not mean fixing independent administrative sections

here and there; it is rather empowering the main office and regional office by delegating
the required authority to make decisions on their part to discharge their shared
responsibilities; say power for directly commanding the finance section to effect payment
related to the main office. Let the regional project administrative services such as
administrative and finance, site office, accomodation and project management of the site
functionally accountable for each main office and regional or site office day to day
administrative support service requirements, they let the main office and site management
officially evaluate the support services, and take both corrective and preventive measures.
Then, the administrative section will have double accountability as the main office staff
does (accountability for immediate boss and regional project on the site). They are
accountable for their immediate bosses for periodic reporting and accountable for the
main and regional office for their day to day support service performance.

Project or matrix organization is one of the latest types of organizational design. The
matrix organization is a combination of the project organization and the functional
organization. Authority flows vertically within functional departments, while authority of
project manager flows horizontally crossing vertical lines. Thus, matrix organization is
created, “when project management is superimposed on a stable hierarchical structure,
usually of a functional nature. Here the individuals working on a project have a
continuing dual assignment; to their project and to their base department. Etete Building
Contractor Use Strong Matrix, Tall organizational structure with small units and narrow
spans of control. Again The matrix organizational form is an attempt to combine the
advantages of the pure functional structure and the product organizational structure
(Kerzner, 2006). This form is suited for “project driven” companies such as construction.

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The power and authority used by the project manager come directly from the general
manager since each project represents a potential profit, so the project manager has total
responsibility and accountability for project success. Project managers take charge of
allocating and organizing the work for the designated project team. In this type of
structure, there is a balance between ongoing operations and projects, so it is a common
structure for organizations that have these dual roles. For instance, local body
organizations that are responsible for both maintaining existing infrastructure (ongoing
operations) and commissioning the construction of new infrastructure (projects) often
have matrix structures (Vivian, 2004).

1.4 Why They Design Such Organization Structure? What Are The
Reasons?

I answer this question by refering to some litreture and what is behind the
organizationalsite structure of etete construction building contractor.

One of the main objectives of the project organization structure is to reduce uncertainty
and confusion that typically occurs at the project initiation phase. The structure defines
the relationships among members of the project management and the relationships with
the external environment. A properly designed project organization chart is essential to
project success. An organization chart shows where each person is placed in the project
structure. The project organizational structure is an essential configuration for
determining the hierarchy of people, their function, workflow and reporting system. It’s
true that the structure of an organization can have a major impact on project site
management. The way organizations is structured influences how projects are run and
managed. It can also influence how much authority and reach a project manager has on
the overall aspect of projects. The selected project structural approach has its own
strengths and weaknesses, thus affecting the success of the project significantly
(Partington, 2000).

An organization structure is the framework which helps an organization to run its work
effectively and achieve goals with minimal obstruction. The organization structure
defines the relationship among the various departments and teams of the organization. It

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helps organizations to delegate authority, power, and responsibility. The organization

structure defines how an employee will report to his superior, who will report to whom.
which helps in coordination and cooperation within the site team members. The main
advantage of having an effective site organization structure is that it reduces the friction
among employees by clarifying the roles, responsibilities and reporting structure
(PM4DEV, 2007).

Having a proper Site organization structure can bring immense benefits to any
organization. A few of these benefits are company growth, facilitation of employee
specialization, better communication, etc.

Poor site organization and poor environment play a major roles in project delay, Layman
2018 concluded, it is important to identify the key success factor in conjunction with the
client and establish key performance indicators in the form of milestones that will
calculate the success for achieving the project scope, Raymond 2013, opined that poor
communication is a very common problem in construction projects and it is impacts can’t
be understated as it affects the project success.

More the Reasons they design such structure are to:

 minimizing hazards for workers visitors, barrier control, risk-minimization

 effective site communication
 construction efficiency
 divide responsibility according to the technical knowledge
 divide responsibilities by executive ability
 show avoidance of undue concentration of duty at any point.

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All in all They design such structure to get all importance of site organisational structure
in construction even to get advantage of using the matrix project structure.

1.5 Weakeness I observed at the site results from poor organizational

structure

 They don’t have proper site organizational structure to use as guide line for
project success.
 Poor work man ship supervision
 They don’t have proper site organizational structure for communication
 From the company’s work methodology they specifies there shouldn’t be a room
for mistakes, But some how this ground rule is not respected by some of the daily
labors.
 They didn’t follow the structural order given by the site engineer, For instance
spacing of stirrups was disturbed.
 Poor quality of compaction at this site I visualized

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Figure 1-3 Poor quality of compaction at the site of lideta building construction

Weak reason

 Supervisors looking after too many people

 Dissatisfied workers with a perceived grievance (for example, low pay)
 Waiting for materials, tools and Waiting for instructions
 Machine breakdown
 Waiting for another worker (or equipment operator) to finish
 Working gangs are out of balance (e.g. too many labourers to one mason)
 More people allocated to the task than needed

1.6 Streangths I Visualized At Lideta Subcity Construction Building Site:

Here are some of strengths that etete construction company may have:

 Efficiency
 Efficiency of reducing expenses.
 It improves profits.
 Site layout plan shows a detailed layout of the whole site and the relationship of
the proposed works with the boundary of the property, nearby roads and
neighboring buildings are well presented this prevents the owner from dispute.
 Most application should include site layout plan are some how well presented.

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 Security, space available, site accommodation and welfare facilities are available
 Temporary services such as water, drainage, power, access to siteare available
 Storage of materials, including project type, scale, design, location, and
organization of construction work are there.

REFERENCE
1. Samson Adesope, Project Construction Site Organization and Management
2. Stefan Hesse Gerhard Schnell, Conference Paper) Supervision, monitoring and
control of home appliances through power line communication, January 2009
3. (Kerzner, 2006) and (Vivian, 2004).
4. http://www.classtoolkit.org/sites/default/filesPM4DEV_Project_Management
5. "Global Construction Report 2021". GCP DBA.
6. Etete Construction building Contractor company documents containing
organizational structure and brief history.
7. Etete Construction building Contractor documents of lideta subcity
8. Poor site organization structure Layman and Raymond 2018
9. AAHDPO. (2011). Addis Ababa City Administration Housing Constuction
Project Office
10. Organization Study: Addis Ababa Housing Development Project Office
11. Henry Mintzberg for his book The Structuring of Organizations, published by
Prentice-Hall (1998)
12. Hanover Research. (2010). Best site Practices and Strategies in Organizational
Structure and Design. Washington DC: Hanover Research.
13. how strong or weak the backbone is”. (Shamil Naoum, 2011)
14. Class handout” organizational structure” (dr worku.k, 2022)
15. The Assessment Of Organizational Structure In Supporting Projects By Beza
Teferra (2018)

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