A design control structure for architectural firms in a highly complex and uncertain situation

A large architectural firm in a highly complex and uncertain production situation asked to improve its existing ?production control? system for design projects. To that account a research and design project of nine months at the spot was defined. The production control in the organization was based on a mix of project management tools, resource allocation to whole projects, and regular updating of the project portfolio. The results of the research analyses showed that the situation of the firm?s design projects cannot be controlled with only such tools, due to lack of coherence between the ?production control? and the design situation. To improve the coherence, a basic ?production control? structure is designed. The design of this structure is based on the match between the research findings and theoretical principles of how decisions should be made in multi-project situations that are highly complex and uncertain. The design consists of four hierarchical planning functions (strategic resource planning, rough cut capacity planning, resource constraint project scheduling and detailed planning). After finalizing and presenting the design, the design led to new insights into resource allocation for the client and has been approved by the client and office management. The implementation of the design is however still in design proposition due to other priorities.