Infrastructure Construction Management: What Owners Need to Know

Infrastructure construction management is a subset of construction management that deals with public or privately owned construction projects that contribute to the infrastructure of a location.

These projects may span multiple years, carry huge budgets, need to adhere to several sets of regulations, and involve many stakeholders — often from several different organizations.

The scale and complexity of infrastructure and construction management projects require robust tools to track and analyze metrics outside of those common to general construction management solutions.

Solutions built for infrastructure construction management, like Kahua asset-centric project management software, bring together the most vital metrics to help construction and infrastructure management teams complete the most complicated projects on time and under budget.

Read on to learn:

• What Is Infrastructure Construction Management?
• Lifecycle Phases of Infrastructure Construction Management
• Key Challenges in Infrastructure and Construction Management
• Best Practices and Tools for Infrastructure Construction Management
• How Construction and Infrastructure Management Drives Value for Owners
• Managing Infrastructure Construction with Confidence
• FAQ: Infrastructure Construction Management

What Is Infrastructure Construction Management?

Infrastructure construction management is the process of planning, coordinating, and overseeing large-scale projects that contribute to the infrastructure of a locale. It covers the entire construction project’s lifecycle, from conception and funding to facilities management and upkeep.

The discipline covers a wide range of public and private projects, including:

• Roads
• Bridges
• Railroads
• Airports
• Utilities
• Water systems
• Large campus infrastructure

The scope of these projects requires the attention of many stakeholders, including owners, program managers, contractors, and government regulators. It’s vital that each of these stakeholders has a clear view of the project’s progress, can access essential data about cost and risk, and can react quickly to suggest or approve of changes.

Lifecycle Phases of Infrastructure Construction Management

The five main phases of infrastructure construction management cover planning, design, procurement, construction, and operations — each with a specialized set of organizational requirements. Below, we outline those phases and the infrastructure-specific needs to focus on.

Planning and Feasibility Studies

During the planning phase, conduct needs assessments and feasibility analysis as necessary for all components of the infrastructure project. During this time, you’ll want to define construction project controls that will align the project with funding sources, community impact, risk factors, and stakeholders.

Project management tools that allow for fund tracking and the ability to build feasibility workflows can facilitate this phase of the lifecycle.

Design and Engineering

This phase translates planning through needs and finance into design documents and technical specifications. Because this phase brings together several departmental stakeholders, including engineering, architecture, and owners, the team will require document management and version control capabilities that enhance collaboration.

Communication between teams should promote cooperation, trust, and the ability to surface risks early.

Procurement and Contract Management

The procurement phase of the infrastructure construction management lifecycle is where the team manages the bid, requests for proposals (RFPs), and vendor selection processes. This phase can bring significant challenges for any organization, but those in the public sector need an increased focus on compliance and transparency.

Configurable workflows that automate and log processes and approvals bring clarity to this phase.

Construction and Execution

Arguably, the most complicated and most important phase of the infrastructure project’s lifecycle, construction and execution, requires coordination of contractors, subcontractors, and field teams, all while keeping stakeholders from the previous phases informed.

Delays, scope changes, and risk assessments are all likely during construction — challenges real-time collaboration and change management tools can mitigate.

Operations and Maintenance

Hopefully, the longest phase of the infrastructure construction management lifecycle, operations and maintenance extends the value of the project decades beyond delivery. This phase includes everything needed to keep the completed project running: maintenance, inspections, and sustainability practices.

Careful accounting of assets, maintenance schedules, and audit logs within asset lifecycle management tools will help organize and extend operations.

Key Challenges in Infrastructure and Construction Management

Infrastructure construction management brings several challenges based on the size, scope, and stakeholders involved in each project, whether public or private. These challenges may delay or derail infrastructure projects, adding time to timelines.

The following challenges could delay projects, but planning for these challenges will reduce their ability to negatively impact the larger project:

Budget overruns and funding gaps: Organizations that use flexible construction management technology can align supply manifests, purchase orders, and staffing records to stay within budget without massive oversight.

Regulatory compliance and permitting issues: When strict regulations and approval processes can delay timelines and increase costs, audit-ready reporting that aligns logs with tasks and costs helps owners save time and maintain compliance.

 Public accountability and transparency: Robust reporting helps owners justify spending and progress to stakeholders, taxpayers, and boards.

Communication breakdowns: Centralized communication combined with automated approvals and reporting keeps teams and stakeholders aligned and reduces mistakes.

Data silos and manual processes: Project solutions give owners, engineers, contractors, finance, regulators, and community stakeholders access to shared data and enable greater visibility and collaboration.

Best Practices and Tools for Infrastructure Construction Management

Avoid scope creep, unnecessary risks, and communication breakdowns by following best practices and using modern infrastructure construction management solutions that ease challenges.

• Centralize Project Data and Communication: Using one platform ensures everyone works from the same information. From notes and questions on project tasks to costs and delays, a centralized platform reduces confusion and improves communication.
• Strengthen Document and Submittal Management: Streamlined approvals reduce errors and improve compliance tracking. Secure, configurable workflows speed the request-to-decision process and ensure the right stakeholders receive the right information every time.
• Adopt Predictive Risk Management and Real-Time Reporting: Early warnings help mitigate delays, scope creep, and budget issues. Customizable thresholds for costs, timelines, and decision-making put advanced construction cost control strategies into practice.
• Incorporate Sustainability and Resilience Into Planning: Designing for long-term performance reduces maintenance costs and improves return on investment (ROI). Consider combining sustainable building materials and energy systems like solar panels or geothermal heating with sustainable design.
• Leverage Configurable Digital Workflows: Tools like Kahua adapt to unique agency or owner processes without forcing one-size-fits-all systems. Choose solutions that allow for configurable workflows, approval processes, and reporting systems that meet the organization’s processes instead of changing processes for the software.

As with many modern industries, infrastructure construction projects benefit from a combination of collaboration, risk management, and project management tools that increase communication across teams and improve oversight.

By making costs, schedules, and risks visible and actionable, projects run more smoothly.

How Construction and Infrastructure Management Drives Value for Owners

Construction and infrastructure management strategies combined with the right tools increase the value of projects across many business departments. The strategies improve cost control and budget oversight by making projected and actual cost differences visible and centralizing financial records.

Asset management in construction, plus automated workflows and deep reporting surfaces risks and gives owners the power to make timely and cost-effective decisions.

Infrastructure construction management reduces compliance risk and enhances accountability through audit-ready reporting and logging that tells a complete story of the project and any deviations from the plan.

This transparency and accountability mean the organization can deliver projects faster and with fewer delays. That efficiency can maximize lifecycle value and long-term ROI through cost management and portfolio reporting that extends through the full life of the project.

Managing Infrastructure Construction with Confidence

Infrastructure construction management is about more than tasks and schedules. These strategies and tools increase compliance, cost control, and lifecycle value across projects and the full owner portfolio.

Kahua asset-centric construction management provides solutions for owners with a platform designed for infrastructure programs. Kahua centralizes financial, task management, scheduling, risk management, and asset management into a collaborative visual platform.

See how Kahua helps owners and program managers streamline infrastructure construction management.

FAQ: Infrastructure Construction Management

What Makes Infrastructure Construction Management Different from General Project Management?

Infrastructure construction management takes the basic tenets of project management and magnifies them with large-scale, complex projects that require regulatory oversight and public accountability.

The scale and complexity of infrastructure projects require solutions that manage longer asset lifecycles and provide high visibility for critical stakeholder communication.

What Are the Most Common Pitfalls in Managing Infrastructure Projects?

Infrastructure construction projects often run into these challenges:

• Funding shortfalls or misalignment
• Scope creep
• Communication gaps and lack of visibility
• Compliance delays

Modern infrastructure construction management tools make tasks, funding, costs, schedules, and potential risks visible, so they can be quickly mitigated or reduced, which reduces schedule delays and financial penalties.

How Can Owners Use Technology to Improve Infrastructure Construction Management Outcomes?

Modern infrastructure construction management solutions like Kahua combine fund management, document control, compliance-ready workflows, with insightful reporting and automated features that streamline communication and approvals in one central location.

Software designed for infrastructure construction management should include features such as centralized data, transparency, automated reporting, and centralized collaboration that can bring all stakeholders together over the same data to make the most effective and well-informed decisions.