Relationship between Roles: The detailer and manager exhibit shared working relationship, while the coordinator takes on a more independent role across all task categories
Responsibility Patterns of Roles: The roles of coordinator, detailer, and manager show consistent responsibility patterns for certain task categories, with some variability in task categories like ‘Internal Management and Coordination’ and ‘Fabrication Support’.
Detailer Responsibilities Pattern: The detailer consistently performs ‘Modeling & Shop Drawing Creation’ tasks, but shows the highest variability in responsibilities for ‘Internal Management and Coordination’ and ‘Fabrication Support’.
Manager Responsibilities Pattern: The manager mainly performs and oversees tasks. They oversee ‘Modeling & Shop Drawing Creation’ tasks, perform ‘Internal Management and Coordination’, whereas perform and oversee ‘External Coordination’ and ‘Fabrication Support’ tasks.
Coordinator Responsibilities Pattern: Coordinator functions as a more standalone role, often acting as a connector across teams, especially in inter-organizational settings. While frequently performing or being consulted in coordination tasks, the role shows limited involvement in ‘Fabrication Support’.
Roles-Responsibilities versus Trades: MEP trades follow similar Task-Role-Responsibility patterns as shown in Figure 4.1, with supporting details in Figures 4.2 to 4.5 (Appendix X). Some variability exists, where certain trades show stronger or weaker patterns for specific task categories.
Impact of Experience: Years of experience appear to influence understanding of job roles and team dynamics (Figures 4.6 to 4.9, Appendix X) indicating variation in the understanding of shared working practices across the project teams.
VDC Department vs Executive Management: The VDC department and executive management show overall alignment in Task-Role-Responsibility perceptions, but some mismatches exist in understanding specific responsibilities, which may influence project performance.
Industry Implications
Reducing Industry Fragmentation: Defining roles in the VDC Task Schema reduces ambiguity and promotes consistency, supporting better project management and workforce planning.
Enabling Accurate Resource Allocation: Clear Task-Role-Responsibility understanding across VDC task categories helps prevent misallocation of resources, accurate task assignment and balanced team performance.
Recognizing Time Allocation Variability: Tasks-Role-Responsibility mapping clarifies responsibility types, supporting time estimation and resource planning. However, varying roles and responsibilities across organizations create challenges for project managers in aligning team expectations.
Clarity and Career Progression: Clearly defining VDC roles and their responsibilities strengthens job clarity, communication, and collaboration. It also supports performance evaluation, accountability, and career development within teams.
Industry-Wide Benchmarking: Tasks-Role-Responsibility mapping provides industry-wide benchmarking opportunity. This shared framework supports performance comparisons, encourages best practice sharing, and drives overall industry improvement.
Industry Wide Advancement: Structured Task-Role-Responsibility mapping encourages the MEP industry to address fragmented role-responsibility definitions and improve task alignment. It supports clearer project execution, better team coordination, and progress toward standardized industry benchmarking.
Practical Recommendations
Optimize Resource Allocation: Adopting the Tasks-Roles-Responsibilities mapping helps redefine task, resource, and time allocation by recognizing different responsibility types, leading to clearer expectations and improved management of VDC tasks in the MEP industry.
Foster Team Adoption: Implement Tasks-Roles-Responsibility mapping as a team in the VDC department of MEP industry to improve workflow, communication and collaboration.
Clarify Role for Growth: Clear Task-Role-Responsibility expectations leads to clear job roles and career progression that will attract talent to the MEP industry.
Customize per Trade: Refinement and adjustment of Task-Role-Responsibility mapping to a particular trade supports industry wide national benchmarking for MEP trades.
