Application Of Interface Management In Owners' Design Management Of Large-scale Construction Projects

With the swift development of economy and urbanization construction, large-scale construction projects mushroom more and more. Driven by modern science and technology, these new projects characterized by large scale, complete functions and technology and too many participation units gradually emerge in nowadays. Particularly in the stage of design management which is called the soul of construction, design managers how to deal with interface problems caused by resource, technology and information from participation units becomes a major issue with reference to the achievement of safety, quality, investment and progress goals. In order to realize efficient and orderly design management, interface management theory as a new attempt can be used, conforming to the trend of multidisciplinary cross and complementary promotion.Defining design management clearly as the necessary preparations for interface management theory is conducive to the proper application of theory. Design management mentioned in this paper refers to a part of owners' project management, through establishing organizational management system, coordinating to solve all design, technology related problems among participation units, balancing among social, environmental and economic benefits of the projects ultimately. This process includes project decision making, design preparation, conceptual design, preliminary design, construction drawing design, construction process, final acceptance of construction, use of operating and summary review.After decades of development Interface management forms certain research achievements, but mainly focuses on research and manufacture and commercial marketing. It is introduced to the construction industry in recent years. This paper applies it to design management of large-scale construction project in the whole process, firstly the principle of interface contradictions is analyzed and interface contradictions are divided into five kinds according to the constraint conditions of different types, these five kinds are information sticky, improper professional technology link and coordination, different interests and goals, organizational system differences, cultural and values conflicts, at the same time the universal law of interface contradiction is revealed and theoretical support for the whole and dynamic interface management is provided. Secondly, the principles of interface dividing and interface management are put forward, as the norm of reducing unnecessary interface quantity, easing conflicts and adopting reasonable interface management. Thirdly, combining theory and operation, four interface management measures based on full consideration to scope, innovation and optimization are elaborated:interface management framework, interface dynamic control, interface risk prediction and interface network information integration. Fourthly, interface states are identified, analyzed and then those interface management measures are taken over according to the actual situation at each stage of design management. Advantages and disadvantages of various measures are given. Finally, taking a large-scale venue construction project for example, application of interface management theory for design management is analyzed viably and reasonably, some principles are constructively summed up in order to evaluate effectiveness of interface management, these principles including promoting establishment good operation system, streamlining interface management framework, making professional design managers take a great deal of cooperation and so on.A theoretical and practical attempt is taken through applying interface management theory to design management of the large-scale construction project. Especially it can help us to solve the complex interface problems which are not coordinated well. But how to really play the role of theory must have further studies.