On large railway projects, local construction supervision alone is not enough. Overall site management sits one level above and holds the individual construction supervisions, trades and construction sections together.
What overall site management means
Overall site management is the superordinate management of construction supervision. It represents the client’s interests on the construction site at a coordinating level and steers the individual local construction supervisions, each responsible for their section or trade.
In the HOAI sense it is a service of site supervision that goes beyond local construction supervision. While the local level works on the individual structure or trade, overall site management holds the whole project together.
It is therefore not a substitute for local construction supervision but a bracket above it. On small measures both levels coincide; on large, multi-section projects they separate.
Tasks of overall site management
- Coordination of the local construction supervisions across sections and trades.
- Safeguarding the client’s interests at a superordinate level.
- Steering of deadlines, costs and quality across the overall project.
- Resolution of conflicts at the interfaces between the trades.
- Bundling of the documentation and reporting to the client.
Overall site management ensures that the sum of the individual supervisions adds up to a coherent whole and does not become a patchwork of individual interests.
Distinction from local construction supervision
The local level asks: is this section being built properly? Overall site management asks: do all sections fit together, and is the whole project running smoothly? Both questions are necessary, but they lie on different levels.
Why it matters on large projects
The larger and the more multi-trade a railway project is, the more interfaces arise: between permanent way, overhead line, signalling, structural engineering and live operations. Each individual construction supervision primarily sees its own area.
Without a coordinating level, conflicts at the edges remain unaddressed until they collide on site. Overall site management recognises them early because it considers all the strands together, and can counteract before an interface problem becomes a construction delay.
Responsibility and interplay
Overall site management is not responsible for the detailed technical check of each trade, that remains with local construction supervision and specialist supervision. It is responsible for the steering and consistency of the overall project towards the client.
In railway construction it is added that the operational topics, closure windows and safeguarding, must also be coordinated across sections. Overall site management that understands the railway-specific functions plans these scarce resources across the whole project.
When separating the levels is worthwhile
Whether a project needs its own overall site management depends on size, duration and number of trades. For a manageable single measure, a construction supervision that combines both levels in itself is usually sufficient.
As soon as a project falls into several sections, runs over a longer period or addresses several specialist trades in parallel, however, the coordination effort rises sharply. Then a clearly separate overall site management is worthwhile, doing nothing other than steering the interplay.
A typical example is line upgrades, where permanent way, overhead line and signalling are built section by section and at different times. Here the superordinate steering decides whether the scarce closure windows are sensibly distributed across all trades.
For the client, overall site management in such cases is also a matter of relief: instead of communicating with many individual construction supervisions, they have one contact who is responsible for the overall overview and reports to them in condensed form.
Häufige Fragen
What is the difference between overall site management and local construction supervision?
Local construction supervision supervises the execution at the specific structure or trade. Overall site management coordinates several local construction supervisions and is responsible for the overall project.
When do you need overall site management?
Above all on large, multi-section and multi-trade projects where the sum of the individual supervisions must be actively coordinated.
Does overall site management replace local construction supervision?
No. It sits one level above and coordinates it. On small measures both levels can coincide.
Edoé Lassey
Edoé Lassey führt die LND Ingenieure GmbH als Bauüberwacher und Ingenieur für Infrastruktur- und Tiefbau. Die zertifizierten Rollen Technischer Berechtigter, Sicherungsüberwacher, Schaltantragsteller und Bauvorlageberechtigung gehören zum Leistungskern.
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