Expert opinion on II World Construction Championship

Construction is an important project management area and it usually comprises a significant proportion of the total installed project cost. For a project to be successful, construction must be very well planned, organised, and run efficiently in terms of its scope compliance, safety, quality, time, and budget. Unfortunately, the experience of project construction, being a mega-project or a small dimension project, led to failures that represented delays and budget overruns, deriving on conflicting situations between clients and contractors. These failures need a thorough construction risk analysis to identify all obstacles to the planned construction works. Thus, information on construction experiences and lessons learned is essential.

As nuclear industry has suffered numerous construction delays and budget overruns, international organisations (International Atomic Energy Agency, Nuclear Energy Agency) have developed expert guidance on innovative construction techniques to maintain or improve safety and quality while reducing time and optimising costs. Some publications reflect lessons learned on nuclear power plant construction, which could serve a useful reference worldwide.

However, more international actions are required to augment the construction knowledge platform by sharing experiences and insights on innovative construction techniques.

In this regard, the II World Construction Championship (WCC) is an exceptional opportunity for achieving this construction knowledge augmentation through an intensive exchange and discussion of construction technologies and experience, as well as singular insights by the participants. WCC is a unique event that could bring to the table numerous concepts and cases on construction that will be of great benefit for the participants and for the construction industry in generic terms.

The Championship provides an open venue to demonstrate the capabilities of Russian and international construction companies, which could be extremely helpful for the orientation and identification of partner companies that could participate in different complex projects.

Considering that one of the key missions of the Championship is to promote international cooperation between Russian and foreign companies in the field of industrial construction and to ensure the global competitiveness of the participating countries, sharing ideas, experience and knowledge in full transparency by the experts is an exceptional outcome to augment the construction knowledge platform.

Construction usually requires a large amount of human resources. The companies involved in a construction project might find it difficult to hire qualified and skilled personnel to perform both complex and simple construction activities, while complying, as mentioned earlier, with the scope, safety, quality, schedule, and budget.

Thus, the Championship provides an excellent opportunity to have more professionals engaged in construction activities. The Championship is a “live learning event” promoting large information exchange in construction techniques. This has been and will be very beneficial for the industry experts, construction specialists, and the students who participated and won the Championship. The event has undoubtedly created new conditions for a positive approach to face construction challenges.

In my humble opinion, the II World Construction Championship has been extremely successful!

My best wishes to the Championship in 2023, its organizers, participants and partners!

Oscar Agostino MIGNONE
Professional Engineer — Argentina #4221
Nuclear Senior Expert Consultant to Milan Polytechnic Energy Department.
Qualified expert of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Vienna, Austria