ARENCORES MAGAZINE Issue |No. 8 (Updated)

We examine a real, live project to outline the impact that the COVID-19
pandemic is having on the construction activity in Chania, Crete.
Unlike sectors like architectural design, manufacturing,
IT or financial services, the sector of construction and
its ancillary engineering segment require the physical
presence of workforce – both skilled and less skilled – in
different phases of the project life-cycle.
Civil engineers, mechanical engineers, energy engineers,
contractors and workers are just some of the
most frequent people in the workforce required in a
construction project.
Unfortunately, the significantly low integration of novel
technologies and applications along with the absence
of state-ofthe art digitalization and automation tools in
such projects is a critical barrier.
These impacts include, among others, schedule delays,
workforce availability, equipment and material disruptions,
reduced productivity due to on site health and
safety measures (e.g., social distancing, etc.), permit delays
and cash flow shortages.
Project Status: Advanced Construction Stage
Project Location: Akrotiri, Chania, Crete, Greece
Project Cost: 500.000 euro
Investor’s Origin: EU
Labour Deployment: Over 30 workers with over 10
different pieces of heavy equipment or heavy machinery.
Labor deployment is the ability to use the correct
amount of staff, in the right place, at the right time. It allows
you to bring all of your resources into effective action.
This means you get the correct staff for the job and
you have enough people to make the most profit during
peak times and all hours.
the construction site. Many of them may have returned
to their villages or are planning to do so.
Moreover, contractors are also not keen on pushing
them either because the safety and health of all those
who work in construction remains the top priority for all
the parties involved. Most of the construction sites are
running at just half of our usual run rate as fear about
the infection is keeping workers’ attendance at less than
60 percent. ARENCOS provides all the necessary support
to workers, from undertaking precautionary measures
such as avoiding group formation, provides face
masks etc.
Supply Chain Status: Some of the required materials
to complete the project are being sourced from overseas
(Germany, China), which are either in manufacturing
or dispatch phase. The time of delivery of such materials
should also significantly affect the time of project
completion.
Contractual Impact: Some of the sellers and material
suppliers may invoke claims due to COVID-19 and this
will inevitably lead to contractors’ claims for additional
time and costs.
Project Schedule Impact: Prognosis for 2 months delay
under some pessimistic scenarios. The interconnectedness
and synergistic nature of a construction project
along with the bottleneck phenomena in the supply
chain and physical distancing of the workforce should
also affect the time schedule of the project.
Any slowdown across the project life-cycle due to the
pandemic or even the limited sources for financing from
the side of the project owner could cause further delays
or changes.
Labour Status: Because of the social distance measures
more than 40 per cent of the construction workers
required to complete the project are staying away from
Cost Impact: No impact on the total project cost. The
cost remains the same as it was initially agreed between
the client and ARENCOS.
ARENCORES CHANIA REAL
ESTATE MAGAZINE
11