What is a Multi-Disciplinary Project Team?
A multi-disciplinary team consists of people from different disciplines who come together for a common objective. In industrial projects, the industrial projects design consultants’ team consists of Architects, Civil consultants, structural consultants, MEP consultants and IBMS consultants who work together to get an optimised total design.
The client’s stakeholders also form a cross-functional team from the production, projects, HR, finance, Safety, Marketing and others. Additionally, the multi-disciplinary team participates in design charette with the client’s stakeholders.
The project team should start with a clear and precise objective. Moreover, the team may get bogged down in unnecessary tasks with unclear goals. So, the team’s responsibilities and tasks should be clear in the first meeting itself. This step ensures the battery limits of each member.
Benefits of a multi-disciplinary project team
Bringing a variety of experience and knowledge to the table not only brings down the time during detailing but also helps optimisation. Some benefits are:
- It is faster and more efficient.
- Encourages sharing of knowledge and experience
- Multiple processes in the design run concurrently.
- Usually, project cross-functional teams have special decision-making powers.
- Faster problem-solving and lesser clashes between disciplines during implementation
- Collaboration and co-evolving encourage out-of-the-box thinking, innovation and better ways of doing things.
- Develops teamwork and creates a vibe for the entire project.
- Improves client satisfaction
- Optimised design
- Standardised drawings
What are the challenges of a multi-disciplinary team?
- Coordination for meetings and deliverables is a concern if the members are from different industrial consultants.
- A multi-disciplinary project team must have a proper project charter and a goal to function properly.
- Disagreements between team members, especially if they are not from the same company.
To conclude, a multi-disciplinary team of industrial consultants helps create an optimised total design within the project goals.
