On-call contracting strategy and management

The purpose of this paper is to present an on-call contracting process model. On-call contracting is a strategy in which the owner initially signs a master contract with one party for a project and then divides the project work into task orders that are released to the party in phases. It is a contracting strategy tailored from traditional contracting methods, and applicable to consultant services. It is a flexible method that can retain the advantages of traditional strategies while avoiding or minimizing their disadvantages. It can make the consultant more attentive to the work. On-call contracting needs to follow principles and guidelines in order to be effective. Three principles-complete planning, overlapping, and design management-are derived from project scope freezing, concurrent engineering, and construction management, respectively. Task order planning is the core process of on-call contracting and includes four steps: (1) divide overall work; (2) group tasks into task order; (3) define task orders; and (4) issue task orders. Guidelines for task order planning are presented within these steps.