Owners – Do You Want To Save Money On Your Construction Projects?
Even now, with all the hoopla on the poor state of the economy, I find it hard to believe that people are interested in really saving money on the construction delivery process. It seems they are just talking about saving money and not taking the right steps. Projects are being scaled down, postponed or cancelled. This is not saving money.
Down sizing a project means the basis of the design is no longer valid. Why is it no longer valid? How much did the market really change in the past year? Were the previous forecasts too optimistic? Did they ignore trends, were they appropriate for the company in any scenario? The questions hold true for postponing or cancelling a project. These are not ways to save money. It could be these are ways to adjust a project to a scope that should have been considered in the first place.
Cost savings are accomplished by using estimating resources to develop the right budget so the costs can be monitored and managed it to the end of the project. It is by using scheduling resources to determine the optimum design and construction periods.
Savings will be found when the architect and engineer provide design documents without any outdated or obsolete specification requirements. Cost savings will occur when an effort is made to coordinate the civil, architectural, structural, mechanical and electrical drawings contents and scope.
Saving costs will result when sole sourced items are eliminated. Savings will occur when true value engineering is implemented, not just a cutting of the scope on the project.
Cost savings will develop when bidding a project with efforts made to make it easy for the contractors to bid the project. This ranges from a minimal number of alternates to wide distribution of the bidding documents.
Cost savings will result when contract terms and conditions, along with formats, meet the project delivery requirements.
In short, to right size projects or to pull projects off the market is one thing. Cost savings is an ongoing program implemented to reduce the costs without losing the scope or value of the project.
Oh by the way … We are offering a second look at some of Don Short’s early blogs. This blog was one of the first written in 2009, but I think it is still relevant today.
