Construction Cost Control
Speed Procurement, Limit Waste, Mitigate Risk
Capital costs associated with repairing, renovating, and constructing buildings and other forms of physical infrastructure are out of control for many, if not most real property owners.
Costs vary widely by location and remain hard to predict. The lack of robust procurement and construction delivery methods and to the lack of true financial visibility and control. These factors add unacceptable levels of risk to investment decision making and management associated with project planning, procurement and delivery.
The good news, however, is that solutions in the form of robust LEAN construction procurement and delivery methods have evolved over the past thirty (30) years to virtually assure that the vast majority (90%+) of all repair, renovation, sustainability, maintenance, and construction projects can be consistently delivered on-time, on-budget, and to the satisfaction of all participants and stakeholders.
The two most widely known and mature of these LEAN construction procurement and delivery methods are Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), for major new construction, and Job Order Contracting (JOC) for repair, renovation, and minor new construction.
Beware, however, that all implementation, tools, and support services for both IPD and JOC are not the same. Also, for JOC, not all cooperatives purchasing organizations and tools are not the same. (JOC Programs can be owner-implemented, or JOC services can be procured via JOC cooperative procurement groups.
While you may have heard many things about LEAN construction, include a wide array of acronyms and tools … senseis, black-belts, last planners, etc. …, the bottom line is that all the fundamentals, processes, work flows, information sets, training, and support services are readily available to any real property owner that wishes to measurably improve financial visibility and maximize productivity.
Do your homework, and assure that any LEAN construction procurement and project delivery method you select included the following….
- Focus upon outcomes.
- Mutual respect and trust for all participants and stakeholders.
- Shared risk/reward.
- Defined, written, roles, responsibilities, processes, required documentation, information/data sets (common terms/definitions, data formats), enabling technologies, and locally researched detailed unit price book cost data.
- Financial transparency
- Continuous improvement
- Collaboration among all participants and stakeholders
- Metrics – key performance indicators
