Many of our construction projects start as ideas with little formal documentation. We’ll walk through a facility, listen to our client’s ideas about the work, and start to help them define their project. We’ve successfully used Trimble (formerly Google) SketchUp software for a couple of years now to help do this.

Our clients typically need budget, scope, and schedule information to secure project funding. Taking the information from the walk-thru, we create a 3-D SketchUp model of the proposed work.  The model gives us a solid starting point to refine the concept and prepare the information our client needs for project approval.  3-D representations help clients visualize and understand the work better.  We can also color code the model for better scope definition.

Internally, SketchUp helps us to convey information to subs and vendors for pricing, quantify the work for estimating, and sequence the work for scheduling.  It’s also a good starting point for design firms if they are needed after the project is approved.  Best of all, we typically spend 2 to 4 hours on building a model – a great value for time invested.

We don’t typically use the Google Earth feature, but we do import objects.  It’s amazing what is available. Some manufacturers have an extensive product line available.  We try to limit what we import because while the detail is great, the file size grows quickly when they are included. Our models are simple and we find that works best at this level of effort.

There are certainly other software applications available other than SketchUp, but we stumbled across it a few years ago and have adopted it. The free version (http://www.sketchup.com/intl/en/product/gsu.html) was easy to learn and suited our needs.

 

Having the right materials and equipment at a project when they are needed is the goal of procurement and essential to meeting a schedule.  How long it takes to do that is frequently mis-understood, even by professionals.

A typical procurement process proceeds like this: specify, quote, analyze, purchase, prepare submittals, approve submittals, release for fabrication, fabricate, and deliver.  The time it takes to do all this is frequently called “lead time” and is generally referred to in weeks of time.

Most buyers expect “lead time” provided in vendor quotes to include all the time required from date of purchase to delivery. However, many times vendors use the same term (“lead time”) for the part of the procurement process they control beginning with approved submittals.  Vendors do this for a good reason – the time to secure approved submittals is mostly beyond their control and many have been burned by the “approve submittal” step taking much longer than expected. “8 weeks lead time” in a vendor quote is almost always from date of approved submittals and sometimes that qualification is not clear, especially when quote is verbal.

That’s where a lot of problems begin.

Depending on what is being procured, the time for the steps from “purchase” through “approve submittals” can take as long (or longer) as the time from “release for fabrication” through “deliver”.  The “8 weeks lead time” quoted by vendor could be 16 weeks or more from date of purchase. It will almost certainly be longer than 8 weeks from purchase.

For complicated, critical, or near critical items, we typically request lead time be quoted as “weeks to delivery from date of purchase including X weeks for required approvals” to get a clearer picture about total lead time for a purchase.  For non-critical items, we typically double the lead time quoted “after approval” for planning purposes.

If you plan your project using the wrong “lead time”,  the outcome won’t be good. Ask a question or two about lead time when you’re reviewing quotes – it could save time, money, and a lot of frustration.

 

 

We were in the lobby of a major client waiting for a meeting when the CEO of the company happened to come through on his way in.  Having met previously, we nodded in greeting and got a return nod.

Two others waiting in the lobby recognized him, stood to introduce themselves, and got probably 2 minutes of unexpected face time with the CEO.  Valuable time they proceeded to waste.

The younger (35 or so) of the two was on his smart phone the entire time and never made eye contact even while shaking hands.  Neither did he speak the entire time that we could tell.  The older of the two tried to salvage the opportunity by gradually moving to where his younger colleague was out of view of the CEO. But we think the first impression was already made.

What would your reaction be if that had been your employee?  Face to face communications is the most valuable interaction you have with a client. Wasting it by failing to focus on the people in the room with you is rude.  Rude is bad for business.

Some meetings seem to be gatherings where people are in the same room at the same time and mostly distracted from the meeting’s purpose by the electronic devices they bring along.  No wonder so many meetings seem to be a waste of time. Turn your cell phone off (or better yet, leave it somewhere else) when in a meeting.  Playing with it in your lap fools no one.  And that computer you might need? Keep it closed until you really do need it.

 

Construction contracts are typically tedious, detailed things attempting to address all conceivable legal issues that may arise in the course of a project. With large contract values and a complex effort, these complicated contracts probably make sense.

But it seems all the attention to fine tuning the wording and working out the “mutually acceptable terms and conditions” for the various legal and financial issues can distract from what the contract should focus on.

During a particularly tedious contract negotiating session where every word was being parsed; we, in jest, proposed scrapping the entire proposed agreement and substituting the following:

“We, _______(contractor) promise to do what we’re supposed to do, how we’re supposed to do it, when we’re supposed to do it and you ____ (owner) promise to pay us $____”

While this brought some much needed levity to an effort we eventually successfully concluded, we do think it gets to the point of any agreement.

1.  “What you’re supposed to do” is the scope of work covered by the agreement.   It’s rare for contract drawings and specifications to fully and clearly define the scope of work included in the agreement so details and clarifications are important.

2.  “How you’re supposed to do it” are the means and methods to achieve the desired results.  Plans and specifications go a long way towards clarifying this, as do applicable industry standards, but sometimes “how you do it” is as important as “what” and needs to be clearly stated.

3.  “When you’re supposed to do it” is the schedule for the work including any intermediate milestones or other dates important to the project’s success. By the way, scope to be completed for intermediate milestones needs to be well defined and frequently isn’t. If a part of a facility needs to be ready early for some reason, what does that mean and how well is “ready” defined?

4. “Promise to pay” defines the compensation for the work covered by the agreement.

Next time you’re reviewing or preparing a contract, take a step back and see if these 4 items are clear and complete.  If not, take the time to have a meeting of the minds on these items – there are a lot of potential grey areas that are better resolved now than later.  You’ll have a more successful project and probably won’t have rely on all those other parts of the agreement.