will assume the following specific responsibilities:
- Initiate and moderate regularly convened meetings with the owner and the consultants. Minutes will be published in the form of an on going action log.
- Define client’s current program. Establish new needs and goals that are the target of the current undertaking. Assist client in establishing a priority of goals that will be used to guide the cost/benefit segment of the design process.
- Develop a prospective listing of potential design professionals to be considered for the project.
- Develop a request for proposal for each of the design disciplines. This will be utilized in soliciting pricing for the various components of the project.
- Manage the interview process for potential design consultants in all disciplines that make up the design team.
- Assist the client in contractually engaging the design professionals. Provide management of the design contracts thereafter.
- Provide coordination of design professionals to maximize complimentary efficiency of the design process.
- Develop a request for proposal for the prospective general contractors. Oversee the initial RFP stage of general contractor selection.
- Manage the interview process of potential general contractors being considered for negotiation or bidding.
- Coordinate the bidding/budgeting process between the design professionals and contractors.
- Provide ongoing constructability review of the construction documents. Provide guidance to the design team concerning the best and most cost effective means of achieving the design goals of the project.
- When called upon by the design team, provide pricing feedback concerning design options they are considering.
- Coordinate and monitor the plan check process occurring between the design team and the governing agencies having entitlement authority over the project.
- Develop a pre-construction schedule that defines design, approval, entitlement, and budgeting milestones. Periodically update the schedule and monitor adherence by all parties to the design process. Alert any member of the design team that falls out of compliance with the schedule and assist them to develop a schedule recovery strategy.
- Review emerging design documents on a continuing basis to assess value and selective options. Verify compatibility of drawings and specifications between the various design disciplines (i.e. structural compatibility with mechanical design) and acoustical requirements.
- Establish and maintain a library of documents carefully identified by “issue”. This tracking set will ultimately be used as the basis for the “stick set” that is discussed in greater detail under the document management section.
- Identify long lead items and monitor placement of approved orders for such equipment and services as necessary to assure the orderly progress of the work on the site.
- Produce a purchasing schedule depicting the procurement program (invitations, bid intervals, award, lead time, etc.).
- Develop cash flow charts and forecasts as requested by the owner for their own use or as part of their negotiations with lending institutions.
- recognizes that the process is the joint responsibility of the entire team and not just the effort of one participant or outside entity.
Contract Awards
- will review proposed subcontract agreements to insure the owner’s interests are properly protected. We will provide oversight of subcontract provisions to insure inclusion of all appropriate qualifications to minimize later change order disputes.
- Subcontract awards will be monitored via a tracking system that will provide a continuous status of portion of project awarded and budget compliance. Inquiries will be made when the award process is not in adherence to the pre-construction milestones that have been established.
- Contractor quotes will be reviewed for completeness and pricing consistent with industry trends and type of work. Our emphasis will be upon insuring that the proposals come from the contractors who are most capable of producing a timely, cost effective product. The composition of our recommendation lists often varies depending upon the timing of the work and the current market conditions.
- Any qualifications and/or exclusions put forth in general contract proposals will be investigated to determine if an adjustment in the proposal is necessary to protect the owner’s position in the final construction contract. It is essential that no points of leverage be left embedded in the contract qualification that will be later used by the contractor against the owner when the relationship goes through the more strenuous stages.
- For guaranteed maximum contracts, bid tabulations are reviewed for completeness and exhibition of the components to fulfill the project parameters. Any possible errors or omissions will be brought to the attention of the contractor with a request to revise and resubmit the bid tabulation. Amounts provided on bid tabulations will be checked against the G-Max documents. Any savings will be identified and noted on the project cost tracking sheet. Any overages will be cause for further investigation into the underlying cause. A recommendation as to methods to mitigate cost overruns will be provided after each such occurrence.
- Contract bonds are reviewed for appropriate coverage before being recommended to the owner and lender for acceptance.
Cost Estimating
- Unit prices and contractor input shape early budgets. The use of historical costs decrease as the process moves toward the final working drawings. However, our data base of historical costs is continually referenced as a check and balance against the detailed estimate. Our historical references help point out areas where the client might be paying a premium because of design or market conditions. In these instances, alternatives will be suggested in an effort to meet budget goals.
- During the later design phase, develops a detailed cost breakdown that is more precisely representative of the construction technology and sequencing that has been refined during the design/constructability studies. With each iteration of the design development drawings, the detailed cost breakdown is updated. Again, this is used as a cross-check against the budgeting provided by all contractors participating in the pre-construction process.
- All design decisions are analyzed for potential impact on the construction budget. Significant budget shifts are noted to enable the design team to revisit recent changes if the resultant shift in cost is determined not to be a good economic choice.
- The budget is used as a cross check to those provided by the contractors or design team. Large variances are discussed to mitigate large adjustments that may become necessary in the establishment of the final budget later.
- Provide comparative cost studies and life cycle cost benefit analysis.