Assembling A Collaborative Team - Other - Page 25
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The effect of cost
Determining and fixing the cost of a project continues to remain the most
challenging aspect of any project. Most clients are likely to have a fixed Project
Budget. Traditional forms of tendering commonly use a ‘contingency fund’
to help to ensure that the building is delivered on budget but, even with this
allowance, this result cannot be guaranteed. Design and build forms of contract
will deliver cost and programme certainty; however, residual design and
specification decisions that affect the quality of the finished building may
be made by the contractor without reference to the client.
Traditional and one-stage design and build tenders may be returned over
budget, requiring ‘value engineering’ to be undertaken in order to fine tune
the design to fit the client’s available Project Budget. This takes time and may
compromise the initial design solution. By involving the contractor earlier, the
contractor’s supply chain can be involved in the design process at an earlier
stage, unlocking innovation before the design progresses too far and certain
design decision are ‘fixed’ or too difficult to change. However, two-stage design
and build forms of procurement are statistically more expensive per square
metre than one-stage forms, and contractor-led procurement means that the
client is one step removed from the designers from the outset.
These examples underline the fact that both traditional projects and contractorled projects, provided they are well managed, can result in the right outcomes
for clients. A client therefore needs to consider the pros and cons of different
procurement routes at the outset, along with the specific risks associated with
the intended project, brief and site in order to select the most appropriate route
in the circumstances.
The biggest challenge for any project team is devising a procurement strategy
that will allow the design team and the contractor’s designers (the specialist
subcontractors) to engage earlier while allowing a fixed lump sum, or maximum
cost, to be agreed between the client and the contractor before the design
progresses too far.
The increased importance of specialist subcontractors
Regardless of the form of procurement used, specialist subcontractors now play
a greater role in the design phases of a project. Contractor design work allows
the skills of these designers to be harnessed by permitting the design team to
design in a descriptive manner, enabling the specialist supply chain to unlock
innovation or an individual specialist to propose a unique technical solution.
Whether specialist subcontractors are used to drive down costs or to bring their
unique technical capabilities to a project, the scope of their involvement must be
clearly defined early on. This issue is covered in greater detail on page 69 where
the purpose of the Design Responsibility Matrix is considered.
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