As quantity surveyors, DrawDown Partners, benefit from working on a large volume of varying projects across all industry sectors at any one time, and this allows us to observe the best (and worst) practices carried out on various developments.
Article written by Aron Dresden and Andrew Collier, DrawDown Partners for the Monark Minute.
Here are three practical steps we encourage to ensure you obtain value for money on your next project in these uncertain times.
1. Understand your likely construction cost before obtaining a price via a contractor.
If a formal offer has been provided by a contractor that does not meet your budget requirements and value management is required, then the subsequent potential value management offered by a contractor is likely to be less than the total value of the true cost. To avoid this:
- Engage a quantity surveyor to provide a cost plan before obtaining a price via a contractor.
- If there is a discrepancy in the cost plan compared to your budget requirements, allow yourself the opportunity to work with your quantity surveyor and design team to redesign your project to meet your budget expectation and to obtain full value for your changes.
2. Own your finishes, fixtures, and fittings schedules.
Do not be complacent with the finishes, fixtures, and fittings schedules. Find value for money by requesting suppliers to provide quotes for your finishes, fixtures and fittings schedules.
- To create a schedule, ask suppliers to provide a quote for a conforming and a non-conforming schedule. This will allow for an effective comparison of supply items and deeper insight into the items of potential savings. The non-conforming schedule should be similar to the original intent and vetted by the architect.
3. Conduct a competitive tender process with appropriate contractors.
A successful competitive tender process will create the environment required to reflect the correct market price for your project.
- To set up a tender, firstly compile a list of contractors suitable for your project.
- Exclude contractors that are not qualified for your project. A suitable contractor has; successfully completed projects of a similar size and nature to the standard you are looking to achieve, they have the current capacity to complete your project and they have a suitable project team.
- Agree on the suitable list of contractors.
- Then, conduct a tendering process to recruit a suitable contractor to obtain the correct market price (ensuring other factors are also considered such as programme and tender qualifications).
Article featured in The Monark Minute, written by Aron Dresden and Andrew Collier, DrawDown Partners.