Friday, 8 February 2013

CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT: MISUNDERSTOOD OR JUST OVERLOOKED?

CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT

Construction Management is the process of organizing and directing men, materials and equipment to accomplish the purpose of the designer. A special management service performed for the purpose of coordination and accomplishment of project planning, design and construction. It is a very old but untapped service that can save time, frustration and help control building costs.

Usually there are three parts of a building team, the General Contractor, the Architect/Engineer, and the Owner.

Another part of the building team that seems to be overlooked by the Home Owner and Small Business Owner is the "Construction Manager".

The Construction Manager is usually under special agreement with the owner. However, architects sometimes offer construction management services under separate and special agreements. Construction Management is not part of the architect's and engineer's basis services, but is an additional service sometimes included in their comprehensive services.

Construction Management is often practiced on extremely large building projects. One of the reasons construction management is used on larger projects is to permit the construction process to start while the design is still progressing which allows the construction manager to recommend construction options for better project and cost control and to allow the building project to be phased over a period of time.

These same construction management techniques are also available to home owners and small business owners for smaller projects.

Construction Management gives the owner the opportunity to act as owner builder (where the owner obtains his own building permit) instead of contracting with a General Contractor. The professional Construction Manager can assist the owner in obtaining bids from licensed and properly insured subcontractors and material men. The owner signs separate contracts for the construction of the various portions of the project thus saving the General Contractors markup on the separate contract prices. These savings can be substantial on the average project. The trade off, however, is that the owner signs separate contracts instead of having a single contract with a General Contractor. The separate contracts are often broken into the following phases:

1. General Construction
2. Plumbing
3. Heating (Ventilating, Air Conditioning)
4. Electrical
5. Sewage Disposal (if applicable)
6. Elevators (if applicable)
7. Specialties
8. Other

The Construction Manager will then assist the owner in overseeing and supervising the building project based on a predetermined scope of services and written agreement between the Construction Manager and property owner.

W. Gary Westernoff - Founder and CEO of Constructionplace.com

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