While White Construction has a Project Management Methodology dealing with all phases of construction, detailed later in this section, we feel very strongly about the importance of proactive pre-construction management in conjunction with strong project team interaction throughout the process. Wise use of this time by the total project team will provide a more accurate budget and minimize problems incurred during construction. To that end we will focus on several key areas once we become part of the project team.
Interaction and consensus building are essential to successful planning, design, and construction. Our team philosophy and project management process centers around communication. By promoting communication, we promote understanding, consensus and innovation. An assigned Project Manager or Administrator will serve as facilitator to promote team communication.
Initial meetings will promote interaction among all team members to identify project goals, parameters and constraints. This will allow us to solidify and prioritize project goals, identify critical concerns, review project planning, and establish the framework for future decision making.
Knowing the importance of the finances and timing, we will immediately begin to prepare a design development estimate to validate the project budget. Concurrently with the estimate, we will perform a value engineering study to determine whether there are more cost/time effective construction materials/methods that can be incorporated in the project. This is a particular area of strength for our Chief Estimator. The design development estimate and constructability review will be forwarded to the Customer & Architect for review and approval to avoid delays and allow changes to be incorporated into construction documents.
Scheduling is vital to every project, and not just construction activities. Document preparation by the Architect dictates the timing of estimates; the bid and award process and permit submissions. Fabrication times for items determine field progress. With this in mind, while we are preparing the design development estimate and performing the constructability review, we will be meeting with appropriate team members to update and expand the pre-construction section of the Master Project Schedule. The Master Project Schedule will become the “Project Plan”, a document available to all team members that outlines all of the major activities and milestones associated with the project.
Equally important to creating the schedule is communicating responsibilities and associated dates to the project team. This will be accomplished through regular coordination meetings, with minutes taken and action items listed. There will be no confusion as to which team member is responsible for what items and when they are to be completed.
Another key to the effective completion of the pre-construction phase is the preparation of subcontractor and vendor bid packages. The more detailed and specific the bid package, the more complete the bid will be, thus avoiding costly surprises during construction. White Construction prides itself in the thoroughness of our bid documents.
