Budget and schedule: two critical components that often define your project’s success. There are many approaches and tools to help you meet your budget and schedule, but one of the best is a constructability review. We’ve discussed the benefits of these reviews in previous posts (Four Tips for User Friendly and Maintainable Fish Facilities and Stop! Read This Before Replacing or Updating Your Hydro Turbines Part 1). In this installment I will discuss constructability review tips and how they can be used to defend your budget and schedule.

Issuing Notice to Proceed is exciting - you finally get to see your long-dreamed project take shape. But the first two weeks after Notice to Proceed can be fraught with project-delaying challenges if they sneak up on you. Last time I talked about the first pitfall that can arise after issuing Notice to Proceed: unanticipated or differing site conditions. In this post I’ll talk about the second: delayed contractor submittals.

After years of planning, designing, and permitting your project, you’re finally ready to begin construction and issue the Notice to Proceed (NTP). It’s a big moment. Then a week later you’re contacted by your inspector, who tells you the contractor has stopped working and is threatening to submit a Notice of Changed Conditions. You have very little time to get up to speed and decide on a course of action. What will you do?

When it comes time to start your construction project, you’re always faced with the same question: do we manage and inspect the construction with in-house staff, or do we outsource it to a third party? Each option has its benefits and drawbacks. I would like to revisit a blog post I wrote last year that offers some thoughts about situations where using a third party for construction management can lead to the greatest rewards for you as a project owner/operator.