When you begin any project, cost control is required in order to maintain your timeline and keep your project on budget. While your project featured an estimate, in many cases an estimate is just that and will change before the project’s completion. During a build out, a number of factors – weather, labor shortages, delivery schedules, accidents, increasing costs, and more – simply cannot be predicted. Both the projected estimate and the projected timeline may change as a result, but when the proper cost controls are in place, your project can be controlled, remaining on budget and schedule to completion.
Doing so, means hiring an experienced general contractor like the members of the team at Perillo Construction who work diligently taking charge of cost control systems, progress estimates, while delivering premium management to your project. The cost control system gives the project manager oversight and analysis ensuring equipment performance, worker productivity, and budget guidelines are maintained and controlled throughout your project.
Meetings Ensure Progress
Each buildout project should begin with job meetings which keep everyone on the project in the loop. Attendance by representatives from all areas of the project should be in attendance to discuss setbacks which may have occurred and challenges going forward. A single problem left unattended is detrimental to both budget and schedule. Everyone on the project should be provided with sufficient notice to make arrangements to attend. The project’s general contractor should provide a meeting schedule before the project begins and deliver it to all who will be required to attend.
Each of these mandatory meeting should include the following individuals or their representatives:
- Owner
- General Contractor
- Architect
- Subcontractors
- Suppliers
- Equipment operators or renters
These meetings are different depending on the project, but in most cases the general topics will include day to day progress, the number of workers assigned to each unique job area, their productivity and potential overtime, delays which need to be addressed, material and equipment delivery schedules and any delays, material shortages and order timelines, and progress estimates. Without these meetings and subsequent discussions, a project can spiral out of control and go over budget, before any action is taken. When this happens, inappropriate shortcuts may be taken which could be avoided when budget or efficiency concerns are brought to everyone’s attention early on. Doing so means creating solutions that won’t interfere with budget, scope of the work, or timeline.
Maintaining the Bottom Line
Every project features traditional bookkeeping – accounts payable, accounts receivable, taxes, payroll, and other financial accounts – but cost control and progress estimates takes the process further. Traditional bookkeeping keeps a tally, cost control and progress estimates require all parties – general contractor, owner, architect, subcontractors, suppliers, and purchasing personnel – to provide timely input and ongoing cooperation in regard to costs and schedules. To effectively control cost requires progress estimates including regular meetings with all job team members to discuss challenges and identify solutions, a superintendent who collects and analyzes date throughout the project, progress reports analyzing productivity and speed of the project’s milestones to ensure the project is on track, and ongoing analysis of expenses for comparison with project estimates. In addition, the designated project supervisor should see that these reports are filed properly on at least a weekly basis to ensure the project estimates, both budgets and timelines, are adhered to and can be referenced as needed.
The professional team at Perillo Construction applies these principals and more to ensure each and every buildout project is performed with the highest quality and is completed on time and on budget.