Cost visibilty and transparency promotes a culture of collaboration and informed decision-making and can ensure greater efficiency across the facilities management and AECOO sectors.
Cost visibilty and transparency promotes a culture of collaboration and informed decision-making and can ensure greater efficiency across the facilities management and AECOO sectors.
Improving construction cost estimating requires collaboration, transparency, and a robust process. An essential aspect is sharing objective, local market, granular labor, material, and equipment costs. Relying solely on contractor or subcontractor costs, especially lump sums without collaborating on a detailed Scope of Work (SOW), will not lead to verifiable construction costs.
To efficiently share cost information, organize data in a standard architecture, such as expanded CSI MasterFormat, and use industry standard terms, definitions, and units of measure. Collaboration in the above manner allows disparate groups, including owners, A/E’s, builders, and procurement professionals, to focus on common goals.
Collaboration involves both giving and receiving help. It’s essential to remember that the process must include direct owner involvement. The excessive use of “consultants” will not enable an environment of true owner and design/builder collaboration that is mandatory for optimization of outcomes. Maintaining alignment among team members is challenging but essential.
4BT.us offers a useful resource for objective, verifiable, and current local market unit price books to help improve construction cost estimating. Check it out!
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