Pennies, Nickels, and Dimes

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Author Message Ralph Liebing, RA, CSI, CDT Senior Member Username: rliebing Post Number: 1443 Registered: 02-2003 Posted on Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - 09:14 am:    131030 PENNIES, NICKELS, AND DIMES by Ralph Liebing, RA, CSI, CDT Cincinnati, Ohio Pennies, nickels and dimes, left in the pocket often beget large written checks payments beyond contingencies. Why? Who’s at fault? Quite often we, as specifiers and designers, run into clients who are erroneously determined to minimize the essentials of projects-- i.e., programming, drawings, and specifications. The shortsightedness of this effort is usually the work of uninformed corporate officials or more often by corporate operatives such as plant engineers, maintenance personnel, or others bedeviled by the bean-counters who oversee projects-- projects, incidentally, that they have no understanding of. What to do? First, understand this issue may come up at any time-- so anticipate it and know how you will address it, and hopefully where the solution lies. There is something behind the issue that we must identify and reverse! Second, the contract documents contain a good deal of information about the project. Specifications enhance drawings, and provide the legal context of both. There is always a chance that some issue or another will require some legal solution. Without proper coverage in the contract documents these situations can become quite messy, costly and irritating to the point of a rupture in the future relationship between parties-- a most unfortunate situation. Third, often clients, especially large corporations “insist” on the use of their standards as the specifications. These documents may be needlessly overly detailed without due cause, and also faulty old, outdated, full of obsolete methods and products, out of production materials, and other faults that will complicate current construction. Also, use of these documents will add cost to the project by virtue of the process noted above-- a situation no client will tolerate! The crux of this situation is that we do not talk enough to our clients. In fact, it is a good idea to talk, concurrently on two tracks-- one regarding project programming and the other the documentation. We need them on board, and understanding the flaws in some of their ideas [where they exist or are mentioned]. This needs to be an aggressive approach on our part, early on, so nothing becomes entangled later. Some clients may be tough so then we only advise them [perhaps in writing] of the hazards that may occur if their desires are met. Certainly we do not want a court case, later, where we have to defend our actions-- but the documentation of our action comes quite handy in such situations. We simply must talk more to our clients. We must defuse unrealistic expectations as well as false impressions the clients have about their standards, documents and our products. We may not change our fees [pennies, nickels, and dimes for sure] but we will better serve our clients, and produce their projects in a better way both as construction and as work done without need for lawsuit and disappointment! Overall cost reduction should result from wise choices and careful pricing in current markets. Penny for your thoughts! This country needs a good five-cent nickel! That’s my dime’s worth! Chris Grimm, CSI, CCS, SCIPa, LEED AP BD+C, MAI, RLA Senior Member Username: tsugaguy Post Number: 307 Registered: 06-2005 Posted on Sunday, December 08, 2013 - 05:56 pm:    problem is when an organization's desires, expressed in their standards, are written as needles in the haystacks of lengthy documents not always well compiled in the first place. becomes too challenging for the organizations themselves to maintain. (well I suppose the opposite would be worse: http://www.sefruan.com/spongebob/s2/013.html - start watching at 5 minutes 39 seconds) a five cent nickel is right on the money here - for standards that do not necessitate a full length document to express them, capture just enough of the context to show what the standard is about (nothing more than a UniFormat or MasterFormat number if possible) and then just say it as concisely as possible. and how about clearly, correctly, completely as well. if the requirements can only be stated in full documents, i.e. if much technical wordsmithing or full document origination is unavoidable, then it is imperative to budget for ongoing research and document maintenance. face it, the business of construction, building materials, and standards are extremely dynamic, ever changing. if no such budget is possible, then the standards would be better off as a few needles in a pincushion, not in a haystack. you never need to do another thing with them, unless they become out of date through some unusual circumstance.