A Public Works Budget in Trouble
The Problem
The project concerned a community center originally built in the early 80's faced with a decision: to refresh or to restart? Rather than rebuilding, the owner decided to modernize by expanding the facility by approximately 5,000 sq. ft. A circular concrete courtyard and half basketball court between the facility and the existing playground completed the upgrades. However, the project was already $2 million over its original $3.2 million budget and far from completion, raising concerns from the city.
The Solution
Pete Fowler Construction was hired by the city's Department of Public Works to assess the reasonableness of the costs and delays. Our investigation began by collecting a tremendous amount of documents from the project, indexing and organizing schedules of values, plans, and change orders before conducting an on-site investigation to document the current condition of the project. In addition to the inevitable concealed conditions that should be expected in a 30 year old structure, the decision to modernize and expand versus replacement of the structure was an expensive one. While our investigation was not intentionally looking for potential construction defects, our expert observed concerning conditions to the exterior building wall weatherization. Further, our analysis of the project documents found that the plans contained many errors, with some sheets having as many as 14 revisions. The poor coordination of the various specialty designers contributed to the project's increased costs and time. Additionally, several changes were directed by the owners after construction began that significantly contributed to the budget and schedule deficit. We compiled our findings into a comprehensive report, which includes a number of recommendations for future work. Of these, the most critical is to update the city's policies to ensure that designs are complete and accurate prior to being tendered to bidders. We strongly recommended the city consider engaging the services of a quality management consultant, such as a Lean Six Sigma professional. For an example of best practices in this area, we invite readers to explore our article on the DBSKCVTM Construction Management Method, which we believe would be an excellent model for the city to follow.