Team Construct
The Team Construct method of contracting is a collaborative process aligning the Architect, Engineer, Construction Manager or General Contractor, and the Mechanical and Electrical Contractors with the Owner to accomplish their objectives in a non-adversarial manner. This process allows the team to focus clearly on all the Owner's important objectives and achieve the best end value for their capital investment. It involves a combination of engineering peer review, constructability review, utilization of cost effective materials and methods, cost effective routing of the mechanical systems, aggressive construction scheduling, value engineering, and consideration for life-cycle costs. This is all accomplished by the team members contributing openly and up-front, towards the project’s best interest.
To be most effective, the Team Construct process generally starts during the pre-construction schematic design or design development phase of a project. This early involvement is critical in that it allows trade, design and constructability input to be directly incorporated in the construction documents, getting it right on paper before construction starts. This saves time and avoids costly changes during construction. It also optimizes the project scope to assure system performance.
Another benefit of the Team Construct process is that early in the project,
Limbach will provide an aggressive Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) for
the mechanical work. This allows the customer to more accurately predict
the final end cost of the project. The GMP is frequently updated to
assist the entire team in evaluating cost savings that are recommended
during the process or scope additions desired by the Owner. The GMP is
administered as an “Open Book” project where we share our internal
accounting reports with the customer. All cost savings are returned to the
customer.
The Team concept carries over into the purchasing of major equipment and subcontracts. Limbach encourages participation of the Engineer, along with the Construction Manager and Owner, to make sure the best “End Value” is also achieved in the purchasing process.
Limbach has provided our customers the Team Construct approach to mechanical contracting for over 25 years. We have put in place over $500,000,000 of mechanical work on many successful, signature projects during this time period. Some of the key benefits we have seen demonstrated over this period are:
- Engineering peer review, eliminating problems and saving costs.
- Constructability reviews, solving problems upfront and reducing costly RFI’s and delays.
- Early planning input, improving schedule and efficiency.
- Value engineering decisions being incorporated before impacting other trades.
- Maintaining budget control – eliminating “scope creep”.
- Elimination of claims and surprise end of project change order requests.