Construction Consulting
Construction Project Management
Construction consulting is the offering of advice and expertise to help developers and investors of real estate projects to achieve their project goals.
What is Construction Consulting?
Construction consulting is the offering of advice and expertise to developers and investors of real estate projects.
The projects often include such things as:
- Apartments
- Offices
- Condominiums
- Industrial Centers
- Retail Centers
Consultants offer their guidance to developers and investors to help them improve performance in terms of operations, profitability, management, structure, strategy and quality. Consultants are used throughout the entire development process including the concept/initiation, feasibility, design, procurement, construction and post construction. Typical primary construction consultants on a project may include:
- An Owner’s Representative
- Architect
- General Contractor
- Cost Consultant
- Structural Engineer
What do Construction Consultants do?
Construction consultants advise. They pull from their niche experience, industry understanding, and problem solving abilities to offer valuable advice to developers and investors of real estate projects.
They offer strategic and tactical advice. They offer “do-it-for you” services. Very basically, construction consultants help clients make sound preparations for their upcoming projects and ensure that contractors complete the project on cost. They provide cost estimates, draw budgets, select contractors, administer contracts, and resolve differences between contractors and project owners.
Scope of Services
Below are a list of services construction consultants perform at various stages in the development process:
Concept/Initiation
- Establish goals, objectives, scope of project
- Team assembly / staff augmentation
- Work with developer’s team to fill in gaps
- Procure data to make grounded assessments (Financial, Governmental, Environmental, Developmental, Operational)
- Land assembly if needed
Feasibility
- Assist in analysis/performance of due diligence
- Market/traffic/environmental studies
- Create pro formas, cash flow analysis
- Assist in financing/equity development
- Provide conceptual budgets
Design
- Selection of team
- Design review
- Constructability reviews
- Building system analysis
- Value engineering recommendations/cost assessments, risk management assessments, material escalation analysis,
- ighter cost estimating
Procurement
- Land acquisition
- Bid phase management
- Contract review and procurement
- Securing permits, government approvals
- Pricing /actual budgets/prelim scheduling
- Cost estimating & evaluation
- Risk assessments, quantity takeoffs, materials pricing,
- Community outreach
- Materials
Construction
- Scheduling – critical path, schedule delay analysis, construction project acceleration, “what if” scenarios, alternate path
- Control systems – monitor budgets/costs
- Change order analysis – material and labor cost development and assessment
- Dispute avoidance
- Inspections/quality assurance
- Value engineering\
- On-time on budget analysis
- Productivity services – benchmarking, material and labor cost analysis, material waste and rework analysis, controls
- Development of earned value measurements
- Budgeted cost of work scheduled
- Budgeted cost of work performed
- Cost variance
- Cost performance index
Post-construction
-
Contract fulfillment
-
Warranty
-
Forensic work if needed
-
Operational quality assurance
-
Completing the project – certificate of occupancy
-
Claims pricing and evaluation
Why do I need a Construction Consultant?
There are so many actions required to complete a real estate project that it would be impossible for one person or one development company to acquire the expertise needed to finish one successfully.
Construction consultants are needed to provide gaps in knowledge and performance required to achieve a profitable project. They help reduce risk, make sure that each part of a project is completed to the highest and best construction standards. They accelerate timelines, assure quality and help investors achieve good rates of return on their investment.
Common Questions
What are some of the types of Construction Consultants?
- Architect
- Owner’s Representative
- General Contractor
- Structural Engineer
- Land Planner
- Cost Consultant
Other consultants who might be required on some projects include:
- Owner’s Representatives
- Architects
- Land Surveyors
- Geo-Tech Engineer
- Structural Engineer
- Mechanical Engineer
- Electrical Engineers
- Building Surveyors
- Energy Rater
- Access consultant
- Acoustic consultant
- Archaeologist.
- Business management consultant
- Environmentalist.
- Client design adviser
- Civil engineer
- Construction manager
- Attorney
- Ecologist
- BIM adviser
- Environmental consultant
- Facilities manager
- Fire engineering consultant
- Furniture, fixtures and equipment (FF&E) consultant
- Health and safety consultant
- Information and communications technology (ICT) consultant
- Interior designer
- Landscape architect
- Land planner
- Local consultants with specialist knowledge of local procedure/culture
- Lighting designer
- Management contractor
- Master planner
- Party wall surveyor
- Planning consultant
- Public health consultant
- Rights of light surveyor
- Security consultant
- Site inspector
- Structural waterproofing consultant
- Transport/traffic engineer
What skills make for a good construction consultant?
Construction consultants are professionals appointed by the developer or investors to perform expert tasks on a project. The qualities that make up a good construction consultant include:
Professionalism – always representing the needs of developers and owners
Time Management – maintaining quality in tight time frames
Team Player – a genuine willingness to work and learn and move with other team members
Good Communication Skills – both written and oral skills to coordinate and cooperate with team members
Judgment – ability to do what is best when problems arise. Be responsive and seek first to understand.
Expert Knowledge – of the tasks that they are contracted to perform. They must have a solid track record of success. Lots of highly valued accomplishments. Do they have a great reputation?
Good Listening Skills – they must open-up team members to speak what is really on their minds. Must be able to ask good questions and engage team members.
Know Their Role and How it Impacts Others – not only do they have to be experts or masters at what they do, they must also know how their role affects other team members, budgets and the schedule.
Ask your own question.
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