Value Engineering & constructability reviews

Oftentimes people talk about the old ways, almost always with a fond memory of how simple things in the utility industry were....the days when most problems were resolved in the field and the timecards were delivered back to the office and as time went on either relayed by phone or faxed in to the office. 

As time went on the need for a never ending amount of reporting in the name of efficiency began. Utility project managers would now be required to spend more time in AssetSuite, Redwave, Unifier, WMIS, Primavera, Project view, Passport, Taulia and a host of other programs relating to managing budgets, material and personnel.  In some contractor companies the same requirements would also spring into place, leading to both parties of management seeking project managers and even construction managers with bachelors degree's over those with the traditional field experience.

For a time, construction management teams held the line at most utilities. At some utilities that were bought up or acquired through mergers, many employee's left those utlities in droves and those that remained were found in a diminished role more akin to an observer or firefighter. 

At the same time, a demanding labor market market brought about a reduction in tenure for employee's at most utilities. Following this, employee's were taught to rapidly change positions every couple years to ensure their skillset was broad enough to justify a future move into a management role. With those changes the organizations institutional knowledge eroded away to a fair degree. 

What did this mean? 

To a contractor it meant that picking up material was a shot in the dark, it meant that over time sourcing (instead of correcting the error) would add notes to the contract stating the contractor should be prepared to take as many trips to pick up the material as necessary. It meant that duct bank designs would have multiple conduits stacked to the fill level, while others sat empty. It meant underground vaults (out of stock) would be replaced by fiber pullboxes to meet in service dates. It meant that material that could not be filled would result in the cancellation of an MR so a storeroom could claim they met their K.P.I.'s. It also meant the product substitution became the norm and cost overruns became more frequent. It meant that subsurface engineering and a good job walkdown would be rushed if done at all.

Even today on large infrastructure projects, the mandatory pre-bid call consists of having an engineer or project manager read directly off the project document relating word for the word the scoping document without addressing the project risks, constraints and underlying issues. 

Overtime, such changes have resulted in work stoppages as projects grind to halt due to lack of material, coordination or even worse unconstructable designs. One project I was on involved a river crossing which had a 10'x50' drilled pier foundation in the marsh at the end of a 200' access road that once scaled was only 11' wide. Which meant any work with a crane would not possible because expanding the tracks or using outriggers was out of the question. I had the good fortune of explaining to the utility that the design did not meet the implied warranty of constructability, because it could not be accomplished with conventional construction methods and the only two cranes in the country that could drive a caisson at this distance were booked for many months.  

Later down the road, many projects were being released where access was still not planned out. In addition, the drawings would be missing bisects, phasing, existing splice locations,  dewatering permits and even property rights. 

Another recent pole installation project saw the request of a rock drill to break through an obstruction although the request was shortlived when the work crews onsite utilized a softdig to locate a concreted in place gas transmission pipeline that had been missed on the project design (required to be mapped) and by the utility locators.

Over time the frustration of encountering these obstacles leads contractors with increased costs to increase their price because it is known that "something" is going to come at their expense. At SLE, we hope to change that and fix the project design, schedule of values and bid documents so that each bid is a seamless process, limiting the questions from bidders as the unknowns become fewer through well documented progressive elaboration.

In some industries value engineering is performed by a third party and they have a voice in saying what appears to be unneccessary to meet the design criteria or in this case place into service. In the current time, we look to seasoned field hands to walk down and prove a project is "constructable" without asking the questions related to cost control and schedule. It's time for this to change and when we align the spend and schedule, more projects can be performed in a shorter timeframe at a lower cost along with the reduction in SAIFI and SAIDI numbers.

Overall, our primary focus is supporting projects in the early stages of design and working them through the startup phase. We are looking to partner to build projects that are both constructable and provide cost savings to the utility and contractor alike.