Industry Perspective
This Quarter: Project Management & Construction Services
 |
Randy Boden
Senior Vice President / Senior Project Manager
The Somerville Project Management Process
To kick-off this quarterly e-news column, I would like to take a moment to introduce myself and offer a brief career background. I am the Senior Vice President and Senior Project Manager for Somerville, Inc. I started my tenure at Somerville in 1992, with previous employment at Black & Veatch Engineers in Kansas City and a short stint in Arkansas working for a small engineering firm that provided engineering and construction services for Alcoa Aluminum. My educational background is in Electrical Engineering with an emphasis in power design and construction practices.
I grew up in a small Nebraska town where I lived and worked on a crop and livestock farm until completing college. On the farm, I learned many life lessons and practical applications as well as the ability to create, modify, and build something out of nothing. I am also proud to say that I served in the Army and the Army National Guard as a squad leader in an infantry unit. My education, practical experience and leadership roles have helped me to look at any given situation, analyze its flow and efficiency, resolve conflicts where applicable, and develop short and long-term solutions; I guess that describes project management.
After being the supervisor of Somerville's Electrical Engineering department for a number of years, I was given the opportunity to become the supervisor of the Project and Construction Management department. I started by looking at our present processes and explored the question, how can Somerville better serve our clients by making the design process more efficient for both the client and our company? With open ears and an open mind, I began to gather feedback from internal staff, our consultants, our business partners, our current clients, and even our competitors. As leader of this department I wanted to know what worked well, where challenges lie, and where the industry as a whole fell short. We can only get better, as I'm committed to upholding the Somerville reputation while evolving this department as client need dictates.
The following information pertains to the services available through Somerville's Project and Construction Management department. We'd like you to consider us a resource in this arena. If you have questions or need direction, we are here to help along the way.
Project Management (PM) is a widely used buzzword. We believe that PM is much more than being reactive to a situation; it is also the process of being proactive by anticipating a situation that may arise and communicating it properly to resolve the issue in a timely manner. Our Project Managers are involved in the first steps of the project to include the project interviews and planning stage. Because of this, we have consistency from planning through construction to project close out. With the PM integrated in the planning and design stage, constant checks and balances for the budget and schedule are maintained throughout the project As the planning team reviews different design alternatives, the PM assists the team in exploring those options and evaluates the associated financial effects and possible impact on design and cost of construction. The PM, as a common denominator, improves the lines of communication between the team members and Owner, and insures that the proper resources are available. This helps the team focus on the task at hand – of planning and designing your project.
On site Construction administration (CA) of the project becomes easier to manage because the PM was involved in the design decisions. If questions arise during construction, the reasoning behind the design is known, which expedites and simplifies the solution. Thorough planning translates into a smoother run project during construction, which results in less change orders and a satisfied owner. Since our PM process is seamless, it allows us to provide additional services during the CA process. We can offer the CA services as described by a typical AIA contract (approximately once every two weeks) or can expand to once every week or even full time on-site representation. Many other companies offer a similar service and call it Construction Management (CM) services. Unlike a CM, our PM is involved from day one with the design team which provides us efficiencies that lead to rates lower than the typical CM fees for the same level of service.
Somerville also offers another delivery method, Design Build (DB). I described above, the programming phase of the project, where we identify your needs, wants, scope, budget and schedule. Our DB process is an extension of this step and provides a complete delivery method that insures your project budget is driven by your needs rather than your needs being driven by the budget. Our DB team will provide a guaranteed maximum price (GMP) with the assistance of Somerville’s full service architectural and engineering design team while enlisting qualified, reputable contractors as our teammates. By involving the contractors early in the design process, we control costs and design details during the design phase of the project rather than waiting until the bids are received and then having to go back to value engineer (VE) cost out of the project. VE can be very time consuming and an undesirable process. And, by having the contractors work for us, we have the financial clout and can make certain the Owner's design is not compromised by cheapened products or value reducing decisions.
As you can see, our PM process is very detailed, thorough, yet completely customizable. As a firm, we invest time and energy into this service because it sets us apart from our competition and insures the quality you would expect from Somerville. Again, consider us a resource for your Project and Construction Management questions. If you have any questions, feel free to give me a call or send an email, I would be happy to sit down and discuss how our process can help to make your next project a success.
Respectfully,
Randy Boden
rboden@somervilleinc.com
In our next issue:
On the Job as a Project Manager, Somerville work in progress