THE BENEFITS OF COLLABORATING WITH KEY SUBCONTRACTORS (GOOD STORY)

Answer this question honestly…..

Do you regularly take the cheapest tender/subcontract price, and hope that you can manage your way through the risk?

The temptation is always to take the cheapest price – then roll the dice and back yourself.  Is this a good idea when dealing with foundations and ground risk? Where there are so many variables at play, and most of them out of your control?  Once you’ve mobilised to site change becomes very slow and very very costly!

This is can be an even bigger risk in a tender scenario.  Each tenderer is trying to lower their price to win by tagging out of more and more risk items – effectively passing them on to the Client.

So why not involve a trusted and reliable specialist at an Early Contractor Involvement stage?  You may actually find it’s a “hedged bet” – where they can help you identify opportunities to save you money and identify the actual risks and putting mechanisms in place to prevent costs spiralling out skyward.

Good Story – The Opportunity

Piletech recently helped a prominent NZ Main Contractor who was engaged in an ECI project of their own. This Main Contractor advised their Client – “We want to bring Piletech on board now – to work with your designers”.

The results were huge, and here is a glimpse of the key Value Adds (or Customer Value Propositions) that Piletech have delivered through our early involvement:

• Local Experience: It counts for something when you’ve done jobs next door, and worked with the local designers and councils!
• Efficient Design WITH an Efficient Price:
  • Piletech’s inhouse designers understand the relationship between the geotechnical and the structural components to optimise design, and minimise the risk.
  • Our designers work closely with our estimators to check what gives the best price, and revise if necessary.
  • Knowing when to load test, and when it’s a waste of your clients’ money!
  • Advising what site investigations should be done to ensure the right design is chosen.
• Prompt PS1’s & PS2’s to quickly and easily navigate the consenting phase the first time.
• Stock and Procurement: Piletech can draw upon large pipe stocks, and manufacture off the critical path.  This means less delays, and protection from FOREX and steel fluctuation risks.
• The Right Piling Solution: screw piles were not only cost effective in this scenario, but there were an array of other factors that made us the silver bullet.  Speed of installation, noise and vibration, minimal deliveries, no dust, no spoil (asbestos was identified), amongst others.

The result:  We saved their client over $100k (~20%) on their original piling design, not to mention programme benefits and an array of headaches removed before we’d even set foot onsite.

It really begs the question why you’d go and get 3 prices for “competitive tension” right before the project is about to kick off, when you can engage the right partners in your ECI team and end up with a cheaper price, installed more quickly with less risk.


[See also THE BENEFITS OF COLLABORATING WITH KEY SUBCONTRACTORS (BAD STORY)]