OUR FOCUS
The Challenge:
Fulfilling the Vision within Budget and on Time
For many organizations, a capital project represents a significant opportunity for sustained business growth. It involves coordinating the needs and desires of many stakeholders into a single vision that fits within the constraints of available funding and time. It also involves the selection, coordination and management of architects, contractors, consultants and project managers toward the final goal. Projects such as commercial high-rise building or new educational or healthcare facilities or oil and gas facility involve complicated contracts and complex planning with multi-year development periods.
The owner is required to retain a diverse team of qualified professionals to achieve successful capital program development.
With this strong team in place, what can go wrong? Plenty!!! No one person has responsibility for ensuring that the stakeholders receive the greatest value for the investment being made.
In day-to-day practice, the architect/ design team focuses on what the end-user wants. The contractor focuses on sound execution at the project site by coordinating procurement activities for extensive material purchases and trade personnel services required for completion prior to handover to the operation team or owner. The project manager focuses on removing obstacles in order to keep the project within budget and schedule, and the financial specialist focuses on ensuring funding targets are achieved.
The Solution:
Capital Project Consultants
Adding a team of capital project consultants with industry best practice experience in assessing risk, construction auditing, controlling costs and improving quality across all disciplines ensures that each party involved in the project provides the services expected, and at the highest level of quality possible, within the costs allowed.
Special knowledge, Special focus
At Talson, we understand the finer points of construction contracts, financial reporting, cost control,
project management and risk analysis for each project phase, from conception to startup and handover
to operations. For example, we offer expertise in:
Contracts: Our consultants have extensive experience auditing and reviewing contract documents. We know how to specify effective processes for change orders, shared savings programs, audit rights, value engineering and project status reporting and close-out. We clarify the “gray areas.”
Cost: We review cost in detail, looking for
- Compliance to contract
- Non-allowable costs
- Inflated labor and burden rates
- Reporting accuracy
- Agreed change order methodology
- Inappropriate equipment or materials charges
- Subcontractor compliance
- Lack of appropriate recordkeeping
Schedule: We review the schedule, looking for
- Completeness
- Compliance to contract
- Subcontractor integration
- Reasonableness
- Reporting accuracy
- Logical relationships and updating
- Key milestones and critical path analysis
Qualifications: Our third-party independent status enables us to be more objective in evaluating the interfaces between design teams and contractors and vendors. We know best practices and effective procedures and processes for financial control and status reporting.
Communications: We bring an experienced ear to the project team communications and understand the vast amount of correspondence and reporting occurring on projects. We review for inconsistencies and watch for problems that we have seen plague other projects, and we raise concerns early to provide the best opportunity to avoid disputes and, most importantly, litigation.
