Solutions
We truly believe that we have a unique ability to help contractors and owners. "Problems Solved" is our mission statement for a very good reason. Every construction project has problems, and unless those problems are dealt with correctly and in a timely fashion a successful outcome is very much in jeopardy. Consider this: one "bad" project often wipes out a company's profit for the entire year. The hard work and dedication of staff on the "good" projects in effect goes to waste.
The solution isn't just to file claims but to take steps to avoid claims as much as possible. Our firm spends more time pricing and negotiating change orders than preparing claims. And really, a dispute over pricing or time does not become a claim until the dispute resolution process outlined in the contract has been exhausted. The biggest mistake is to see the project as a global claim and fail to realize that not every issue is contentious. Claims management requires separating the easy issues from the difficult ones, and wrapping up the former in change orders.
It is certainly not unreasonable to expect that an owner's or contractor's existing staff should be able to resolve problems. They are construction professionals, after all. The experience that we bring to the table is nevertheless unique. Troubled construction projects are the norm for us (with the exception of projects that we have scheduled). There really isn't a situation that an owner or a contractor is likely to face that we have not dealt with at least ten times.
In any case, a critical factor to getting paid for change orders or claims is to get the pricing completed and/or submit a time extension quickly. We have been saying this for 27 years: if time extensions are not resolved as delays occur then the end date of the project is unknown. Does that seem like a good practice? Contracts typically state that "time is of the essence" but in many situations this creates a critical misunderstanding of whether time extensions will be granted.
Our
fee structure is also quite unique. Construction Science is proud to offer fixed fees for our services. This protects us and our clients. Contractors must obtain prior approval to spend additional money on a project. We think that is a pretty good rule for consultants as well. Besides, there is no point to starting an assignment if the cost is beyond the means of our client. At the very least, we can still discuss alternatives for keeping the price down, such as having our client's staff perform certain tasks.
A big part of our fee structure is the concept of limited scope services (LSS). This means that we provide very targeted help to our clients. In some situations our scope of services may be limited to just a few hours of work. Think of us as your "a la carte" consulting firm. Every service we provide can be specified to the exact needs of our clients. Construction Science can solve one of your problems, or all of them.
Construction Science provides the dedicated resources to address cost and time impacts as they occur. Sorting out these problems later on is difficult and certainly more expensive. Yet our services are always "as needed" so that our clients have no obligation beyond specific tasks already authorized. Simply put, we are a temporary asset to the project.
Our core services are:
No matter what the assignment, our promise to you is that we will complete the work on-time and to your complete satisfaction. We will discount the final fee by 10% if either of these goals is not achieved due to circumstances within our control. And we are confident that no other consulting firm can offer a similar guarantee. Since 1983 we have successfully completed more than 500 consulting assignments with one simple strategy: improve what we do every day.
We are Construction Science. Problems SolvedTM.