Whoever follows the news will not have escaped the emergency calls; the construction market is overstrained, tenders fail, and the delivery time and costs of construction products such as piles and insulation material are rising. Some builders are, paradoxically enough, in heavy weather because of the building hype; often after they have been awarded a project, they are confronted with higher purchasing costs and longer delivery times than they took into account when tendering. The shortage of well-trained and trained work preparation personnel that arose after the crisis is also a factor here.
So these are uncertain times: how do designers and builders price the procurement risk and make it manageable? Too much rebate makes a plan unfeasible before tendering. Moreover: which margin is still reasonable? In order to make efforts and risks manageable, builders increasingly expect a well-developed Technical Design.
More open processes with more transparency and fewer intermediary parties also provide an answer. With our design method based on prefabricated building, we have always realized part of our designs ourselves since the mid-nineties; partially contracted without a main contractor. A sister company fulfills the assignement, purchase and execution in the role of coordinating advisor. Both the process and the relationship between costs and quality are fully transparent. Very refreshing.
We are also realizing a number of our current projects in this way again. Initially apprehensive because of the above mentioned market reports about scarcity and availability, the practice turns out to be surprisingly different: piles, concrete floors, steel constructions, facades and installations ... all packages turn out well and on time within the original budgets.
This makes you think; is the real bottleneck in the construction sector perhaps not with the producers and suppliers, but with the purchase and work preparation of the (medium) large construction companies?
Ronald Schleurholts, architect-directeur cepezed
Cobouw, 16 juli 2018
buidling bottleneck
