Keeping construction project costs under control

Construction projects usually cost a lot of money, usually more in comparison to other types of projects in other industries, because construction involves materials, labor, equipment, and it is affected by so many factors from real life. 

For example, you can call a software project of $5 million in size a very large project to develop, where the same amount for a construction project is considered a small size project, where you can not even build a single story office building…

Therefore keeping construction costs in line is very important task in construction. This is planned during planned stage, controlled during monitoring and controlling stage, and is executed by execution process of a project.

The items below to keep costs from getting out of hand actually applies to any project in any field and not just to construction, but as we mentioned it becomes most critical – as far as dollars- since the overall costs involved with construction are higher.

Important points to keep construction costs in control:

-The beginning of the project affects things the most. All stakeholders of the project must be consulted and the overall desired product, which will be the ultimate deliverable of the project must be understood clearly. Then this will need to be transferred into project documents, such as plans and specifications on a construction project. This step involves the owner, stakeholders and the designers of the project. This step has the highest control over the construction cost.

-After the project documents are created, a baseline must be created for schedule, cost and scope. This is critical for keeping the costs in line later because everything will compared against this later. Proper resources as far as labor equipment and materials must be assigned to each activity in the schedule as this will be the base of the costs.

-The cost control after this point involves executing the job as per the contract documents. As long as we follow and execute the work as per the requirements of contract documents, the change orders will be minimal. The resources that was assigned in the previous stage must be managed efficiently. In order to keep the costs low, all trades performing the job must be closely monitored, coordinated, and the quality standards be followed. Materials must be tracked and followed up for deliveries as delays will be costly. Following up,taking initiative, being proactive are very important.

 

 

 

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