Robert Merry is an independent Stone Consultant and Project Manger who also runs training courses on project management. In this series he will set out some guiding principles for successful estimating and project management. This month he discusses: Preliminaries
You have devised the tender, written a draft programme and now you need to cost the prelims.
Preliminaries are the costs you incur in delivering your stone to the ‘coal face’ to fix it in position. These will typically include distribution on site, delivery to site, management of the project, site office set up, drawings, health & safety costs and any other tasks specific to the contract – crane hire, scaffolding, lighting and protection of finished work, for example.
From working and adjusting your programme – adding more fixing teams to work in separate areas or overlapping certain tasks – you reach a realistic and manageable draft programme for the time you will spend on the whole project. I would suggest you produce this in a weekly format. You are then in a position to cost the preliminaries.
The preliminaries should be presented separately from the costs of producing and fixing the stone. Why? Because all those additional costs will make your unit rates for the stone seem high and uncompetitive if lumped together.
More importantly, if the contract over runs an agreed programme and it’s not your fault, you will have a legitimate claim for the extra costs incurred on a week by week basis.
Similarly, if your preliminary costs clearly state the number and cost of each drawing, including revisions, if you have to produce more than you have costed for because of design changes, you have a basis on which to claim the extra cost.
So you now have: Estimate/tender + Programme + Preliminary costs = Final tender submission.
And remember, wherever the contract starts from it never, ever ends up in the same place in terms of cost or programme. You have to be sure you have a solid foundation that is clear, understandable and professionally presented from which you can manage the changes without loosing your shirt or anyone else’s.
And just as you thought it was all over and you could move on there’s the pre-qualification questionnaire to complete… but more of that next month.