By Brendan McGrath, PE, CCP, LEED AP O+M, AKF Group
The current “State of the Market” brings to mind many images: a boom in multi-family residential buildings in Philadelphia and around the country, bustling science and technology districts, world-class healthcare facilities. And this is just what I can see by looking across the Schuylkill River! I also can’t help but think about how the Internet of Things had to step aside to make way for our fixation on Artificial Intelligence. It takes massive computing power to push the boundary of what AI can do and the market responded with mega-data centers in Northern Virginia, Texas, and across the US. The scale is so large that some of these data centers run on nuclear power.
The quantity of these new developments is massive, but what about the quality? We have all seen quality get pinched at times in our industry. Someone overcommits to a deadline or the deadline gets moved up. Drawings need to go out to please the client, and the drawings aren’t perfect. The owner has to meet the budget to get the greenlight to build so all the features get “value engineered” out of the job. Younger people are given sophisticated tasks too quickly and with little support. Equipment and systems get more complex and you are hard-pressed to find a technician who can efficiently and effectively operate them. A building operator has so many responsibilities and gets so many occupant complaints that they can’t keep up with preventative maintenance of equipment. And so it goes. We need to find a way to focus on and incentivize quality.
Consider refining business decisions to center around quality. It starts with the culture of the institution doing the construction process. When the goals of the project are established, quality should be the backdrop for each of those objectives. The institution can incentivize their project team through measurable goals for the outcome. The owner should build a team of trusted professionals with proven records and hold those firms accountable to keep key individuals involved throughout the project. Peer reviews can be used to infuse quality, collaboration, and transparency through the design process. The cost/benefit of strategic and thorough peer reviews for a project is almost impossible to measure, but the cost of a peer review in relation to the full cost of a construction project is a drop in the bucket.
There are various construction procurement methods that offer a different paradigm for the process of building a building. Integrated Project Delivery tends to focus on simple solutions and collaboration based on a shared goal. This method inherently changes the mindset of individuals on a project team which can lead to an openness that keeps everyone honest. Operators should be given reasonable budgets to keep buildings running well for occupants. Operators could be incentivized based on metrics including occupant satisfaction, equipment maintenance cost vs. emergency repair incidents, and building utility consumption. Finally, engaging in a commissioning process with a trusted and thorough commissioning provider can support quality in building projects. Owners should find a commissioning provider they can work with and support. The scope of commissioning work for a project should be developed so that it covers the complexity and risk of the equipment/systems/building.
It doesn’t seem likely that the pace of projects will slow down or that budgets will start to inflate, so let’s build great project teams, keep an open mind about the process, and infuse quality wherever we can.
Brendan McGrath, PE, CCP, LEED AP O+M manages AKF’s Mid-Atlantic Commissioning services, performing verification and optimization of building systems.
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