“I enjoy working with design and construction teams to meet the challenge of being innovative to construct a great project within budget."
Jim Beal
Areas of Expertise
Parametric estimating
The group has the background to create detailed estimates of projects allowing the designers and owners to confirm the budget and design. This reduces design time and potential cost issues. In the fast-paced world we live in that is a plus.
Since James Beal Consulting’s team a has a long history of design, estimating and construction they know the quantities like the amount of structural steel or concrete required for a structure or tonnage of air conditioning required for the project. Using these as the goals for the designers to meet reduces the concerns of coming in over budget.
An example is a project which had exceeded the amount of steel for the structure by one hundred percent. This was caught at schematic design. The structural engineer was brought in and shown several designs that were at or below the pounds per square foot of steel for similar structures. Based on the new information the project was redesigned reducing the cost of the structure by three million dollars.
Value Management
Using the Society of Value Engineers method assures clients they are receiving the best value. It also allows the team to look outside of the box where true innovation lies.
In one case a project had been out of budget during schematic design, design development and finally construction documents. The owner checked with a local contractor and that contractor confirmed it was out of budget by around thirty percent. The program manager was asked to review the project and give possible changes. Jim was assigned the task of doing a value engineering study in a four day period on the project.
The team determined that the architect had reduced costs by using materials that would not last in a high school environment more than a few months. These included standard drywall at the hallways and wet areas, sealed concrete at the wet areas and many other items which were noted in the report as needing to be changed to get best value. The report also had a suggestion to move the school to a site that did not require the major environmental costs for the construction which was the major cost variance. The owner took almost all of the suggestions including moving the site, and even with the additional design costs, the property cost came in within budget.
Project controls
The team does estimates at the various stages of the project to assure the project goals are met. If there are issues they are reviewed with the team and changes are made immediately. This keeps the design going forward.
Jim and TJ have both worked with project teams to maintain budgets and prevent flaws in the design from derailing a project at bid time or during construction.
An example is a project that required the construction of the new building while maintaining the original building until it was finished. The mechanical engineer had not checked to see if the existing plant could actually accommodate the additional load from the new building during the final four months of construction. The existing plant would need an extra four hundred tons of air conditioning to meet the load requirements. This was found prior to construction allowing time to fix the problem. This obviously prevented a major delay and the associated change order costs.