News

ANSWERING THE CALL FOR HELP

Construction projects should always begin with well-defined responsibilities for the building team. But even the most meticulously planned project can encounter that critical moment when it needs help to meet budget, schedule and/or safety requirements. More and more, PayneCrest will engage in a small slice of a project only to see its workload quadruple in some cases to help the customer achieve project goals. You have to be fearless to jump into a project in midstream with the expectation to deliver outstanding results. When granting expanded responsibilities, the customer should expect the following:

Extreme organization

When taking on additional assignments, a field analysis is extremely useful to determine what work has been performed, what rework is needed and what work remains. The goal is to align project data bases with what was verified in the field. A plan can then be developed to tackle priority assignments and sequence the work properly. In one case, PayneCrest developed a failsafe system to keep track of all tested terminations in place and track installation and testing of all remaining terminations of which there were thousands in number

Managing labor

It is more than making the most efficient use of labor, but also complying with strict stipulations on manpower to protect budget integrity. PayneCrest will often perform a manpower and task evaluation and then redeploy the workforce to optimize its strengths to advance and achieve project milestones.

Optimizing functionality

Expanded assignments are not quick fixes, but often require evaluating design efficiencies. While PayneCrest does this on every project, it often takes on a design assist role when its scope of work is enlarged. In some cases, it has developed 700-plus complex electrical drawings to facilitate efficient field installations and adapt for the special needs of a project to deliver the best functionality.

Material management

This includes locating and inventorying materials purchased by others and often stored helter-skelter on site. The goal is to bring order to material staging to speed deployment to the workforce for efficient and accurate installations.

Safety

Playing “catch up” requires intense risk management planning, not safety short cuts. One PayneCrest expanded assignment required deftly maneuvering and installing 1,000-pound pieces of bus duct on an extremely congested site. We developed specific “lift plans” to position cranes properly, ensuring the highest safety while other work progressed unimpeded.

Delivering an expanded scope of work also generally means more intense engineering and coordination with other trades. Very often, this is facilitated by PayneCrest’s on-site CAD trailers that can become a highly valuable hub of information for other trades. We freely share the technology, including our precision drawings. After all, jumping into midstream is only worth it if you can make the entire project a complete success for the customer.

June 30, 2014