Welcome to our March newsletter –
LESS INFORMATION MEANS MORE COST
Ever wonder how you can reduce the cost of engineering projects for plant upgrades and facility improvements?
We have 5 MECHVAC tips for Reducing Costs:
- Provide a specification or scope of works
- Provide drawings and layouts
- Provide helpful information (photos, location on map, site access and conditions)
- Provide attractive payment terms
- Clarify contractor’s risk component
We know what you’re thinking. Most of the above takes resources, time and effort – but it doesn’t have to be too onerous. Think about it from the contractor’s point of view. Quoting any job also takes resources, time and effort. The less information made available by the customer, the more cost the contractor adds in to the quote to cover risk, contingencies and unknowns.
If you don’t have engineering and purchasing resources to do this for you, there are quick and easy ways to provide helpful information to the contractor.
- A scope of works can be as simple as a bullet point list of what you need done. Terms and conditions can be provided prior to order placement.
- Drawings and layouts can be a sketch or mud map with a few dimensions – anything is better than nothing.
- Photos are worth a thousand words. Site conditions help with assessing access equipment requirements and safety inductions / controls.
- Attractive payment terms may get you closer to the front of the queue!
- Advise what level of project risk you are willing to accept – more risk equals less cost.
Providing the above information does not have to be a “War and Peace” exercise. A good contractor can work with a good brief (that might take a few hours to compile) to provide an attractive quote just as well as they can with a full specification (that takes weeks to compile).
At MECHVAC our engineers have worked both sides of the fence as a customer and as a contractor – so we know the requirements for a good quotation.