Menu

Menu

  • © 2024 Bush Construction
  • Office Hours: Mon-Fri 8am-4:30pm
FacebookTwitterLinkedInYouTube

News image

construction operations

Construction Tip: 12 Terms to Familiarize Yourself With

Posted on
Posted on

As with any industry, the commercial construction industry has its own set of acronyms and key terms. What’s the difference between a contingency and an allowance? When do OAC meetings start? Having a general understanding of these key terms helps alleviate confusion between an owner and the general contractor and/or designer. We believe specificity and clear communication are keys to providing our clients with a great construction experience.

12 Common Commercial Construction Terms

  1. Contingency: Money, often a percentage of the total project cost, reserved to cover unexpected project costs that arise during a project. For example, a contractor starts excavating a site and hits bedrock. To remove it, different equipment needs to be brought in and the excavation takes longer than originally estimated. Contingency funds would be used to pay for this unexpected cost.
  2. Allowance: Funds set aside to cover a known cost of an unknown amount. For example, an owner wants to use tile flooring in their front entryway so the contractor budgets for a standard tile material that costs $5 per sq/ft.  The owner ultimately selects an $8 per sq/ft option and agrees to pay the $3 per sq/ft amount by which the actual tile exceeded the allowance.
  3. Consequential Damages: Damages to an owner’s business indirectly resulting from a breach of contract and which are generally foreseeable but not defined at the start of a project. For example, delays in the completion of a project for a manufacturing company result in the company’s inability to complete contracts for its customers.
  4. Liquidated Damages: A sum of money the contractor agrees to pay the owner, typically for each day the contractor completes the project late. For example, a contractor pays the owner of an office building $1,000 per day for every day the office building is completed after the contractual completion date.  The amount cannot be so great that it would be considered a penalty.  Liquidated Damages are typically accompanied by an equal and opposite Early Completion Bonus.
  5. Punchlist: A list of scope items that must be completed before a construction project is declared complete. Examples might include: replacing a damaged ceiling tile, touching up paint or ensuring dirt in light fixtures is cleaned.
  6. Substantial Completion Date: The date an owner can occupy the building for its intended use. For example, if there’s a long lead time on carpet that isn’t available to install in a conference room, the lack of carpet in that room doesn’t prevent the office building from being used.
  7. Final Completion: The date the project is fully and satisfactorily complete, Including the completion of all punchlist items.   The contractor can receive final payment upon final completion.
  8. OAC (Owner, Architect, Contractor) Meetings: Periodic meetings between the owner, architect and contractor to discuss the progress of a project.
  9. Change Request: A contractor’s request of the owner to compensate for something that needs to be modified on the project.  For instance, the owner may be considering adding a door to a room. This change is made to the design documents and sent to the contractor for pricing. The contractor issues a Change Request for the additional door.
  10. Change Order: A formal change in a project’s scope, often also impacting construction costs and completion dates. In the Change Request example above, when the owner approves the Change Request for the additional door, a Change Order is issued which formally adds the door to the project for the agreed price and (if applicable) a completion date extension.
  11. RFP (Request for Proposal): A document created by a property owner that announces, describes and solicits cost proposals from qualified contractors for a specified project.  It’s common for public entities like schools or other government agencies to issue RFPs.
  12. RFI (Request for Information): A means to clarify ambiguities or fill in gaps in information that appear in the plans or specifications. For example, a concrete subcontractor needs more detail on rebar placement than was shown on the plans, so they submit an RFI to the contractor who either responds to the RFI or forwards it to the architect/engineer for a response.

Dena Waddell-Genz Joins As Executive Assistant

Posted on
Posted on

Bush Construction announced Dena Waddell-Genz has joined the team as Executive Assistant to the President and COO. Waddell-Genz joins Bush Construction from MoboTrex where she spent four years as the Executive Assistant to the President/CEO and replaces Erica Sellnau-Allan who has been promoted to Head of Employee Engagement.

“Dena’s former experience at MoboTrex and John Deere World Headquarters brings a powerful combination of organizational management and decision-making skills,” said AJ Loss, Bush Construction President/CEO. “We’re committed to challenging and growing our people so that they can provide customers with a great construction experience, and we couldn’t be luckier to have Dena help us get there.”

“I’m thrilled to join Bush Construction for so many reasons,” said Waddell-Genz. “The Executive Assistant position is a role that I’ve had a very deep passion for, and I look forward to working with such a fabulous array of team players! Additionally, what I love most about Bush Construction is the work-life balance and the feeling of being appreciated by my coworkers. This is definitely the business environment I have been searching for, and I look forward to many years of dedicated service.”

Self-Perform vs Sub-Contracting for Small Construction Projects

Posted on
Posted on

When a commercial general contractor is hired to “self-perform” work it means the project is completed directly by the contractor’s own skilled labor force. Typically, a contractor will self-perform activities such as demolition, carpentry, casework, doors, and hardware, framing drywall, masonry, and other specialty tasks.

When to Consider Self-Perform over Sub-Contracting

Self-perform works well for projects that are smaller in scope or those that require a fast turnaround. For example, a facility upgrade, a backlog of maintenance projects, or when the contractor is already on-site and asked to assist with an additional project.

While self-performing doesn’t work for every construction project, selecting a contractor with these capabilities brings many benefits to business owners, including:

  • Cost efficiencies – results in a more efficient and streamlined construction process, saves time, money and eliminates additional service fees.
  • Increased control – relies on the contractor’s thorough experience to create and maintain schedules and ensures the project is completed on time and on budget.
  • Faster project starts – takes advantage of the contractor’s speed and flexibility to directly assign its team to a job site.
  • Quality assurance – benefits from the contractor’s talented team of high-skilled laborers that have a history of working together on multiple project types across many industries.

Bush Construction’s Self-Perform Capabilities

With years of hands-on experience and training, our skilled workforce will deliver an exceptional outcome no matter how big or small your project is. Whether you need help installing new doors or cabinetry, replacing baseboard trim, changing the flow of your entryway or common area, our trained carpenters are dedicated to working with you, and with little disruption to your business.

If you’d like to learn more about Bush Construction’s self-perform capabilities or with assistance budgeting future projects, fill out the Contact Us form below.

 

Technology & Construction: Have you Overlooked the Power of a CRM?

Posted on
Posted on

Evaluating sales and marketing software is like redesigning a website – no one wants to do it; however, every few years the process is necessary to stay current, evolve with customer needs and support a company’s growth strategy. One widely overlooked software purchase in the construction industry is an integrated sales and marketing automation platform, or a customer relationship management (CRM) platform. An integrated CRM serves as an organization’s single source of truth for customers, prospects, opportunity data, and more. It’s a marketer’s dream for understanding the customer journey and has the power to create higher producing customer-first teams.

Why CRM’s Bring Significant Value

If you work in construction management and would like to understand the benefits of a CRM, software review websites like Capterra or G2Crowd are great places to start. These websites offer insight from real-life users and the ability to compare multiple platforms.

Another resource is our podcast episode on Technology & Construction: Have You Overlooked the Power of a CRM?. Here are the top five highlights:

  1. Operations vs Sales vs Marketing – Construction companies tend to focus heavily on their operations. As a result, software purchases center around estimating and workload tracking. The last thing leadership, commonly made up of engineers, may think about is how to grow their business through an integrated sales and marketing approach. While the great divide between sales and marketing exists across almost every industry, in construction, it’s important to be mindful that the gap between operations and sales and marketing can be even more significant.
  2. Digital Marketing is “New” – In construction, a small-to-mid-size marketing department may be made up of one or two individuals who are typically responsible for providing logos, planning events, posting social media updates, and coordinating RFPs. While these tasks are important, engaging with customers based on their digital preferences and preferred frequency to push them further down the sales funnel is a new way of thinking. And may require a lot of internal education.
  3. Find a Champion – Find an executive or high-level manager that understands the importance of an integrated sales and marketing automation software and will champion your efforts. Work together to gain the support of your leadership team.
  4. Show the Cost Savings – Yes, that’s right, an integrated CRM will save you money. Not only will your financial projections be more accurate, but you may also be able to hold off on hiring the business development rep (BDR) you’ve been thinking about. When you compare the cost of an integrated CRM to a BDR, the software is much less expensive. The “smaller” investment will yield a much higher, more immediate result. When your team references one system of record, it’s easier to see where the bottlenecks are and act. Now, everyone feels responsible for helping clients achieve their construction goals.
  5. Determine Success Benchmarks – Define measurable goals and create a detailed plan (with timelines) on how you will achieve them. Is it to replace an outdated CRM or do away with Excel documents used to currently track your opportunities? Is it to send customer emails on topics they consented to receive updates on? Or would you like 100% usage by a certain date and time? Either you or your CRM onboarding partner can help you outline a plan and not only meet but exceed your goals.

Have an inquiry?
Contact us.

Privacy Policy Sitemap Accessibility Statement

Site designed by Twin State Technical Services.