Client: Pioneer Insurance & Surety Corporation

Project: Corporate Office Building

Address: Corner 5th Avenue and 26th Street, Taguig, Bonifacio Global City, Philippines

Clockwise from top left: façade views of Pioneer House BGC, and the lobby of Pioneer House BGC

WHAT IS EARLY CONTRACTOR INVOLVEMENT?

Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) is a type of construction contract wherein the Main Contractor (DMCI), is engaged at an early stage by the Client in a construction project. This is often at the design stage where DMCI can offer inputs to optimize the constructability, methodology, cost, schedule, quality, and safety of the project.

D.M. Consunji, Inc. (DMCI) wants to share a success story with our client, Pioneer Insurance and Surety Corporation (Pioneer). Many thanks are given to Pioneer for the trust in completing an ECI and general works contract for the construction of the Pioneer House BGC office at the corner of 5th Avenue and 26th Street in Bonifacio Global City, Philippines.

The scope of the ECI was to:

• Fit the project cost into the owner’s target budget
• Coordinate and consult with all of the owner’s and architect’s consultants to review the completeness of drawings against the owner’s requirements
• Assess and propose ways to optimize the design for constructability purposes
• Avoid major gaps in the design documents and reduce variation orders during construction
• Prepare Building Information Modelling (BIM) drawings
• Consolidate building permit requirements

HIGHLIGHTS

• Client experienced minimal budget changes and variation orders, resulting in a <5% cost overrun.
• Because of ECI, the project was able to perform every single tenant handover on time.

DETAILS

Upon receipt of the design drawings from the client’s chosen architect, DMCI began to review the gaps between the various construction trades and optimize the constructability of the plans. Before construction began, DMCI worked with the client’s architect and consultants to ensure that while the project was still at the design stage, necessary changes could be made in order to deliver the project on time and on budget. DMCI started by converting the existing 2D drawings into a BIM 3D model to identify clashes within the existing design.

The major driver that allowed the Pioneer House BGC project to finish within schedule and budget was the time given by the client to DMCI to study and analyze every detail of the building. Traditional bids typically allow for only 1 month or less of study; for this specific project, the ECI lasted 3 months. While the 1 month allotted for traditional bids is enough time to give an accurate price and methodology, the contractor is not expected to review the design and notify the owner of clashes. These clashes eventually appear as Variation Orders to the client as the project progresses in construction, which increases cost and delays the entire project. Furthermore, for traditional bids, the contractor is often barred from directly communicating their concerns directly to the designer or consultant per specific scope of work and must course these questions through the owner’s representative. Often, by the time the concern is answered, significant time has been lost, and things are rushed in order to meet the bid submission deadline, which is disadvantageous for both client and contractor.

Since the owner engaged DMCI through ECI, they specifically directed DMCI to directly coordinate with all of the owner’s consultants and trade designers. This included, but was not limited to: Architectural, Structural, Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing, Fire Protection, LEED and WELL compliance, etc.

Historically, almost all of DMCI’s traditional bids have experienced numerous unforeseen variation orders due to design changes related to buildability. These gaps among the trades extend the project completion and increase overhead costs for all parties involved. Once construction work commences and the contractor is given more time to analyze in detail the drawings, the experience of DMCI has been that the design must change in order to construct what is specified in the drawings.

CONCLUSION

Done properly, ECI is an excellent way to reduce headaches and surprise variation orders that prevent you from meeting your desired financial targets and deadlines to customers and end-users. Instead of finding out problems and clashes when it’s already too late, engaging contractors for ECI is a great way to ensure the success of your project.

If you have a project that you think is ready for ECI, please send us an email at dmci@dmcinet.com for D.M. Consunji, Inc. (DMCI) Business Development.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Christine Ave V. Tragura, MBA, CLSSYB

Ave is a licensed Civil Engineer with over 16 years of international engineering and infrastructure experience across the construction, oil and gas, mining, manufacturing, and energy sectors in the Philippines and Singapore. She is currently serving as Digital Communications Senior Supervisor at D.M. Consunji, Inc. (DMCI).