METFAB METALS, LLC
"Delays!"
Metfab Metals Has a Program to Avoid these too!
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None of you needs to be reminded how often “delays” play hell with your building schedule----and often your revenue & profit. Metfab Metals, LLC works hard to NOT contribute to this curse that plagues some jobs. Our answer is not just reading the job specs and taking calls from your Project Manager. We addressed this issue in-house several years ago, leading to the development of our proprietary Project Management program, KenWerks.
This Excel-based program tracks your jobs from initial contact to completion, including the receipt of initial plans & specs, quotation, Purchase Order (PO), issuance of sub-PO’s, actual purchase of steel & related products, retain sub-contractors/suppliers, receipt of products purchased, production scheduling, coordination with the customer’s project manager (PM), work with inspectors, coordination with subs/experts, QA/QC, co-ordination of shipments, packing, wrapping, palletizing & storage, securing shipments, delivery options, documentation, invoicing, final project close-out documents, even payment. All of this is designed to avoid even inadvertent delays and innocent errors.
But take a look at how one journal describes how the plague of delays strikes at the heart of what you are trying to get done.1
Delay and cost overruns are inherent part(s) of most projects despite… project management. …[We should] look at some reasons of delays and cost overrun in projects and their mitigation process, so as to increase….. project success....
The author then identifies a list of causes for project delays that most often lead to unanticipated added costs and often ultimately to a late turnover of the job itself:
- One major factor that has been identified as a reason for cost overrun in most projects is design errors
- [Another cause is] scope change. Scope…..defines the entire deliverables expected at the end of a project….. Thus, any change in the project scope during execution will mean that the entire initial project plan will have to be reviewed such that a reviewed [he means INCREASED]budget, schedule and quality will have to be developed\
…………………………………………………………………… - Another major reason for cost overrun and delay…. is inappropriate and inadequate procurement and faulty contractual management system. Contracts read out virtually every aspect of a business correlation, including payment terms, pricing, and service levels…[A]contract that has not highlighted the entire project scenario may lead to dispute in the contract system.
…………………………………………………………………………… - The complexity of a project could also be a contributing factor to delay and cost overrun. …… most mega projects tend to have relatively long implementation period when compared to small projects (leading to)…… inflation, change in material price and changes in exchange rates such that the initial budget may need to be supplemented for the project to be completed.
………………………………………………………………………… - Finally, the post execution phase (closure) of a project…. can lead to delays and cost overrun. Being the very last part of the project life-cycle it is often… ignored……Slow closeout could be [due to]contracts and procurement, change order issues not resolved, final change orders not issued, poor close out documentation…
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In conclusion, although delay and cost overrun may seem very inherent in most projects, the good news is that it can be reduced or totally eliminated using a proper project performance monitoring and control system that will integrate all the key activities of each phase of the project……………(emphasis added)
Even before our April, 2017 Newsletter2 where we introduced you to KenWerks as one of the tools we use daily to comply promptly with your entire job specs, we used this program in all our departments. All our employees now input information as your job flows through our office, leading to the right fabrications arriving, on time, at your jobsite. All projects logically require allied “services” from your metals supplier, not just their accurately made parts. Our KenWerks program, with select sections open to critical employees for input and status, makes this process easier, more error-free and more expedited. This sophisticated computer tracking system can help you deal with the day-to-day problems of all your jobs, often as much as our decades of experience making the fabricated steel! We here at Metfab Metals always want to better handle your job’s needs. This means our services are as important as are ALL our metal products for your projects. Don’t forget: we always ask our customers to involve us more in the planning stage so we can take an early look at what metals are needed, when, how & why they’re needed.
Metfab Metals has decades of experience producing metal parts/assemblies, while mixing in our first-class SERVICES, all equally needed for YOUR jobs. In this way, we can make your jobs go smoothly from their earliest stages-----------and end successfully!
Call us; you’ll soon see we produce.
Call me for ALL your METALS questions. If I can't answer it, I have all the needed "sources" to do so!
Jim Murray, C.O.O. 973-675-7676
1. Francois Buys, “Cost Overruns, and Their Mitigation Measures", https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/five-causes-project-delay-cost-overrun-mitigation-measures-buys
2. See our website for this archived earlier article in our Newsletters section at www.metfabmetals.com.