Among the developers we know, the procurement and contracts team usually works well. The gap lies in the link with project control, in every change going through the same process, in its effect reaching the cost forecast and the schedule, and in every contractual deadline having an owner. We review the company's standard contracts and procedures, and change the ones that do not work.
Our view
- 01
The contracting strategy, turnkey or multi-contract, is decided at the gate before the investment decision, with the alternatives compared on cost, schedule and risk for that project.
- 02
Every boundary between contractors has an owner before tendering and appears in both contracts, because that is where disputes on site concentrate.
- 03
A change is under control when it has been valued in cost and schedule before it is carried out and is approved by whoever the RACI sets for its amount. The process is the same for every contract.
What we deliver
We put the process in place on the company's own contracts and tools, and test it on a project under construction before rolling it out to the rest of the portfolio. It can sit alongside any procurement procedures already in place.
- The criteria for choosing the contracting strategy at the gate before the investment decision.
- The interface matrix and standard clauses for multi-contract procurement.
- The change and claims procedure, with the RACI approval thresholds.
- The calendar of contractual deadlines, with notices, milestones, penalties and warranties.
- Training for the team, and the indicators and meetings the company uses to follow the process, with our support if needed.
Agents and tailored tools
If the company wishes, an agent reads the contracts, moves notice periods, milestones, penalties and warranty expiries into a calendar, and alerts each owner before each date. Another checks each change request against the contract scope, estimates its effect on cost and schedule and prepares the pack for whoever has to approve it. Decisions and communications with the contractor remain with people.
What it connects to
The contracting strategy is decided at the gates, and every approved change updates the CAPEX control forecast and the schedule. The RACI matrix sets who approves each change and with what threshold, contractual risks enter the risk register, and contracts and their variations are filed in the document management system. At handover to operation, the handover process gathers the open variations, retentions and warranties of each contract. An approved change reaches cost, schedule and the archive at once, without anyone having to enter it again in another process.