INTERACTIVE SESSIONS WITH A PLUMBER & MY RESOLVE

INTERACTIVE SESSIONS WITH A PLUMBER & MY RESOLVE

From Odusina Adewale Hiworks

In view of additional request for materials on a certain Project after a long session of design appreciation and physical measurement, at a previous site visit, I had a second session on the appreciation of the mechanical drawings with the Plumber, at their office.

There was a genuine request for more materials but not as elaborate as impressed on us by the guy.

My observations is that, technicians as we have them in Nigeria are generally intellectually lazy, and even when they can read English, they don't study the drawings we give them.

I also observed that that even quite a number of the Engineers that are expected to give direction are also intellectually lazy too to appreciate drawing content and so assume quantities.

On the project above, we eventually cut down twice as much materials, as we were earlier advices my this technician and we were almost ordering under pressure.

Can we now imagine that for every mechanical project, we depended on plumber's material request, we would have been doing reticulations works for 3x the value without value engineering and quantity control?

It is very obvious that, if we don't provision our workshop drawings effectively, we shall automatically be running at a loss on first and second fix.

All drawings for site use must be at 1:100 or 1:50 or 1:20 or 1:10 scale for ease of interpretation. We must teach our technician how to interpret this standard scales on site. I want to believe that most site activity drawings will be more often at A4, A3 and ocassionally at A2 and A1 paper sizes.

If we don't insist on the implementation of the construction or workshop drawings as planed with our technicians, 20-50% of the profit is lost automatically.

Running a drawing appreciation sessions on every project with the technical team is core; Engineers and Technicians MUST periodically have this sessions as a Core Activity to guarantee the success of the business. This often reveals the need for training and retraining when necessary.

I have also observed in my years of site engagement that between the drawings as designed and the workshop drawings as approved are hidden treasures for those contracting firms that have value engineering practices in their core. Most consultants will provision their design for any level of contractors to implement with a lot of allowances for their varying due diligence rating.

Hence, the more diligent a contractor is, the more such can track the tolerance which could be additional profit of up to 20-30% on first and second fix.

This is completely lost where there is no value engineering or due diligence. We are talking about $200,000-$300,000 of every $1million anticipated profit.

Coming from these level of poor commitment to design drawings implementation, can we now imagine the lack of interest in studying of that voluminous Specification book meant to define the quality assurance and control the project must meet?

My advice is that the project team, must of necessity create sessions of meeting where the specs must be read and interpreted. It must also be project milestones driven with focus on the scope to be implemented.

Most times the specs also reveals the tolerances such as allowance for alternative materials with regards to. Comparing Rolex watch with Casio watch or Mercedes Benz with Toyota.

Hopeful that this piece will inspire a new approach to our project implementation business practices.

ODUSINA, ADEWALE F. Managing Partner Hiworks Services Ltd. 2, Alfa Sanni Street, Pedro, Shomolu, Lagos. Tel: +2348025357926, +2348037871708 Email:hwsl2014@gmail.com, adewaleodusina@gmail.com

WE MUST BE READY, WILLING & ABLE TO EXPOSE OUR REPUTATION OF STRONG BUSINESS ETHICS TO A GREAT RISK IF WE MUST BUILD A GREAT BUSINESS.

VISIT OUR LINKEDIN PAGES FOR OUR PUBLICATIONS BY CLICKING BELOW: https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/23740981

Sent from my Kindle Fire