5 Owner Best Practices to Lower Capital Project Costs

We’re pleased to bring you this exciting and provocative blog series by guest blogger, Tom Koulouris. In this series, he’ll focus on various owner strategies aimed at lowering capital project costs without impacting the business needs.
 
Lowering Capital Project Costs Series: Part 1
 
Often times when “budgets” are first floated to senior management, their reaction is not always favorable and out goes the cry from the C-suite that the “the budget is too high”. Those of us charged with the responsibility of directing our capital building programs often then attempt misguided efforts to reduce the Construction manager (CM) fees or general conditions, or perhaps we attempt the same type of effort with our architects and engineers (AE) and even other major vendors.
 
Reduced to its simplest form, a “budget” is the quantitative output of the following equation: Scope + Schedule=Budget. When this equation is expanded to its most intricate components we begin to see opportunities to lower the project budget. Apart from examining the CM elements or the AE elements, which we will cover in later blog posts, what other components can you, as the owner,  examine yourself?
 
Over the next few weeks, we will highlight best practices that a facility owner can implement to reduce costs without impacting the goals of the business. 

Tom Koulouris, CGC MBA
Tom Koulouris is recognized as a dual subject matter expert including hospital operations and capital investments. As a General Contractor, former senior construction manager with HCA, and Capital Project and Infrastructure advisor at Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC), Tom has developed and practiced many key components to drive down project costs. One process that Tom has used to save significant capital is his ability to understand and implement process improvements leading to higher capacity and increased patient through-put. Tom has also developed and practiced many other techniques for owners to lower project costs. To read more from Tom, visit www.tomkoulouris.com.