Savings from a KeenLook Review

Often people have the question, “What kind of savings can be achieved in both time and money on the project to justify the additional expenses of a coordination review?” And in a business sense, it is a good question. However, it is extremely difficult to answer, and impossible to quantify.

No project is alike and we have no way of knowing the path not taken, but our clients estimate that they experience a savings of roughly 3-12% of the total construction cost. And comprehensive and expensive studies performed by the US Navy suggest that approximately 50% of the cost overruns experienced on construction project were due to coordination errors in the drawings and specifications.

Basically, to come up with any sort of answer to this question, one has to visualize the road not taken.

For example, imagine this situation as a quick analogy. You are standing on the curb of busy street. As a bus approaches, the man standing next to you, for an unknown reason, starts to step in front of the speeding bus. You grab him by the shirt and pull him back to safety. He turns to you and says, “Wow. Thanks, I really appreciate your help. How much pain, suffering, money, time and hassle did you just save me?” Your answer is, “I have no idea. But I imagine it would have been a lot. What would have been the accumulated loss if you had stepped in front of the bus?” He'd be able to answer the question better than you could because he knows what his potential loss of salary might be, the size of his family and the impact that an injury to him may have to them, his pain tolerance, etc. Neither of you though, would be able to pin point the exact nature of what his injuries would be, only what they could be.

Similarly, we can’t quantify the savings that a KeenLook coordination review provided since we can’t go back in time and redo the construction process without the review. It all boils down to foresight. Or the ability to understand that finding mistakes on paper is cheaper and faster to fix than mistakes discovered in the field. And then belief that the review fee is minuscule compared to the impact of errors discovered after ground breaking.

Each client that keeps accurate historical records of prior construction projects knows their typical number of RFI's and change orders, their correct source (e.g., errors and discrepancies in the drawings and specs, unforeseen site conditions, owner's requested changes, etc.), and their impact and cost. Then, by continuing to keep accurate records of a new project that was first KeenLook reviewed, and seeing how the project fared, you will get a very good feel for the success of the review. You will be able to estimate the value of the review, not only in dollars and cents, but in peace of mind. You really are the best and only judge.