Early contractor involvement
Bring the builder in while the drawing can still change. Every decision on a project gets more expensive the later it is taken, and the ones taken after the design freeze are the most expensive of all.
- WhenBefore the design is frozen
- What you getCost, programme and buildability advice
- FormPre-construction services agreement
- ThenPriced works, or a clean tender set
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What ECI is for
The cheapest change is the one on the drawing board
We are a partner with you from the project’s initial stages to provide expert input on planning, budgeting, and design. This proactive approach allows us to identify potential challenges early on, optimize project timelines, and ensure cost efficiency. By working closely with stakeholders from the outset, we create a solid foundation for success.
A design that has never been priced by someone who will build it is a hypothesis. ECI tests it while testing is still cheap: a column grid that suits the formwork, a facade that suits what the market stocks, a programme that has the permit gates in it. None of these are clever. They are simply decisions that cost an afternoon in week three and a variation order in month nine.
- AppointmentPre-construction services agreement
- Open bookOur rates and our assumptions, visible
- DeliverablesCost plan, programme, risk register
- BuildabilityReviewed by the people who will build it
- ProcurementLong-lead strategy and early packages
- ExitNegotiated contract or a clean tender set
The cost of a decision is a curve
Changing a column position in concept costs a drawing revision. Changing it after the rebar is scheduled costs the rebar, the formwork, the programme and the argument. The shape of that curve is the entire argument for ECI, and it is a shape, not a number.
- Early decisions are reversible — the design is the only part of a project where undoing something is free
- Late decisions are compound: they move the work already done, the work already ordered and the dates already promised
- We do not publish a percentage, because the honest answer depends on your project — what we will do is price your actual options, both ways
So we flatten it
The work of ECI is to move decisions left: to find, in the weeks when drawings are cheap, the things that would otherwise be discovered in the months when they are not.
- Buildability review by the site team, on the drawings, before they are issued for approval
- Market test of the specification — a product nobody stocks in the Kingdom is a programme risk wearing a brand name
- Authority path mapped: what Balady will want, what Civil Defence will want, and when each of them will want it
A programme with the approvals in it
Most construction programmes are a sequence of trades with the statutory gates left out, which is why they are optimistic in exactly the same place every time. A building permit here is valid three years and renewable; getting it is a dated activity with a predecessor, and it belongs on the bar chart.
- Permit gates as programme activities, with their predecessors: the licensed office’s drawings, the Civil Defence submission, the staged inspections
- Long-lead register from week one — switchgear, chillers, stone, veneer, lifts
- Enabling and early packages identified, so work can start against a frozen part of the design
And a risk register that names things
A risk register full of “adverse weather” and “scope creep” is a document nobody reads. A useful one names the specific thing, the specific date it bites, and who owns it.
- Named risks with dates and owners, reviewed at every design meeting rather than filed at the start
- Ground and existing-condition risk investigated before it is priced, because the alternative is pricing it twice
- A contingency with a reason: a figure you can interrogate line by line, not a percentage applied to make the total look prudent
One programme, and no change of hands
ECI ends one of two ways, and both are clean. Either we price the works and build what we helped design, or you take a tender set that has been tested for buildability and go to market with it.
- Negotiated works contract, open-book, with the pre-construction work credited into it
- Or a tested tender set you take to market, with our cost plan as the benchmark to judge the bids against
- Either way the knowledge stays with the project, because the risk register and the cost plan hand over with it
How an ECI appointment runs
Six stages, before a brick
A pre-construction services agreement is a small, defined appointment with named deliverables. It is not a commitment to award us the works.
Appointment and brief
A pre-construction services agreement with named deliverables, a fee and an end date.
Order-of-cost and benchmarking
An early cost plan against real rates and real suppliers, with the assumptions written down.
Buildability review
The site team reads the drawings and says what will be difficult, while difficult is still cheap.
Risk and authority path
Named risks with owners and dates, and the Balady and Civil Defence route mapped onto the programme.
Programme and procurement strategy
A programme with the permit gates in it, a long-lead register, and the early packages identified.
Transition
Either a negotiated works contract, open-book, or a tested tender set you take to market.
Scope
What a pre-construction appointment delivers
Deliverables
- Order-of-cost estimate, then a developed cost plan
- Buildability review of each design stage
- Value engineering options, priced both ways
- Programme with statutory gates as activities
- Long-lead register and procurement strategy
- Risk register with named owners and dates
- Authority path: Balady, Civil Defence, inspections
- Early and enabling package definition
- Open-book rates and stated assumptions
Not included
- The design itself, where you have appointed your own consultants
- Geotechnical investigation, though we will tell you when you need one
- Statutory fees and submission charges
- Any obligation on either side to proceed to a works contract
- Construction works, which are a separate contract
What early actually buys
Three things that only work early
Every decision we move earlier is a decision taken while the drawing is still the cheapest thing to change. That is the whole mechanism, and it does not work in month nine.
Balady, Civil Defence and the staged inspections appear on the programme as dated activities with predecessors. Programmes that leave them out are optimistic in the same place every time.
Our rates and our assumptions are visible, so the cost plan is a document you can interrogate rather than a number you have to trust.
Joinery Manufacturing
Our own plant, our own machines. The package everyone else subcontracts, and the reason our finishing dates hold.
Talk to us before the design is frozen.
A pre-construction appointment is small, defined, and the only point in a project where advice is still cheap.