Commercial construction projects are incredibly complex. Architects, construction crews, plumbers, electricians, heavy equipment operators, and other key players are all involved in the process. Their work needs to be coordinated to complete the project on time and on budget, all while keeping everyone safe.
Commercial construction management is the key to coordinating all of these moving pieces and ensuring your construction project is completed to the satisfaction of all stakeholders—on time and on budget.
What Is Commercial Construction Management?
Commercial construction management is a discipline that seeks to make construction projects more successful by coordinating architects, engineers, subcontractors, and other parties, all while using management principles to find efficiencies.
Construction managers are part of the construction planning process from step one. This means they can help address cost, scheduling, scope, safety, quality, and more.
The Commercial Construction Management Process
We can break the commercial construction management process into 7 steps:
- Development and planning: Working with architects and engineers, the commercial construction manager may help set budgets and schedules, assist in site selection, and perform feasibility studies.
- Pre-design: In the pre-design phase, the construction manager provides input on the proposed construction methods and materials, helping stakeholders understand the feasibility of these methods and materials and how they may impact the project’s final costs.
- Design: The construction manager can give much clearer estimates of the cost and schedule of the project in this phase. They’ll also provide constructability reviews, highlighting potential challenges posed by the methods and materials used in the design.
- Pre-construction: At this point, a full construction plan is detailed—site logistics, a safety plan, and schedules are all established. The construction manager may also be involved in securing the permits needed for the project.
- Procurement: The construction manager handles bids and negotiates contractors with subcontractors and suppliers to procure both supplies and labor for the project.
- Construction: This is where construction managers shine the brightest—they oversee every element of construction, including coordinating contractors, conducting quality checks, ensuring that safety protocols are met, and providing updates to stakeholders.
- Post-construction: The manager may coordinate site cleanup, review construction to ensure that everything meets the project’s requirements, and coordinate the turnover of the building to the client.
The Responsibilities of a Commercial Construction Project Manager
As you can see, commercial construction managers have a wide variety of different responsibilities, including:
- Setting project goals and objectives
- Developing and implementing project plans
- Managing budgets and resources
- Ensuring project delivery within scope, schedule and budget
- Communication with staff and stakeholders
Years of experience in the construction industry are required in order to gain the skills needed to manage a commercial construction site effectively and safely.
Challenges Involved in Commercial Construction
There are a wide array of challenges facing the construction industry in 2023, including:
- Rising cost of materials
- Shortage of skilled and unskilled labor
- Growing complexity of projects
A skilled construction project manager will help reduce the cost of materials by working with a variety of trusted suppliers. Having worked with several subcontractors before, they’ll be able to find the labor force needed to complete the project on time and on budget. And with years of experience, they’ll have dealt with projects similar to yours—no matter how complex your project may be.
Conclusion
A commercial construction manager can save you tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on your commercial construction project. Their knowledge and involvement in the bidding process, construction methods, budgeting, scheduling, and more will help you find savings and efficiencies.
Dub-L-EE Construction offers commercial construction management services in Albuquerque—call us today.
Eddie has been a resident of Albuquerque his entire life.
After he graduated from high school, Eddie joined the Plumbers & Pipefitters Union where he obtained his Journeyman Plumber and Journeyman Gas Certifications. He then worked in the commercial plumbing industry for 7 years until he and his father decided to go into business together and started Dub-L-EE, LLC.
In the last 7 years Eddie has obtained his GA02, GA03, and MM98 certifications allowing Dub-L-EE to fully utilize Eddie Sr. and Eddie Jr.’s expertise in the construction industry.