Expertise
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Design-Build
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General Contracting
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Construction Management
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Lean Construction
Lean construction seeks to apply the benefits of Lean manufacturing to the construction industry. At its core, Lean Construction seeks to identify and eliminate waste in all forms in construction. This is accomplished through team efforts and continuous improvement loops that seek to identify areas of waste, how certain aspects of the building process can be improved and then implementing them. Lean construction impacts the scheduling, trade interactions and even job site layout to minimize waste and maximize value for the client. Three Way Builders is a member of the Lean Construction Institute of Canada and have already begun training and implementing lean practises on our job sites.
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LEED Construction
LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is an ecology-oriented building certification program run under the auspices of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). LEED concentrates its efforts on improving performance across five key areas of environmental and human health: energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality, materials selection, sustainable site development and water savings. In Manitoba the adoption of the 2010 National Energy Code in 2015 raised the minimum energy efficiency standards which has reduced some of the benefits of LEED. Three Way Builders has successfully completed multiple LEED construction projects. Check out our project references for more information.
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Pre-Engineered Steel Buildings
Pre-engineered steel buildings are a cost effective steel building solution which utilizes a standard and consistent steel structure. Pre-engineered buildings arrive on site ready to assemble which leads to very fast construction times. Pre-engineered buildings have many uses including warehouses, industrial plants, strip malls and even office buildings. In fact many pre-engineered steel buildings don’t even look like a “typical” steel building. Along with pre-engineered steel buildings come all the benefits of steel including longer spans for wide open spaces, durability and water resistance for exception lifespan and strength allowing for higher walls and flexible design options. Three Way Builders has been an authorized Robertson Building Systems dealer since 1990 which gives us access to factory direct pricing on the building systems including insulated metal panels. You can see some of the buildings in our project references.
DESIGN-BUILD VS. BID APPROACH
DELIVERY COMPARISON
*Notes | Design-Build | Construction Management | Tendered/General Contracting | |
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Lower risk to owner | 1 | ♦♦♦ | ♦ | - |
Collaborative team approach throughout project | 2 | ♦♦♦ | - | - |
Collaboration during pre-construction | 3 | ♦♦♦ | ♦ (GC only) | - |
Owner has input into trades and suppliers | ♦♦♦ | ♦♦ | ♦ (pre-qual & specs) | |
Initial real-world budgets for better cost control | 4 | ♦♦♦ | ♦ | - |
Faster project delivery | 5 | ♦♦♦ | ♦ | - |
Reduced Change Orders | 6 | ♦♦♦ | ♦ | - |
Works with Lean Construction | 7 | ♦♦♦ | ♦ | - |
Subtrade and supplier involvement during design | 8 | ♦♦♦ | ♦ | - (limited and not wholistic) |
Focus on client satisfaction vs project | 9 | ♦♦♦ | - | - |
Trades provide feedback on gaps and errors before construction | 10 | ♦♦♦ | - | - |
Single point of responsibility | ♦♦♦ | - | - | |
Continuity - less chance for things to fall through the cracks | 11 | ♦♦♦ | ♦ | - |
Value Engineering | 12 | ♦♦♦ | ♦ | - |
♦ = Rating
*Notes:
- CM can reduce risk to the owner, however in a pure CM role their owner loses cost saving incentive, in CM converted to fixed price the gaps in the tendering documents result in the same issues and change orders as a tendered contract.
- CM to CCDC2 creates the same adversarial environment as tendered work.
- Typically trades and suppliers are not fully engaged in CM pre-construction.
- Major sub trades are not committed to during CM budgeting so their pricing involvement is still limited. Budgets are more complete than tendered work however.
- Both DB and CM have the opportunity to speed up project delivery by starting construction without complete plans, however CM struggles to get past the foundation work.
- The idea behind CM is to reduce change orders, in practice this has shown to have as much impact as it should have.
- Lean construction is at it's core about collaboration and teamwork which is a shared trait of DB.
- In tendered budgets suppliers and trades are often consulted about product costs with very limited information about where the product is going or how it will affect the rest of the building. The focus is on getting the product specified for tendering purposes.
- DB work requires trust at all levels, therefore client satisfaction is critical as to maintain trust.
- In DB sub trades are focused on providing value and completeness, instead of seeing what is missing and not including it at tender time then claiming extras afterwards at inflated prices.
- Since major trades and the builder are working with the client from the start design intent is maintained even with incomplete plans.
- In DB all parties work to value engineer the project with the client and reduce potential overlap. In CM value engineering is often limited to individual systems as there are rarely trades at the table. In tendered work value engineering is limited to cost savings when the price exceeds the budget and then the value returned is often a fraction of the actual value.