Owners are concerned about contractors being qualified to do the work on their project. There are several levels of qualifications. Performance Bonds If you are going to have a bond provided, this could well be all the prequalification you need. If you are not going to have a performance bond, make sure the size of [...]
Specific craft labor costs are developed from the wages, fringe benefits and burdens. Burdens are payroll taxes and insurance. The payroll taxes can be figured at 10% of the wages and, if any, taxable fringe benefit amounts. The insurance covers items such as unemployment, workers compensation and liability insurance coverage. This varies by craft type [...]
There are firms that promote various Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) contracts. Why? In order to have a true GMP contract one needs to develop the design, issue the documents for bidding and then having the work performed without any or a minimal amount of change orders. This concept sounds a lot like the traditional design, [...]
The Wall Street Journal reported on February 11, 2009 that Intel will be spending about $7 billion to upgrade its U.S. manufacturing facilities in the next two years. They are smarter than the companies that are retrenching from capital expenditures at this time. Here’s why: They will now get a much better value for their [...]
As a way of introduction, I am Don Short. I am an estimator. I have been involved in construction, one way or another for over 35 years. Along the way I have worked on some very large projects and very small projects. They have ranged from retail to heavy industrial and just about everything in [...]
