Relationships within Sunwest Construction
At Sunwest Construction we build relationships through our services. Our relationships are designed to meet our client's needs and objectives. We will assist you in determining the best construction approach for your specific project requirements. Our most common relationships include:
* Design/Build: Gives you single source responsibility for your construction project from the earliest planning stage through final construction. Some advantages include fast track completion, cost effective design, maximum owner input in the overall process, guaranteed maximum price and optimal results.
* Cost Plus: Gives you all the above advantages except the guaranteed maximum price. Additional advantages can include the fastest possible construction time and the most economical construction.
* Construction: A relationship in which the owner employs our firm as a consultant through the Design Management and building process under a lump sum fee. For the larger, more complex projects, this relationship optimizes the advantages obtained in a design/build arrangement.
What Is Single Responsibility Contracting?
Known as "design/build" or "turnkey", Single Responsibility is a system of contracting under which one entity performs both architectural/engineering design and the actual construction work. In the "traditional" contracting approach, the owner commissions an architect or engineer to prepare drawings and specifications, and separately selects a construction contractor or construction manager either by negotiation or competitive bidding. The Single Responsibility team is closely involved in producing a product which meets the owner's needs rather than merely acting as professional advisors to the owner. The owner deals with a unified design-construct team working together in his behalf. Single-source design and production of industrial and consumer products, "both large and small, has long been the norm throughout our economy. Now, quite understandably, design/build has moved to the forefront of the construction industry.
Advantages of Single Responsibility
Single responsibility contracting provides a unique set of advantages not available in any other delivery system.
• Undivided Responsibility: Single responsibility contracting provides both architectural/engineering and construction resources under a single contract. The owner looks to a single entity responsible for cost control, quality assurance, schedule adherence, and performance of the finished project. This results in clearly fixed responsibility, maximum cost control, and immediate responsiveness. The client can exercise his desired degree of control over design, with the added advantage of continuously knowing the cost implications of each decision. The client's control of the entire process is strengthened by contracting with a single firm unconditionally committed to the success of his project.
• Early Knowledge of Costs: The design/build team, working closely with the client, accurately conceptualizes the completed project at an early stage. Continuous and concurrent estimating during the development of design results in knowledge of firm overall cost far sooner than is traditionally possible. This process also permits making early decisions – which have the greatest impact upon cost – in an informed, cost-based environment.
• Time Savings: As the design and construction are telescoped, bidding periods and redesign time are eliminated, and long-delivery components are identified and ordered early in the design process. Therefore, total design-construction time is significantly reduced, which translates into earlier utilization of the completed facility.
• Dollar Savings: Design and construction personnel, working and communicating as a team, evaluate alternative materials and methods efficiently and accurately. From the outset of the project, both design and construction expertise are brought to bear upon all components of a project from site work through mechanical and electrical systems. Because cost evaluation is progressively "fed back" into the design process as it proceeds – not after design is complete – decisions affecting cost and design are continuously optimized.
Because the contractor is responsible for both design and construction, cost overruns resulting from design error or faulty coordination are the responsibility of the contractor, not the owner. The owner pays only for the changes which they initiate.