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Category: Projects £10-15m Name: Matthew Garnett Company: HBG Construction Project: David Young Academy, Leeds Contract: Bespoke Design and Management |
The easy option on a project with a challenging programme is to commit more money to try to achieve success. But that's not Matthew Garnett's style. By sticking firmly to the eternal budget, time and quality mantra, this vastly experienced construction manager not only delivered on time, but to a pride-inspiring quality and under budget to boot.
It was no mean feat. The programme simply had to meet the usual no-compromise deadline of the new academic year – plans to close two failing schools and decant their students into the new academy had already swung into action. But on the date construction should have started, the discovery of a £3m budget shortfall brought the project to a halt, and when agreement was reached on extra financing it also required £1m savings through value engineering.
With a programme now cut to 71 weeks from the original 76, Matthew was barely a week into construction when the client, desperate to get its ICT installation and fit-out under way before the term started, begged him for practical completion three weeks earlier. He readily agreed to 68 weeks as a target programme, promising the client a minimum of early occupation of the IT-rich areas.
What makes Matthew's determination to achieve the date even more impressive is that it quickly became clear that the design team was well behind with its specification. Continually delayed by insufficient design detail, Matthew repeatedly reworked the programme to facilitate progress. While not ultimately achieving early practical completion, he allowed early occupation for ICT installation, integrating the client fit-out programme with his own.
By handing over the building in time for the new academic year, Matthew earned HBG a £400K windfall, as completion to programme allowed the contractor to keep 70% of any construction savings, which were well over £600K on the project.
Yet those savings did not come at the expense of quality. Determined to build a fit-for-purpose structure, Matthew always ensured the client and end-user assessed every detail of the design spec right down to the radiator valves, coat pegs and washbasin taps. Despite the enormous extra workload generated in change control documentation, Matthew shrugged off the mutterings and kept on ensuring the end-users were truly satisfied with the fantastic end product.
