Through our team’s initiative, innovation, and
experience, we provided DOW Chemical with an
alternative with a better end product, new and higher
capacity, where the safety controls, production, and
operations are given back to the client. All of this while
controlling schedule and costs. This project is a great
example of collaboration and teamwork across all of CDI
Engineering Solutions.
The issue encountered with this approach was immediately identified by CDI as being open-ended. The hidden aspects to both engineering and construction presented a multitude of issues to be discovered and solved only after demolition had begun. While limited engineering and design can certainly be accomplished with the known documentation, visual inspection and field data acquisition, it is recognized that unseen/hidden issues discovered during demolition to prepare for construction could present problems with serious consequences to engineering, construction and construction sequencing.
The original scope of work also, did not include whether the existing piers and abutments could accept this new loading, and what that would mean to the project costs and schedule. The consequence of these possible unseen/hidden issues could present several risk factors to the overall cost of the project, project control, life safety aspects, and shutdowns to unit(s) production. Any of these risk factors could add significant costs to the project, not to mention possible loss of production revenues.
With the early estimates (engineering and construction) for this original bid request coming in above $6.1 million, it is easy to see with uncontrolled project costs, with contractor(s) exclusions written in to protect against unseen/hidden issues, where this project could exceed $10 million through FCO’s and Change Management.