Owners Representatives - 10 Reasons Why You Should Hire One for Your Next Project
An Owners Representative ensures that the owner’s best interest are taken into during every step of the construction process. This role is essential when dealing with large projects to ensure no steps are missed and any conflicts are dealt with quickly to ensure a smooth and efficient construction process.
1. Communication
You have a team of experts with your architect, contractor, legal, and accounting team, but who sees the big picture? Having an Owner’s Representative facilitates communication across team members in a timely fashion. Note, the owners can often be the culprit of why projects become delayed; an Owner’s Representative can assist in preventing these delays and miscommunications.
2. Cost Savings
You hire an accountant to do your taxes, and their efforts often return results that cover their fees. Owner’s Representatives should not claim that they will save their entire fee through their efforts, but it is rare when their involvement does not result in savings to their clients. Like an accountant, you are also receiving peace of mind that your project follows industry protocols to reduce your risk.
3. Time
You, as the Owner, have a job, and most likely, it is more than full-time; adding a large capital project increases the burden of your daily responsibilities. An Owner’s Representative will not replace the Owner but do the heavy lifting related to project management that will allow you to be engaged and informed without being overwhelmed.
4. Software & Information
A reputable Owner’s Representative will have implemented a project management software that allows exchanging information and filing of records efficiently. As the Owner, you need access to information, and therefore it should be filed within a system you can access. An Owner’s Representative will manage countless documents on the Owner’s behalf.
5. Translators
Like any, the Architecture and Construction industry is more than guilty of industry-specific acronyms and terminology and can be hard to understand for those new to the field. An Owner’s Representative can assist the Owner in continually reviewing the project’s goals and walking them through the drawings and specifications as needed to ensure every detail is understood.
6. Scope Identification
Architects and contractors have their roles on a project, but many tasks have to be completed by the Owner. These can include but are not limited to surveys, soil information, IGA agreements, Contracts, hazmat, move management, IT management, security systems and more. The Owner’s Representative will work with the
team to outline the roles and responsibilities and work with the team members to ensure no items are overlooked.
7. Relationships
Owner’s representative should have solid relationships in the industry and can weed out good consultants from bad. They often know the architect and construction firms and sometimes even the architect’s project manager and construction superintendent.
8. Hiring
Your project may require miscellaneous consultants to meet its goals. Owner’s representative’s work to generate the RFP, interview (if necessary), and negotiate the required contracts.
9. Budget
The Owner’s Representative will manage a comprehensive project budget that includes hard and soft costs. An established Owner’s Representative needs a solid master budget, alongside real industry experience managing multi-faceted budgets. The Owner’s Representative will generate the master budget and accurately track expenses related to progress on the project.
10. Schedule
An Owner’s Representative will work with the team to build a master schedule and track it. The master schedule should include details related to critical path and deliverables from all parties.
11. Quality
Quality comes not only at the implementation of construction but is also related to the quality of drawings and even includes items such as meeting minutes. The Owner’s Representative should know what is industry standard as a minimum and work to review the documentation and construction for accuracy, timeliness, and quality.