A guide for three-month and 12-month facility follow-up evaluations to improve facility performance.
By Jeff Eriks and Evan Williams

When developing new solid waste facilities, the owner and development teams should strongly consider integrating three-month and 12-month post-construction evaluations into project planning. This time spent on the walk-through and assessment of the facility after it has been operational is an opportunity for the owner, design, and construction teams to better understand how the facility is working and to identify areas that need repair or should be approached differently on future projects. Along with identifying areas of improvement, it is also a good time to see what went right and what they want to incorporate into future facilities or in other current operations that may make them more efficient.

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SOCRRA MRF upgrade processing area. Designed and built by Cambridge Companies.

Integrating the Evaluations into the Project Planning
These post-construction evaluations should be planned out well in advance and made a part of the project schedule as well as the contract for all parties. By making this evaluation a formal part of the project delivery, it helps avoid the situation where the construction team hands over the keys for the facility and there is not a chance for them to walk the facility and learn. All parties should have well-defined responsibilities and roles in this process to make sure it is as effective and impactful as possible. Chart 1, page 40, is a sample responsibility matrix for a 12-month evaluation for reference.

Three-Month Walk-Through
The goal of the three-month evaluation is to make sure the building is operating and performing as needed. It is not unusual for the owner or their staff to have been provided insufficient operations and maintenance training of the mechanical, plumbing and electric systems. This leads to incorrect maintenance of poor operations of the systems that were installed. This evaluation provides an opportunity for these lapses to be identified and the appropriate parties notified to provide supplemental training or information to the owner’s operations staff.

Another area of critical performance for the three-month walk-through is safety. Once the facility is operational, it is helpful to evaluate how the safety systems are functioning. This is a good time to identify areas that are not working as intended and to plan ways to fix it. As an example, a three-month walk-through often exposes areas that should have floor striping for employee safety that was not initially planned, or areas that are OSHA confined spaces that are not correctly identified, to operations that need employees to be able to tie off for safety, but lack the appropriate anchorage. The walk-through provides an opportunity to identify these items and correct them. In addition to the safety and mechanical items, there are several other areas that can be evaluated at this stage. Overhead doors often represent a significant cost and are critical for solid waste facilities. They need to be correctly configured to make sure the doors and motor operators have a long life. If any issues are observed with their operation that should be identified now to allow that to be addressed before permanent damage is done to those systems.

Items that come up for each type of facility at the three-month walk-through will vary. Some items may be warranty related, but most likely they will be related to items that may have been missed during design or construction because it was hard to identify them on the 2D set of plans. Things like this could be walk areas on the floor, areas that should have been concrete instead of asphalt and items that are now needed due to changes in materials or due to growth that was unforeseen. Each facility should be dealt with differently when it comes to this walk-through and having a design and construction team that is seasoned in these types of facilities as well as working with you on future ones will help to take all of these items and “pay it forward” to the future projects.

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Georgia maintenance facility – shop area. Designed and built by Cambridge Companies.

12-Month Walk-Through
The 12-month walk-through is a more comprehensive evaluation than the one conducted at three months. This aligns with the industry standard 12-month construction warranty period for the facility, so it benefits the owner to be diligent in identifying areas they consider deficiencies that they expect to be remedied as a part of the original construction contract. Aside from the construction deficiency related items, this is also a time to really look at how the facility works (or does not). All members of the project team should approach this process with an open and honest attitude. If this devolves into a blame or complaining session, it will be much less effective for all involved. Ideally all the team members look at the facility and its operations and can identify areas where the building design is working as well as areas where the design could be improved for future projects or with modifications to the current facility if there is a quick payback or serious need based on operational changes that have taken place in the last year. In addition, the construction means and methods should be evaluated to see areas where quality issues present durability or operational challenges, as well as areas where the construction has really helped the facility to be effective. This process should also involve recommendations from the design and construction teams on ways the owner can modify or improve their operations to get the most out of their facility or ensure it is as durable as possible. The ideal end of this process is an owner that is happy with their project, and all three groups (Design, Construction and Ownership) gain valuable information on how their efforts positively or negatively impact that project.

Benefits to Owner
As the owner, the three- and 12-month evaluations can help you better understand your facility, while presenting you with an opportunity to voice any issues or concerns you have with your facility to the design and construction teams. This will also allow you and your team to gain the benefit of additional training and operations/maintenance guidance from the design and construction teams. Ideally your operations teams are following the Operations and Maintenance (O&M) handbook that was provided by the general contractor at the completion of the construction, but this is a good opportunity to be sure this is being done correctly. This benefits you in better operating systems that will run longer and will preserve their manufacturer’s extended warranties that are much longer than the initial 12-month construction warranty.
Once the 12-month period is up, many building and workmanship warranties have expired, are no longer the responsibility of the general contractor or subcontractors and become the owner’s responsibility. By having a formal 12-month walk-through, areas that need repair can be identified and addressed in a comprehensive manner rather than piecemeal fashion.

As an owner, you are presented with a challenging role. You need to be able to articulate your needs not only for the present, but also identify your needs for the future to make sure that your facility will be able to serve you for many years. Ideally, you will have design and build partners that will help you determine these needs and plan for growth scenarios. These evaluations will help you and your design and construction teams to evaluate how effectively your programmatic goals are being met. Regardless of what the evaluations uncover, this is a good exercise, as it allows the owner, design and construction teams to learn what does and what does not work. Ideally, the teams prepare and keep lists of lessons learned to avoid making the same mistakes twice.

The end goal as the owner is to get a high-performance facility that meets your needs now and into the future By integrating three-month and 12-month post construction evaluations into your project, you can ensure that you are getting the best from the project partners you have teamed with, and a better understanding of your facility and how it performs.

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Georgia maintenance facility – breakroom and driver check In. Designed and built by Cambridge Companies.

Benefits to Design
The design teams can play an important role in the three-month and 12-month post construction evaluations. While the exact roles and responsibilities vary in Design-Bid-Build versus Design-Build project delivery, the benefits to the design are similar. During these evaluations, the design team should be looking critically at how the building is holding up and to evaluate any areas of deficiency to see if it is due to poor design, improper construction or flawed operations (or some part of all three). Solid waste facilities by design need to be robust and rugged, but often need to be cost-effective as well. It is this balancing act that can come into play in these walk-throughs.

For example: At a new transfer station, the owner dictated 8’ tall push walls based on their stated incoming material volume and project budget. On the walk through you see material piled well over 8’ or damage to the metal siding above the concrete walls. With that observation, you can advise the owner that they may want to consider adding a heavy metal plate on top of the push walls or modify operations to move material out faster to keep the pile smaller. Ideally, you can make recommendations for interventions before long-lasting damage is done.

Throughout this process, the design team can gain the benefit of understanding which approaches work well and hold up, and which are ineffective. That is why working with a design team that specializes in solid waste facilities is important. They know what works and what does not. It is this cumulative knowledge gained from designing and observing facilities in operation that allow the design team to develop and curate their design best practices in order to ensure future projects gain the benefit of the lessons from past projects.

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Chart 1: Sample responsibilty matrix for a 12-month evaluation.

Benefits to Construction
The construction process is a partnership between the owner and the design/build team where your success is defined by the owner’s satisfaction with the final product. A common complaint from owners and end-users is that the construction teams do not stand behind their work. Often, this is a case where perception becomes reality. By staying engaged with the owner throughout the first year of operations, you can demonstrate your commitment to them and to your high quality product. Through the act of setting up defined times to log input and feedback you can help manage expectations as well as improvement constructive engagement. The owner should have a clear understating that you want them to be satisfied and they are encouraged to bring up issues and concerns. The three-month and 12-month evaluations formalize those opportunities to address any owner issues. Yes, there may be some cost to address some of these warranty items, however, if it is workmanship related, that is the responsibility of the sub-contractor, so the cost is spread out. The benefit to the general contractor can include improving the partnership between you and the owner. By remaining engaged you are demonstrating your commitment to quality and helping to create a long-term partnership that will extend to future projects.

Building Long-Term Relationships
There are several goals for these three- and 12-month evaluations. One is to give all the project teams the opportunity to learn from the facility and work to improve it as well as future projects. In addition, this process also formalizes the facility warranty process to make sure issues with workmanship are identified and addressed in line with the contractual warranty period. This process is also a framework for extended engagement to continue building long-term partnerships between the owner and the design/build team, which will lead to better projects over time. | WA

Jeff Eriks is a Vice President of Business Development and Marketing at Cambridge Companies (Griffith, IN), a design-build firm, working with the waste industry for more than 25 years. During this time, more than 150 solid waste design-build projects have been completed including new build, repairs, upgrades and/or modifications at transfer stations, recycling centers/MRFs, hauling companies, landfill facilities, office buildings and more. Cambridge continually monitors the industry to determine any new needs, changes or improvements that will benefit their clients and improve their design-build solutions. Jeff can be reached at (219) 972-1155, via e-mail at J[email protected] or visit www.CambridgeCoInc.com.

Evan Williams is a Design Project Manager at Cambridge Companies (Griffith, IN). Evan can be reached at (219) 972-1155, via e-mail at [email protected] or visit www.CambridgeCoInc.com.

 

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