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Cost creep occurs when budget boundaries for a project are slowly maligned by unplanned needs, change decisions or poor bidding processes. In commercial building and design processes, window shades can contribute to cost creep. For example, in an effort to win with low bids, contractors may leave shade considerations out of drawings altogether, which means they're left out of the project or become an added expense later.

Learn how to prevent shade project cost creep below, including how our Design-Assist services can help.

The Role of Subject-Matter Experts in Preventing Cost Creep

Proactively planning all critical functions and parts of a commercial building design can help reduce costs and avoid unplanned and potentially increased expenses down the line. That includes window shades.

By considering factors such as shade placement and style, materials and installation work, development managers, building owners, architects and other members of the development team can increase overall satisfaction with designs and the final building while containing costs.

Consider how teams might approach plumbing and fixtures, for example. You plan for these elements ahead of time because the decisions you make about fixtures and where to put them impact the installation of infrastructure elements in a building. Waiting until later to figure out plumbing figures reduces your ability to create a comprehensive and accurate quote. This can substantially increase project spend and time line as you may need to undo designs or work to incorporate plumbing fixtures later.

Treating shades in the same proactive way helps incorporate these functional design elements in the most streamlined manner while ensuring intelligent decision-making about commercial window shade budgeting.

Experts with knowledge and experience in incorporating window shades into commercial building projects can help with planning. They can provide accurate pricing based on material and shade choices that includes installation expenses, reducing the risks of surprise costs down the line. Collaborating with Contexture provides development teams with access to these types of experts to support informed decision-making and risk mitigation.

The Contexture team may even suggest products that are not the standard off-the-shelf solution, but ultimately prove to be a better fit for the project. In doing so, there may be coordinations that need to take place with adjacent trades. If these options are not explored until after the project goes out to bid, it might be too late to incorporate a design that is a better overall solution for the owners and end users.

The Importance of Comprehensive Project Drawings

Complete and accurate project drawings are paramount to comprehensive shade project planning. Incomplete or vague specifications in drawings can leave too much to chance or cause shades or shade components to be left out altogether. This creates scenarios that involve costly on-site adjustments as teams work to bring building designs or final outcomes up to client expectations.

Defining a detailed scope and creating project-specific detailing can help teams catch requirements early. For example, catching all the parts and any "extras" needed to install window shades and support desired functionality is helpful for project inventory purposes. It lets manufacturers deliver exactly what's needed, mitigating time loss and added expenses in ordering missing pieces later.

Ensuring comprehensive project drawings also supports level-set bidding processes. Defining exactly what's required helps support complete bids that consider the project's scope, allowing teams to make apples-to-apples comparisons between subcontractor bids for informed decision-making.

Contexture's Elevated Submittals provides clarity, helps prevent misunderstandings and accurately captures the design intent to avoid outstanding questions during execution, leading to more comprehensive project drawings and planning for cost reduction throughout the process. Our goal isn't to eliminate change orders entirely but to catch as much as possible upfront and early in projects to minimize the impact of necessary change orders. Early planning also leaves room for changes to adjacent trades and details that can create additional cost savings for installations — for example, supporting the coupling of shades so one motor can run multiple shade brands.

How Contexture's Design-Assist Services Mitigate Project Risks

Avoiding cost creep in shade projects starts with an expert analysis of your needs and early identification of potential cost risks. At Contexture, we use Change Order Mitigation Analysis to help you understand cost risks, and we can provide insights into installation costs and hurdles to ensure your plans align with realistic budgets and timelines.

We follow a three-step process:

  • Our team provides a complimentary initial project consultation. We review your project goals and provide some suggestions about our approach. You make an informed decision about our design services, and if it's a good fit, we move on to analytics and design.

  • We leverage a performance-based approach to suggest solutions and optimize window shade outcomes.

  • We provide comprehensive specifications and project-specific detailing to support window shade installation for your project.

At Contexture, we've supported some of the most complex building designs to ensure window shades add to the functionality and beauty of a project without negatively impacting budget and time lines. For example, Contexture provided expertise for a guitar-shaped building in Florida, helping to scope out window shades for areas of the building with 180-inch-wide windows with up to 42 degrees of slope — a design situation the building engineering team had not previously encountered.

Best Practices for Setting and Sticking to a Shade Project Budget

Maximize shade project cost management with best practices, which include:

  • Engaging shade experts. Experts can help you evaluate all your options, align products with your intent and understand how to work within budget constraints while supporting client or building needs regarding shades.

  • Capturing the full scope of a project. As one of the last things installed on a project, shades may be left out altogether — or inferior products installed — if the budget runs out. Capturing the full scope of a project, including shades, early on supports better budget planning to reduce these risks.

  • Ensuring drawings are comprehensive. Blocking could be missing or confusion about building geometry in 2D plans means shades can't be installed as planned. Material clashes with soffits or columns can have an impact on how the shades are installed and are often missed until it is time to field measure. At this point, it may be too late to suggest better alternatives based on the amount of construction that has already taken place.

  • Leveraging Contexture's budgetary pricing tools. Our budgetary pricing tools and expertise help you front-load data for enhanced decision-making.

Take Control of Your Shade Project Budget

Budgeting for window shade installation doesn't start when you're shopping for and installing the product in a final building. It should start early in the process to avoid cost creep and ensure optimal functionality. Developing comprehensive specifications ensures as many details are captured early as possible, supporting more seamless integration of shades later. This also provides a truer understanding of what is being purchased to better meet an owner's expectations and avoid feeling underwhelmed when they didn’t get what they had envisioned.

Contexture's Design-Assist services can help you take control of your shade project and the related budget. Connect with Contexture today for project support.

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