Every owner/developer has its unique software requirements and formats to get you approved as a General Contractor/Sub-Contractor to do the job properly and release your funds consequently.
In-House Preparation
Pros.
By assigning the project to your in-house schedulers and construction planners, possibly will give you a greater control which is imperative if your owner has specific needs required for the software to be used, and the format to be chosen for submission. Most likely most of the conducted projects could have been done before by the construction planning team and they must have been possibly fully aware of the owner requirements and formats to deliver on-time. Since in-house preparation developed by your construction planning team, it will give the Project Manager a complete understanding of the unique situation, as the Project Manager can support them individually and instantly, and will understand any subtle nuances; as well as, the Project Manager can easily minimize the downtime from the technical errors that could possibly occur by the construction schedulers or planners in the team.
Cons.
Your in-house construction team of schedulers and planners may lack the knowledge and expertise to create the sophisticated schedule according to the new owner/developer requirements of handling all the tasks required accordingly. If you are working with an owner that you have worked with before in the past, this won’t be an issue. However, in the case of surplus on the current in-house projects, they can face a lot to finish and prepare other schedules on-time, and that’s could possibly be tricky. In addition, if there are a lot of new activities and submittals according to the new scope and the project requirements, they may lack familiarity to deliver on time and on budget due to the load of the new requirements and the pressure of meeting those requirements on time and on budget.
For instance, in-house schedulers and planners can constantly tends to lack the scalability by using different versions of the software required, which can be also a troublesome sometime as technology is constantly evolving and a lot of versions with different features are coming in to the market every day. Thus, it could lead to a confusion, delay when submitting, and extra cost for updating the software required.
Outsourcing
Pros.
When hiring a Professional Engineering Consultant, they will bring in the benefit of being extensively experienced due to their specialty of focusing on that essential part specifically according to their experience working with various owners and developers. This can be a quicker and smoother integration to your project by lifting the burden off your shoulders to gain some time focusing on what to be done next according to the prepared outsourced schedule, which will be as a chance to save some time on focusing on the biggest part of the challenge.
Choosing this route almost guarantees that the schedule is created correctly and according to the owner requirements. Those professional consultants are more focused on getting into their part and keeping the required format required according to the progress and scheduling progress part in the construction project, which can save valuable time and money to get to what’s important to be done.
Professional Engineering Consultants always maintain to pass on the schedule preparation through three phases, a planner to phase it, a scheduler familiar to the software required versions to do the data entry job, and a project controls manager to review it. Outsourcing can accrue high support and can consequently maintain a lump sum cost according to the project value. Thus, the Project Manager assigned to the project can get a product which is completely free from technical errors and with a high standard of quality according to the owner requirements and the lump sum payment can be always tied to the schedule approval and according to the agreement.
Cons.
In order to address any technical issues, you will be at the mercy of a vendor who’s sets can change the price of the service required according to the load of work required thereafter and at any time. There may also be a waiting period for support, as this consultant is not only dedicated for your team, and you may have to hedge through hoops to reach for help from another, which can end up costing time and more money than was expected.
When weighing the Pros. and Cons. Of these options, you should consider your business circumstances according to the budget, available in-house staff, and the other vital factors that could lead you to outsource eventually. For example, you must streamline the consultant previous experience and references before choosing him for the right software to use or the project to be assigned to.
Conclusion
Streamline your tasks and requirement wherein you can choose accordingly from outsourcing or doing it in-house.
Note that hiring an in-house construction scheduler/planner nowadays means that more benefits and more expenses, like medical insurance, life insurance, transportation, high-salary according to experience, etc.
Meeting in-house requirements will require buying different versions on licenses for the required software for doing the job.
While outsourcing, go for a lump sum agreement to avoid any extra cost in future.
You can hire the Consultant by the job, there is no need to for any annual agreements on monthly bases fixed price, streamline your goals.
Share knowledge and flourish by getting some of their background experience, they have instantly worked in a wide array of different scopes unlike yourself as a General Contractor or a Sub-Contractor, and with various owners with different requirements and challenges.
Make everyone’s life a lot easier for years to come and build up relationships within the Construction Industry.