Identifying change - Easy to Say, but you have to do it!

Most subcontracts commonly in use place the responsibility to identify change (variations and program) on the subcontractor.  Typically the requirement is:

If you identify any change as a result of an instruction (or anything else) you MUST notify the managing contractor within 5 days of the instruction (or becoming aware of the change) of the change, whether it is a variation, your estimate of the cost (or time, in the case of an eot).

You MUST NOT start work on the instruction or change until you have written approval from the managing contractor of your claim for a variation or eot.

If you do not fulfill these requirements WITHIN THE TIME FOR NOTICES you will lose your entitlements.  Our legal advice is that these clauses will stand up.

If you are operating under these or similar conditions, you absolutely must have processes in place to capture issues at site and in the office and to quickly engage a watertight process to ensure that you meet your obligations, before doing any work.  The process will pass through at least 5 people on your organisation (or 5 processes for you, if you are small).

There is collaborative technology to help facilitate this process.  Fro example a Google (or similar) shared spreadsheet could help speed the process of estimating and approval.

Here is a simple example of a free collaborative spreadsheet form that you can use to manage this process:



It is much more difficult to gather the first information in a pressure-cooker construction environment, so that costly items don't "fall between the cracks" and become costly mistakes.

Thepowertool facilitates gathering of site and office data and more importantly creating instant action tasks for anyone in your organisation, as well as streamlining your payment claim process.

You can not operate successfully in today's environment with outdated systems.

If you want more advice on the above collaborative spreadsheet, contact me.