Construction Project Oversight

Managing and monitoring the progress of construction projects is typically the role of a construction manager or builder, but project owners often discover the need to augment their teams or seek more effective project management oversight as the demand on existing staff time becomes evident. Our team develops and maintains project execution plans, schedules, and estimates that align with project scopes and budgets while working with project stakeholders to address and mitigate risks.

Providing stakeholder value and meeting delivery goals requires integrated program management focused on improving execution performance. Exponent's program managers can establish a tailored management and reporting process to support strategic decision making, adapt to change, identify risks, and resolve execution issues.

Meeting strategic business and construction goals requires executable and integrated management focused on improving project portfolio performance. Exponent's portfolio managers can establish a repeatable portfolio management and reporting process to balance resources, identify risks, and improve effectiveness.

Exponent construction consultants employ status reporting to help you track project progress by comparing and reporting on actual progress versus project schedule and cost estimates. We can forecast or update completion dates and costs to help you regain control of project execution, plan for future needs, and measure success.

Carefully planning production schedules and monitoring progress goes hand-in-hand with construction project delivery. To improve overall project planning, progress monitoring, and execution risk identification and mitigation, Exponent's scheduling consultants can collaborate with your project team and stakeholders to assess project scope and cost, develop and update schedules, and monitor and report on schedule performance. Exponent's professionals have extensive experience preparing, maintaining, reviewing, and managing project schedules using critical path method (CPM) techniques, and we provide schedule preparation and review services to help ensure that schedules comply with contract specifications and project requirements.

During complex construction projects, cyclical schedule updates may not be enough to account for the many detailed incidents that can contribute to schedule changes or delays. One way to do this effectively is to conduct regular schedule analyses while events can still be accurately recalled and data captured for future records. Exponent's construction consultants can assist your team by conducting a technical schedule review, including incident, causation, and historical analyses that help you get ahead of costly schedule delays, disputes, and unwanted surprises at the end of a project.

Exponent's consultants perform assessments of high-risk, troubled projects to identify performance issues and recommend course-correction strategies to get schedules and costs back on track.

Exponent's consultants help owners and contractors develop processes and training to facilitate flexibility and adaptability to mitigate and respond to changes in projects at any stage. By identifying the impacts, developing responses, and documenting the outcomes, an effective change management plan supports project execution success.

Using data pipeline automation and data visualization techniques, Exponent is helping construction companies and owners implement on-the-spot adjustments to enhance infrastructure and improve project performance, including increasing profitability, contractor accountability and efficiency, safety, and the ability to predict future project challenges.

Assessing whether you're ready to begin construction goes a long way toward success, from considering your motives and defining your desired outcomes to outlining resource needs and evaluating your financial capacity to complete the project on schedule. Exponent's construction consultants can guide your internal team through a thorough capital project readiness assessment designed to highlight your opportunities, capabilities, deficiencies, and resources and provide valuable insights that enable you to move forward with confidence.

Reasonable budgets and estimates are an essential element of an effective capital plan and a successful construction program or project. Exponent has decades of experience in helping clients develop budgets for projects of all sizes and provides independent assessments of client budgets, concurrently identifying project risks and uncertainties to ensure budgeted contingencies.

Before construction begins, capital project owners must reasonably calculate the cost of all tangible and intangible expenses — from land, project equipment, and building materials to legal fees and operating costs. Exponent construction consultants work closely with project owners to forecast capital costs, help clients estimate project costs and profits, assess potential financial risks, and investigate ways to decrease overall spending.