Often when bids begin to come in on construction project, it becomes apparent that the budget may have been flawed from the outset. Many projects fail to budget enough for contingency, and others fall victim to scope creep, the continual and uncontrolled additions to a project’s scope. Material costs are influenced by market timing, and sole-sourcing tends to keep pricing high.
On a recent manufacturing plant project Omni was involved in, budget problems quickly became apparent when bids started coming in. Omni and other bidders were asked to roll up their sleeves and apply some ingenuity and value engineering to bring costs back in line. VE, when practiced correctly, can be accomplished without compromising quality and performance.
In taking a hard look a hard look at the electrical and controls design, Omni came up with ways to achieve design intent more economically. For example, wire runs were shortened and the number of control panels needed on the project was reduced by combining and strategically locating them in the facility to better serve individual process areas. Decades of experience in all aspects of instrumentation, hardware, equipment and system integration in combination with knowing the market enabled us to source equal alternatives for automatic control valves, variable frequency drives, and other equipment and instrumentation. We also worked with vendors on consolidating various instrumentation and electrical gear for lower package pricing. Applying these various strategies and innovations allowed substantial reduction in costs and brought the electrical and instrumentation portion of the project back in line with the budget, and Omni was awarded the contract.
About Omni
Omni Instrumentation & Electrical Services, Inc., located in New Jersey and Maryland, is a premier instrumentation and electrical contractor, providing superior total care solutions since 1986. Services include instrument installation, tubing installation, instrument calibration, control loop testing, startup and commissioning, power and lighting, process control wiring, BMS wiring, telecommunications and data wiring, fire alarm wiring, security wiring, process network wiring, and control panel fabrication. Omni Instrumentation & Electrical Services, Inc., is certified in Foundation Fieldbus, Profibus, DeviceNet and ASI-Bus installation.