Construction services with a Focus on Value and Technical Proficiency

Jake Tucker, a senior project manager at Turner Construction, has a wealth of managerial expertise across a variety of construction sectors, including residential, healthcare, clean rooms, water treatment, civil development, public works, and education. He has experience working with clients from multiple jurisdictions and backgrounds, and with a relationship-driven attitude, is able to guide projects from conceptual design through project completion.

With regards to areas like value engineering, CPM scheduling, project engineering and BIM, are there any new developments that you’re observing that you would like to provide some insights on?

We’re witnessing a substantial rise in demand for value engineering processes. Client’s inability to obtain what they want, when they want, or how much they want is primarily due to the escalation of supply chain issues. As a result, there is a separate value engineering effort that is not just focusing on cost but also looking for alternative products to align with schedules disrupted by supply chain issues. That is the big thing with value engineering. Next, I think there are a variety of platforms that can be used when it comes to CPM scheduling, such as integration, V planner, and other platforms to support the team and understand the schedule rather than a typical critical path. Therefore, the various scheduling platforms that are emerging out there represent change.

One of the big things with project engineering is that the degree of complexities has increased, which has increased the workload due to available resources. Working leaner is one of the major trends we’re observing and attempting to implement within our engineering teams to simplify their tasks and standardize whatever we can to advance the cause effectively. Building Information Modeling has advanced throughout time and is now integrated into many high-tech industrial settings and commercial environments in some circumstances. Therefore, it still plays a significant role, and we continue supporting it with our virtual design and construction team to ensure that everything is recorded. It will continue to mitigate clashes on the field and is an excellent planning tool. We can create a model from a 360-degree modelling tool that we can bring into an existing space, which is incredibly useful. Thus, we have invested in BIM, which will be around for a while.

Is there an approach that you employ to identify the right partnerships or solutions providers when you are looking to leverage technologies in this space?

Yes, we do. Turner is a big company. As a result of our extensive experience and risk aversion, we conduct a lot of research and communicate a lot about whom we want to partner with. When we bought Procore years ago, it was only a couple of projects here and there. Now, Procore is used across the board by general contractors and design firms.

However, other partnerships have proven to be quite successful, and we use those tools on our tasks every day. So, our strategy is to not jump in first to partner with some of these technologies or platforms. 

Are there any impactful projects or initiatives that you’re currently overseeing?

In a broader overview, we anticipate a lot of work in 2023, 2024 and beyond. As we continue to emerge from the uncertainties of the pandemic, market confidence will be restored, as it has with some of the larger projects. The office tenant improvement spaces will determine what each client wants to accomplish by combining specific spaces or increasing spaces as needed to keep the staff more comfortable. Technology is thriving, with plenty of backing for data centers, cleanrooms, and other facilities.

Are you observing common misconceptions regarding value engineering or BIM in the space? How would you advise your peers accordingly based on your experience?

I believe that some of the misconceptions around value engineering include the idea that a client might wish to remove one item without really considering how doing so might influence other things differently. There’s always a cost associated, depending on where the design drawings are. We want to ensure that the end users will be satisfied with any switch you make as a client or contractor. Getting it earlier might not benefit the end users at the end of the day as they had thought. Value engineering should be examined holistically as they develop and are introduced to determine how they will affect the design and the end user.

How do you envision the development of any specific disruptions or transformations within the broader civil engineering arena a few years from now? Are there any thoughts that you’d like to share about your predictions?

Value engineering is a practice that will endure. There will always be methods to cut costs and opportunities to perform tasks more quickly or efficiently. We anticipate many of these data engineering activities in pre-construction simply because we frequently saw them. It is always intended for the client, architect, contractor, and end-user to be receptive to value engineering initiatives and adjustments. The industry would benefit from doing so early on.