14.04 Clients and users

Categories: Procurement

Introduction
There are many clients involved in the construction of a building envelope.  At every stage of the supply chain there is a client paying and a supplier or contractor delivering.  The client often considered to be at the top of the supply chain is the building client, commonly referred to as The Client.  This is the organisation that is commissioning and paying for the building being constructed or refurbished.

The building client may be a property developer or a building owner both of whom have clients.  In the case of the developer the client is the tenant who rents the building.  The building envelope should be designed and constructed so that the building client can let the building and provide a building acceptable to the tenant.  Building owners may have tenants in the form of hotel guests or shoppers and so on.  These building users are not paying directly for the building but are at the top of the supply chain in setting the performance requirements of a building.

Building users may be highly demanding and critical of a building's function.  For instance they may object to rooms that are too warm or buildings that feel cramped and badly lit inside.  Other users may be resigned to their lot when they stay in economy hotels or visit a hospital.

Building users may elect to use a building such as a hotel or a shop or they may have less choice, for instance the office in which they work in.  In the latter case the building user is not strictly a client but there are considerable implications of comfort and its link with productivity, Package 06.
 

Building client
The building client may be building anew or refurbishing an existing building.  Their business is to make a profit from either:

• Improving the building and selling or letting it,

or
• Running a larger or more efficient business in it.

The building client either:

• Has a need and finds a suitable site or existing building,

or
• Sees an opportunity to develop a site or building.

The client also has a budget within which to undertake the work.  It is the business of the construction industry and all those within it to meet the needs of building clients within their budgets.  At the same time designers, manufacturers and constructors should make a share of the profits on the whole project.  It is important that the client's design team, the main contractor and specialist contractors fully understand the clients needs and budget if they are to deliver a satisfactory building.
 

Repeat clients
Repeat clients build regularly if not continuously.  They are the property companies, major retail chains, utilities, transport companies and Government departments (national and local).

These building clients are generally knowledgeable about building and have property, development or engineering departments that manage the procurement and maintenance of buildings.  These may be large in-house groups with a breadth of experience or they may rely on external consultants for advice.

Repeat clients are experienced at commissioning design and producing a design brief describing their needs.  They generally know what they want of a building in terms of space, performance and appearance and are also aware of what is possible.  Many have their own specifications developed over a series of contracts and they also have experience of main and specialist contractors and may not only influence design but also play a role in selecting contractors and suppliers.
 

One-off clients
Many building clients procure buildings infrequently and are not necessarily skilled at briefing their design team.  The success of a construction project commissioned by a one-off client depends on the ability of the design team and specialist contractors to interpret the clients needs.

Projects can get into difficulty when the designers and constructors try to deliver a building that is too expensive for a client.  Conversely when the client wants a building that is beyond the skills of the design team and the contractors or beyond the client's budget the client is again dissatisfied.
 

Client needs
A building client is running a business and has particular requirements of his building.  These may include:

• Capital cost
• Running costs
• Time to completion
• Appearance and image
• Comfort
• Certainty of success
• Design life
• Low maintenance
• Adaptability of use
• Future value

Capital cost of a project is important to a client but it is important for designers and contractors to understand whether the budget is flexible if other advantages can be delivered such as reduced running costs.

Running costs may or may not be a client need.  If a building is to be let the running costs will largely be the responsibility of the tenant and of little concern to a developer.  However, an energy efficient building may be easier to let even if the energy savings haven't been quantified.

Time to completion is the most important aspect of some buildings.  For instance the commissioning of retail outlets in the run up to Christmas and the completion of academic buildings by the start of the academic year.  All clients want their building completed on time but this of less importance to some than others.  Where a very short construction period is available fast track construction implies that some types of wall cannot be constructed.

Appearance and image may be very important or a lesser consideration depending on the location of the building and its use.  Where a client's budget is tight it may be possible to use more economical materials and a more regular wall layout to reduce costs.

Comfort may be of no direct concern to a building client but it will impact on:

• Efficiency and productivity,
• Ease of recruiting and retaining staff,
• Ease of finding a good tenant.

Certainty of success will depend on how innovative a design is and the source of materials and components.  Uncertainty may constitute risk of a time overrun or need for a late design change.  Certainty is increased by using tried and tested systems.  Risk is increased by using exotic materials such as imported stones or relying on very tight tolerances and highly accurate manufacture.

Design life will depend on the clients business.  The client may require a building to last ten years or one hundred years.  An expensive building that will last for sixty years does not meet a clients demand for a building with a ten year life and planned disposal.

Low maintenance buildings can be constructed if this is wanted by the client.

Adaptability of use is of interest to developers and property companies who may want the flexibility to change the use or layout of a building to attract a follow on tenant or accommodate a tenant with particular needs.  This also affects future value.

Future value is becoming of interest to building clients as they recognise that the success of a development project depends not only on the initial cost of construction and rental value (albeit it aa a notional rent), but also on the residual value of the property after ten or twenty years.  Future value is greater if a building is built to current best practice rather than to the minimum values set in the Building Regulations.  An obvious example of this is thermal efficiency of facades, the minimum standards for which will increase in the near future.
 

Critical Success Factors
The building client may wish to meet many of the client needs described above.  However, some will be more important than others to a particular client.  These are the aspects of the construction that the client will use to judge the performance of the designers, main contractor and specialist contractors.  In other industries they are commonly referred to as Critical Success Factors (CSFs).

Different clients will place different priorities on their diverse needs.  Early discussion between the client's design team and the client to determine the clients CSFs will avoid later misunderstanding.  In turn the CSFs should be communicated to the main contractor, sub-contractors and suppliers.

A study of the importance (weighting) given to different aspects of a building project by clients showed that a majority thought that quality was more important than price or time to completion.  The study also shows that functional and aesthetic standard is important, image.

The Construction Industry Board has published guidance on procurement strategies.  This includes a series of questions to be asked at each stage of a project to help meet the client's needs.  The questions are:

• Questions to be asked when developing the client brief

• Questions to be asked at the concept design stage

• Questions to be asked at the detailed design stage

Client design team
The client's design team comprises the architect, structural engineer, building services engineer and other consultants working for the building client.  The team may include a cladding consultant advising on the construction and performance of the building envelope.

The client's design team will prepare a scheme design for the building, take that scheme through the planning stage and then add sufficient design detail to enable the project to go out to tender.  There is increasingly a move towards two stage design.  In this a scheme architect develops a scheme to meet clients brief.  Following on from the scheme design a detail architect or technical architect will complete the deign to tender stage.  A similar process is seen in the motor industry where the styling of a car body is undertaken by different people from those who engineer the body panels.

During and after the tender period the client's design team are involved in checking and approving details of proposed changes to the design as the main contractor and specialist contractors add further design detail.

On larger bespoke contracts the specialist facade contractor will be appointed early in the the procurement process and will make an input to the work of the design team immediately after the concept stage of design.  It is always advantageous to have construction experience in the design team and there are ongoing discussions as to how this can be achieved.  Clients are often worried about being committed to a particular specialist contractor before they can go out to tender with a design.  On the other hand specialist contractors are not prepared to make an unpaid input to design unless they are assured that they will also undertake the manufacturing and construction work.