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“That’s the way we have always done it.” We have all heard it. Heck, there’s a good chance we have all said it.
When it comes to modern problems facing owners, contractors and operators, it is time for a full paradigm shift on how we view scaffold and access on our sites. Historically, we turn to a skilled Soft Craft Service organization to provide our projects and sites with scaffolding, insulation, paint and abatement work. This made sense. Insulators, painters and abatement professionals all need scaffold to access their work fronts, and scaffold has been seen as a soft craft to assist with these trades, as well as for traditional building subcontractors. But the idea of using a specialty soft craft contractor to provide access to work areas does not make sense today.
Scaffold as a site service: Paradigm shift from scaffold as a soft craft
Here is why. Scaffolding is required much earlier during a new construction project, major turnaround or outage effort. Typically, scaffold is needed to assist civil crews with underground pipe access, certain foundation pours, hoardings in colder climates and even iron work or structural steel erection. For turnarounds and outages, scaffold crews can be the first craft team members to enter a furnace or boiler to erect access for other trades. Even on nested maintenance activities, most of the tasks being completed on scaffolds are not for insulators, painters or abatement professionals. Why are we treating one of the most vital trades as a specialty soft craft service versus the utilization of scaffold through a site services contractor?
When considering costs for any major construction project, many EPC companies, as well as leading construction contractors, use a percentage of direct field labor (DFL) to calculate and estimate scaffold costs. With a typical percentage around 18% of DFL, scaffold labor accounts for almost as many hours as the critical scope of piping activities on a job. While very detailed planning and scheduling takes place for other trades, with meticulous accountability of daily progress and schedule movement, by comparison, scaffold typically is an afterthought. Contracts for scaffolding are let, along with insulation and paint (abatement on maintenance, turnarounds, outages or revamps), after civil construction has started and even as late as during structural steel erection. Contracts are often unit rated based, where procurement selects the lowest unit rate without guarantees or methodology on the amount of units that will be worked. This approach results in cost overruns, so much scaffold material that you cannot see the sun through pipe racks and scaffold dismantle going on long after commissioning.
There is a better way. Instead of the “way it’s always been done,” approach scaffold as a site service. Scaffold is one of the first trades needed on a job site and is typically one of the last. Bringing in a comprehensive site services contractor, a contractor that provides office complexes, restrooms, water, ice, tools, PPE and construction management equipment like trucks and carts, makes more sense in the modern construction environment. Leaving this critical trade up to a specialty soft craft contractor, who admittedly will make more money on increased labor hours associated with access for all trades, and even more with insulation and coatings, is exactly what that sounds like: the way we have always done it.
Treating scaffold as a site service allows for it to be integrated into design and engineering, improves constructability, allows for careful integration into project schedules, milestones and critical path activities and provides advanced organizations with the ability to put scaffolding into field installed work packages. Site services contractors are focused on everything major EPCs, owners and constructors are not. They specialize in commercializing what may seem easy, but with the complexity of mega-projects, tight schedules and labor shortages, these contractors are poised to relieve some of the stress from construction, turnaround and maintenance managers.
Paradigm shift
Identification and award of scaffold to a site services contractor provides a major advantage over typical specialty soft craft services organizations. Coordination, prior to scaffold erection, to determine a single scaffold that can be utilized for multiple trades reduces costs. Nearly 85 cents of every dollar spent on scaffolding is attributed to labor. Through thoughtful design and coordination, coupled with better scaffold material that allows for utilization of smaller (2-to-3-person) crews, projects can drastically reduce their budgets. A cost reduction of at least 25% is typical. With scaffold being the second most hour intensive craft on a job, this amounts to significant effort hour reduction, risk mitigation and lower costs for other indirect services typically not accounted for, like workforce hydration, site transportation, PPE, consumables and small tools.
Scaffold as a site service: Paradigm shift from scaffold as a soft craft
Soft craft companies have been the main provider of scaffold, and that’s the way we have always done it. Has it worked? That is debatable. When industry leaders are asked about the highest risk, most important, greatest challenge and wasteful indirect construction costs on their jobs, scaffold is always at or near the top of that list. After cost overruns, project teams are left wondering why their scaffold budgets doubled. Yet, time and time again, projects go back to the well for the next project and begin the process of insanity all over again.
By separating scaffold into a site service and managing it as an extension of a construction management or owner strategy, costs are better controlled, schedules are maintained and efficiencies are realized in all aspects of the project. One specific example is the identification of permanent structures during engineering. If a scaffold design expert is brought onboard early, at around 30% model completion, they can often determine areas where a site would be better off having permanent platforms for access available long after construction and into facility operations and maintenance. Instead of paying for an elaborate scaffold during construction and then again for every turnaround or outage, a cost comparison can be developed, often reflecting that spending a little more on steel during construction saves a tremendous amount later for the owner. Scaffold as a site service provides a solution to clients, not a contract.
Let’s change from the status quo and the way we have always done it. Soft craft companies will continue to play a major role on projects. Insulation and coatings have drastically changed over the past ten years, becoming more technical in nature and aligning closer with specialty services. As the construction and maintenance industry shifts and project complexity increases, it makes more sense to solve past pain points by including scaffold as part of a site services strategy. With nearly 20% of project expenditures attributed directly to scaffold and access, a paradigm shift must occur to improve scaffold technology, reporting and other enhancements for owners and their projects.
Learn more about AMECO’s Site Services approach to scaffolding at ameco.com.
